What's going on Clippers fans. I'm Chuck Bockler here with Adam Oslin. We
are clips and Dip. That's kind of another weird live bonus episode, I
guess. But we're talking the Lawrence Frank end of season press conference, which
how did you feel about it? Well, there's a lot to kind of
go over. Terrence Man had an interesting tweet after things just happened. We'll
get into all that more, but how do we feel I suppose we can
pick it apart here now that it just ended about ten minutes ago, and
we can dive in and give you guys our feelings on some of it going
off the clothes from Lawrence Frank, we could just start in kind of the
order you put it in here, Chuck, which I think is how it
went down. But on how the season ended, he said, there's disappointment
obviously season ending and falling short of our goal. Also a great sense of
pride and how our group competed. I feel bad for our fans. I
feel bad for Kawai and Paul George, our team, our staff, Steve
Bomber, because we feel like we let our fans and that group down injury
suck. They suck, but they happen. I feel for our fans who
have been with us every step of the way. We have to be honest
with ourselves. We have to look in the mirror. It starts with me.
We have to get back to honoring and respecting the regular season. We
have to compete harder, more consistently, and we have to earn it.
Everything has to be earned. We have to compete harder every single night.
We owe it to ourselves, we owe it to our fans. The last
twenty eight years, the NBA champion has been a top three seed. You
have to earn it. The regular season matters. I take that as an
encouraging sign that they're looking at the regular season and understanding where they came up
short and just not having any consistency out there, and at times it looked
like there was a lack of effort. You didn't know which team was scoring
to show up. Yeah, this era of the Clippers. Like that's why
fans were kind of frustrated about that quote. I do like that he said,
we have to get back to honoring and respecting the regular season. But
will it change, We'll see. I thought one of the other things he
said was what I don't want to do is let the injuries or how we
fought in the postseason mask a disappointing regular season. I thought that was pretty
telling. Yeah, yeah, that is revealing there and a lot of people
were saying that. Clippers fans were saying that, like, yeah, this
is great, but the regular season was such a drag in so many different
ways. Not fun, man Like, just it was not a fun regular
season the Clippers basketball. It was less fun than when Paul George and Quay
were fully out right. When I was going through the season to recap before
Game one against the Sun and putting together highlights to build up the height for
the postseason of what went down in the regular season, there were only about
a dozen games that I felt were truly memorable in a positive way for the
Clippers. Felt Kawai's return that was fun. The comeback on the Calves late
early in the season, the norm comeback against the Portland Trailblazers is twenty two
point fourth quarter, The Kawhi game winner in Charlotte, the Paul George game
winner against Houston early in the season, but it was Houston and it took
a game winner to beat him. The Memphis comeback something born out of this
night. That fourth quarter was special for them. The comeback late against Detroit
where they shouldn't have been down but they had that fourteen to three run to
bring it into overtime to eventually win in the last three and a half minutes
was incredible. All the Kawhi dumps against the Spurs, the betumb three to
send it into overtime against the New York Knicks, and Madison Square garden Man
against the Suns right before the All Star Break, Russ against Memphis when Kawhi
was out all of a sudden in that two game mini series in Memphis near
the end of the year, the Kawhi dunk on Pearle and the Raptors bones
be the Lakers. All the wins against the Lakers were highlights, but right,
yeah, we're talking about about a dozen games when typically when the Clippers
are winning, you know, closer to fifty games, there are just more
enjoyable highlights. And a team that I don't know over the years, going
even just going back to last year, with a team without Kawhi Leonard all
season long, a team that was missing Paul George outside of thirty one games,
I thought there was just more fight consistently during the regular season. Yeah,
I mean, it's just I don't know. I feel like we've had
the same conversation as Clippers fans the last like three years in terms of regular
season stuff. So how does that change that we'll talk about this more when
we do, like a full episode. We're just kind of reacting. I
thought this season was distinctly well a turn that the last couple of seasons weren't
a turn for the worst of the last couple of seasons weren't. I didn't
feel like that necessarily the last couple of years, even when let's say they
had all these comebacks of course that were fueling the fan base, the twenty
point comebacks, there was a grittiness to them that looked to be lost at
times this year, and that's why some people were surprised when you saw it
again in the postseason. They certainly could flip that switch, But I think
to Lawrence's point, they got to compete harder during the regular season like that.
