Fansided

The Los Angeles Clippers have been great but never great enough

By Rich Kraetsch

Nov 16, 2016; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Clippers guard Chris Paul (3) and forward Blake Griffin (32) walk back to the bench for a time out in the second half of the game against the Memphis Grizzlies at Staples Center. Grizzlies won 111-107. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 16, 2016; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Clippers guard Chris Paul (3) and forward Blake Griffin (32) walk back to the bench for a time out in the second half of the game against the Memphis Grizzlies at Staples Center. Grizzlies won 111-107. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports /
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Last Sunday when the Los Angeles Clippers left the court — losers of their first round playoff series against the Utah Jazz — they joined an rare list of great teams that weren’t quite great enough. The Clippers became the fourth team ever to accomplish a rare feat: winning at least 50 games for five straight seasons while maintaining a +3 SRS (point differential adjusted for strength of schedule), but never making an NBA Finals appearance.

They joined the 1981-87 Milwaukee Bucks, 2001-05 Dallas Mavericks and 2008-12 San Antonio Spurs. Sunday represented yet another chapter in Clippers’ unfortunate tale of injuries, franchise turmoil, team chemistry issues and of course, playoff failures.

The Bucks, Mavericks and Spurs all endured their fair share of playoff failures, that’s how you make a list like this. Still, the anatomy of the Clippers’ defeat and circumstances feels different.

The 2001-05 Dallas Mavericks were an up and coming team, a team built around a budding young superstar in Dirk Nowitzki, one of the NBA’s elite point guards in Steve Nash and a cast of role players built in the mold of their eccentric coach, Don Nelson. They played in a hellacious Western Conference and if not for an injury to Dirk Nowitzki in Game 3 of the 2003 Western Conference Finals, very well could have made a Finals appearance.

Dallas would avenge these playoff failures by making NBA Finals soon after (2006) and winning an NBA Championship in 2011.

You can put the Spurs in a similar boat too.

The most stable franchise in sports had a rare blip of the ordinary for a few years seasons in which the team attempted (unsuccessfully) to blend two eras and plug in holes with older, veteran talent. Despite the playoff failures of 2008-12, the Spurs would reach the NBA Finals the next season and win an NBA title the year after.

The 1980s Bucks feel like the most pertinent comp to the modern-day Los Angeles Clippers.

One of the NBA’s elite teams of the decade — Milwaukee’s core of Sidney Moncrief and a rotating cast of Marques Johnson, Bob Lanier, Junior Bridgeman, Ricky Pierce, Paul Pressey and Terry Cummings — put together a number of elite seasons, seasons, like the Clippers of recent vintage, that should have resulted in a Finals appearance.

They didn’t. And unlike the Spurs and Mavericks, the Bucks never did make it there. The Bucks’ best chance, 1985-86, feels very akin to a number of Clippers’ recent seasons. The Bucks’ 8.69 SRS that season is the NBA’s 15th best single-season SRS ever.

The bad news? Boston’s 9.06 SRS that season is 13th best.

Just when the Bucks thought they had everything together, just when they thought they finally had a team to get over the hump — Boston countered with perhaps their best team ever, and certainly the best team of the 80s. Boston swept the Bucks in four games before defeating Hakeem Olajuwon’s Houston Rockets in the Finals.

Milwaukee would follow up in 1987 by taking the Celtics to seven games in a tight second round series but — as had been an all-too-familiar scene — the Bucks lost and Boston moved on. The Bucks maintained regular-season success into the early 1990s before falling on their face and struggle through much of the decade.

This brings us back to the Clippers.

Are they destined to reach the NBA Finals in the next handful of seasons while keeping much of their core intact like the Spurs or Mavericks? Are they destined for years of regular-season success and playoff disappointments like the Milwaukee Bucks?

Or are they something altogether different?

Our previous examples were teams that still had years and time left in them. The Clippers may not. Chris Paul could be history. Blake Griffin could be history. Head coach Doc Rivers could be history. Next year’s Clippers could and likely will look very different from the one that walked off the court Sunday.

Regardless of what happens in the offseason, runs like the Clippers have been on should be celebrated. No, they won’t (and shouldn’t) be celebrated the same level championship teams are but what the Clippers did — and what the Bucks, Mavericks and Spurs did before them — is impressive. These are great teams, some of the NBA’s best of the best for a prolonged amount of time.

They just weren’t great enough.

If you’re interested in learning more about NBA history, check out our NBA history podcast, Over and Back, and the rest of our great podcasts hosted on The Step Back.

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