NBA Free Agency: 10 teams facing most pressure to succeed

3. Los Angeles Clippers

The Clippers would easily be the NBA team under the most pressure this offseason if there was a higher chance of them blowing up their core. They once again came up short in the playoffs (this time due to season-ending injuries to Chris Paul and Blake Griffin within a 30-minute span), prompting the speculation and popular hot takes that it’s immediately time to blow up the team. They had already kept Griffin at the trade deadline which surprised some, so surely the time to blow things up is this summer, right?

Well, it’s not quite so simple and there are plenty of reasons why it isn’t the right move. It’s easy to forget how vital Griffin is to the Clippers as their leading scorer and secondary playmaker, and that when he was healthy in the playoffs last season he averaged 25.5 points, 12.7 rebounds and 6.1 assists per game.

You don’t simply ditch that kind of talent for some bench upgrades or young pieces when you could have easily had a longer playoff run if two injuries didn’t cut down your team at the worst possible moment.

Ultimately, you don’t take apart perennial 55-win team when there are no foreseeable trades that clearly allow you to upgrade and take a step forward. An injury to an opponent here, a hot few-game stretch from CP3 there, and the Clippers could finally land a break just as quickly as they lost their chance this season.

Head coach Doc Rivers realizes this. Even if he changes his mind down the line, it looks like the Big 3 will stay together after all (via ESPN’s Zach Lowe):

"Lowe: You’ve already said after losing to Portland you won’t trade any of the three stars. Are you worried that boxes you into a corner a little bit? Is that really the case? Rivers: I don’t worry about the corner thing, ever. I’m always gonna do what’s good for the team. You don’t ever do anything but that. But I feel like the best thing for the team right now is to keep them together. Can that change? Of course it can change. But I don’t think it will."

With this in mind, the core likely staying together still leaves an awful amount of pressure on the Clippers. Yes, they won’t necessarily be making blockbuster trades that they need to get right, but they need to make perfect adjustments to the bench to finally make 2016-17 their year. The problem, of course, is that with so many of their players hitting free agency and likely having under $10 million in cap space, doing that won’t be easy.

Next season really looks like it will have to be the last ride for this team as we know it.

Next: 2. Memphis Grizzlies