It can't just be in the postseason. The regular season does matter,
and that was something we just didn't see enough for the A two games.
Yeah, I totally agree. Do we get into the QUI and PG stuff
or the roster stuff whatever you lead chuckle. He talked the injuries, you
know. He said Kawhi has to work around three injuries after coming off an
ACL reconstruction. He also mentioned there's a difference between being injured and what people
terms being load management, which is what we talked about on our last episode.
Kauai is actually hurt, despite some people thinking that he's not. I
guess, but Kawai has actually hurt. I went off in my NBA in
LA report that I do every day for AM five seventy today, I may
have hell, yeah, I have really gone after people and the talking heads
that were acting like they were just load managing. Kawhi lettered in the playoffs
when the guy has a torn meniscus, which apparently they found out about after
game two. Morn Frank was asked about that as well. Yeah, that
was interesting. I'm sorry for that echo there. Yeah, they found out
after game two, you know. He also mentioned like they're committed to Kawai
and PG. I think anyone kind of thinking that they weren't like it,
It just makes sense. He also mentioned that they're committed to Tylu he said,
why wouldn't he be back? Of course he's back Tie as a terrific
coach. Their contracts lineup. I'm not sitting here saying that Tylu had an
excellent regular season, you know, but if you look at out his contract
lines up with Kawai and pg's extensions, the Clippers weren't going to move this
kind of core three before they gave it a full shot. I don't think.
Well, okay, so to both of those things, KAWHIPG and coach
Lu. If you go away from Coach Lu, who are you bringing in
this better? That has to be the question. Whenever someone wants someone gone,
who do you replace him with? That improves things? There are drawbacks
in blind spots that every head coach has. I'm on Twitter all the time.
On NBA Twitter specifically, I see heat fans complaining about Eric Spoelstra.
I see Warriors fans complaining about Steve Kerr. Yeah, the best coaches in
the NBA can never do enough right for their fan base, and there are
legitimate complaints. I think to this season one of them specifically. Yeah,
yeah, we'll get into that, but who's better? Is Nick Nurse a
better coach than him, is that the area you would go, Nay,
I don't have the guitar. I don't want that man coaching basketball. Okay,
who's a better postseason um best of seven coach than coach lou? Who
is better in a best of seven series that you would rather have? Sure,
but we can we can see the worth of him even without his guys.
You can see how he's outsmarting the competition. And therefore, what's more
important than that if you're gonna go, if you're gonna if you're trying to
win a championship, what is more important than having the best in game strategist
in the most pivotal moments in a seven game series in the postseason. So
for the shortcomings of coach lu, I think his strengths, the good with
Coach lu far outweighs the bad, And the front office recognizes that. Certainly,
Yeah they're not. And it's like you said, like, who are
we going to pick up a lot of people assume that whenever Tyler's tenure with
the Clippers is over, that Dan Craig Wood step in. That's like been
kind of the succession plan that's been grumbled about. But we're not gonna know
for a couple of years. I don't think and coach lu is young.
We're not talking about an older coach that you're getting ready to pass the torch
to somebody else beneath him and the coaching staff. He's a young head coach,
right, That's a good call. Yeah, getting better. So let's
talk the roster. Lawrence talked about wanting He named Eric Gordon and Mason Pumley
specifically as guys they want to bring back. I think that makes total sense.
I would be very happy if they were able to make Gordon and Pumbley
come back for Clue Clippers. Right like that was Yeah, a lot of
people upset at that. I think Mason Plumley more of a need than Eric
Gordon. I like Eric Gordon. I like both his short tenure, this
time with the Clippers, but obviously he's still a fan favorite by being drafted
by the team. I like him a lot. Is their overlap with Norman
Powell? Yeah, there is some there, But during a long regular season,
if you can find a way to bring him back, because he is
one of those guys I feel like goes hard no matter the stakes out there.
He is someone who could be a regular season innings eater. I believe
he's been relatively healthy over the last five years, even though he's getting older
and he had some major knee issues with New Orleans. I never thought he'd
still be playing at this high a level at this point. But someone who
can stretch the floor, can hit deep three pointers from the outside. That
is a need for this team to open up driving lanes for hopefully Russell Westbrook
if he's able to come back. And that was another guy that Lawrence Frank
talks about. They seem to all be on the same page regarding Russ Not
shockingly, it's not a shock at this point. If you're shocked that Kawai
and PG and Laurence Walt Russell Westbrook back, you must have decided to start
watching the Clippers after their season is over. Yeah. He had a great
quote about, Oh, shout out your boy Greg, he's on the stream
right now. I hope he's doing well, you know he said. Russell
Westbrook said, Hey, what do you need for me? What can I
give you? When you come in with that approach, he had to be
highly adaptable. The role we described to him at the start was totally different
at the end. Obviously, that makes sense Kawai and PG were gone.
The issue with Westbrook, though, is, now that we've gotten as clarified,
the Clippers have to get under the tax apron to offer him the taxpayer
mid level exception, I believe. If not, it's literally just a minimum
that they can offer him, which I don't know, man, I don't
know if he takes a man or even what is it six and a half
for the tax player at mid level. That's what it was last season.
Yeah, I think there's something important to recognize here that, yes, you
want all these guys back. Is it realistic to be able to get all
of them back? No, it's not. Some of them over outperform the
contracts and we're due for a bigger payday and are going to take that.
And you don't hold against them. A guy wants to go out there and
get his money. You say, okay, that's great for your family.
Do what you gotta do. You never want to pooh pooh someone for doing
that. But it's also a negotiation strategy that's already starting really with him saying
we want these guys back. Of course they want them all back. What
they want to go into the negotiations and good faith and they want to express
how they feel about that player. And you know, we've heard stuff in
the past. With last summer it was about Luke Canard and we're not trading
Luke Cannard. Well, it ended up eventually happening. Things change. We've
seen this front office with Blake Griffin building around him six months later. Things
change. So to win at the highest level, you have to be shrewd
and be willing to make tough decisions when the facts change out there. And
I command Lawrence Frank and the front office for being willing to do that and
being flexible and not too rigid or too stubborn about it. When they realize,
okay, we've made a mistake, they will cut bait with the guy,
or maybe it's not a mistake, but they feel like they have to
bring in someone else, or they just value someone else, or are looking
more towards the future with how they can free up money down the road to
make bigger moves. So there's a lot going on here than just oh well,
that means the Clippers are going to get these guys back because they want
them back, and there are a lot of hoops they're going to have to
jump through to make all of this happen. But I think there are legitimate
reasons to want the guys that they brought into the trade deadline back because for
the most part, they performed well. I thought Mason Plumley was a specially
good in that post season playoff series. Playoff plumbly seems to be a thing.
We've seen it from the other side when he was with the Portland Trail
Blaze, just against the Clippers in twenty sixteen. He raises his level of
play in the postseason absolutely. All right, we got about ten minutes or
so here, we gotta talk to Terrence Man quotes because that had some of
the fan base a little upset on Terrence Man. Lawrence Frank said, I
trust explicitly and tie. Tie makes the lineup's decisions and choice. Terrence is
versatility personified. He showed that he can take the tough defensive matchups. He
can start, come off the bench. I think t Lou did a very
good job with Terrence. What are your thoughts on that? And then we'll
get into what Terrence Man said on Twitter not long after this press conference was
over. Maybe it's related, maybe it's not. Who knows. I acknowledge
coach lu had a really difficult job to manage personalities and a lopero room and
playing time for everyone out there on the court this season. Did I think
Terrence Man could have been handled better? Yeah? Probably. I just don't
understand how a guy can at one point be getting dnps early in the season,
and then later on he's in the starting lineup and then back out of
it after the trade deadline. It just seems like the way they managed Terrence
was up and down, and they don't know exactly what they have with him,
or they don't know exactly how they want to use him, which is
something Toronto Lou expressed, expressed, explicitly expressed. He said it, yeah,
and it's weird because it feels like I think this was two one three
hoops who just tweeted this out, but they were kind of talking about how
like ty sees Terrence is like a wing as opposed to a guard, where
Terence is skill set. When it comes to offense, he's a slasher We've
all seen, you know what I mean. Like he's solid with the ball
in his hand when he wants to get four word. Um, So I
think that's kind of a disconnect. But Terrence then tweeted out in all capital
letters not long after this press conference was over LMAO, which, if you
follow Terrence man, he's a great teammate. UM. He's had multiple situations
of like, hey learned from this veteran point guard. Um, and then
he kind of gets his role change and everything like that, Like where are
you at on the LMAO tweet? Oh, we don't know. He could
have been watching Seinfeld reruns or anything like that. Who knows what he could
have been speaking to if he was referring too, Like, That's what I
think is crazy. He's like, Terrence isn't a tweet guy, right,
Like, he's not usually a social media guy like this. So the timing
is ominous a little bit. If the subtext of it is relating to the
press conference, then I'm sure he was unhappy in his role. If that's
what we're in for from this tweet. I don't know if that's a fact
or not, but I know a lot of people are going to read into
it that way, and guys want to play, they want to be out
there on the court, and I think there's this groundswell of support for Terrence
Man that has been there for so long and everyone is in the right here.
I think he's one of the top five most impactful players on this Clippers
team, one of the guys that is always a positive for the most part,
regardless of if his offense is working or if he's hitting shots, and
typically he is. People don't realize this, Terrence Man is now a career
thirty eight percent three point shooter. Everyone's always like, man, he's shooting
better from the outside this year. He's like, he's kind of been like
this for a while now. He hasn't taken a lot of them, and
I'm sure most of the numbers would say those are open three pointers, but
you're going to get those on a team with this much talent, and he's
hitting them to his credit. So he has a skill set that is so
diverse. You have to find ways to get him out there. But if
the issue is Coach lou vieused him as a wing, then you've got to
take away some of the other wings out there. Then you have to put
him in a position where Terrence Man is more of a necessity each and every
night, because we know what he brings to this ball club. And I
don't know, or whatever reason he doesn't have or seem to have the full
trust of coach Lou. And again he came out and was asked early in
the season, what's Terence Man's role on this team? And he said,
I don't know, So I'm only I don't even think I'm paraphrasing that.
I think that's an exact quote from coach Lou, so I'm not trying to
read into anything there. He said it. He said, I don't know.
I'm hoping that his role on this team becomes much more clear this summer.
And maybe it's because of roster construction and them missing some of the wings
that were causing that lob jam, keeping Terrence Man out of the lineup.
Yeah, it's I also just checked he'd literally he did say I don't know.
He said, I don't know. I do know. He said,
I don't know, and I do know, he said, I don't know.
Okay. Yeah, And maybe one thing like you mentioned, like Lawrence
talked about how not having PG and Quiet impacted some of the five out lineup
stuff, and that's fair. Yeah, we said that it's hard to do
wings. You can't do wing stop when you don't have Kauai and don't have
Paul George. There is no Wingstop without them. The entire blueprint for that
starts around them. So this YouTube live is getting interested a fucking idiot?
Well can we can we read it and have some fun with it? Then?
Yeah, Ken Place, who watches all of our videos but hates everything
I have to say. Instead, stop with the constant whining team. Man
is gonna not be happy with season ending like all of us. Negative Chuck,
non positive Chuck is on a role complaining pathetic. Yeah, it was
a nightmare of a season. Man, parents should have played more. You
jip shit, stop watching us. You know what this Ken think they're in
the second round? Yeah, Ken, Ken's waiting for PG to go ahead
and lace those up. The president of Basketball Operations is acknowledging it was a
difficult season. I think it's fair to paint it in that light, which
is all Chuck is doing well. I hope to uh one of the other.
Uh. This is Lance the Legend on our YouTube live. He says
the issue and only issues your two best players can't stay healthy and will never
be healthy. Well, Lawrence Frank said that they're still committed to those guys.
Basically, um, we traded for Paul and signed Kauhi is the quote
as a free agent, It wasn't for one or two years. Every year
you have those guys, it gives you a chance, and I think people
are down playing that fact that with them you do always have a chance.
They are that great, they are that skilled, they are that talented,
and not many teams can say that, you know, this is a roster
that if they can be healthy, they have enough talent out there to win
a championship, as opposed to a lot of teams in this league where they
just don't have a talent. It's a non starter to talk about them being
a championship contender. The Clippers at least have guys that when they're on the
court can't perform at the highest level. I understand the frustration with them not
being on the court enough, and they want to be there too, so
they're doing everything they can to be out there. And I think there is
something to be said for bringing in two of the best two way players of
this generation and still having a window because they're on your squad. That is
saying something. Michael Penia wrote a great article and the Ring are kind of
about it, advocating to not blow up the Clippers, which I don't think
will blow it up. Dike isn't here, but I don't think they were
ever going to actually blow it up. It's not what I don't think Steve
Baumber wants to bottom out with a new arena, Like it's just not going
to happen. He's expressed that. He said that recently at an Intuit Dome
conference or pow wow or whatever however you want to put it. He was
on stage talking about how, you know, we always want to be competitive.
There could be reload type of years, but he's not ever looking to
have a hard reset. And again the saying is the best advantage in sports
is great ownership. I think you have that in Steve Baumber Clipper Nation.
So regardless of how this season win, you're in good hands with Steve Baumber,
who has hell been on getting this franchise to the first championship. Yeah.
Penia's article basically wrote like they just have to wait for injury luck,
which I'm not going to sit here and pretend that that feels good. That's
very frustrating to hear as we've been waiting for that for every year except for
the bubble year for the most part, which is which is frustrating. I
think everyone can acknowledge that. But it's also like that's what the issue was.
It's just not like I think, you know what I mean. It's
it's really hard. I'm not saying that it's easy to be okay with that.
He also suggested we should hire Nick Nurse, but I don't know.
I don't want to do that. But we just got to wait it out.
It's a hard thing to ask fans to do. But there's huge changes
coming. The only players they mentioned that they wanted to bring back specifically of
the new guys were Plumbly, Westbrook and EJ So, like, I think
Rocco's gone. I think Morris is gone. I think there's gonna be like
some pretty major turnover. I also think Lawrence frank was some of his comments
today was pointing to the fact that this was bigger than injuries with how the
regular season went, because combined, I think Paul George and Kawhi Leonard ended
up at what one hundred and six games total played by them, which was
the most during a regular season, and they still only won forty four games.
So there were bigger issues going on there than just injuries, and Lawrence
Frank pointed that out, which I find encouraging. They're not ignoring the elephant
in the room of how bad this regular season really was for them and how
much they underachieved and underperformed. Yeah, Christopher Newnes says, need more tea
Bone. I was surprised Bones wasn't Highland and Bones wasn't Highland. Bones wasn't
mentioned in the presser because I think he signed. Yeah, that's true,
he signed. I just thought he deserved a shout out. Bones was great,
Lawrence Frank. It was after the Lakers game right where he went into
the locker room and apparently said busy fin Bones, that's what we need.
I think he's a fan. Yeah, Bones rules, he was great,
But yeah, I don't know. Also, for those of you wondering,
um, we're not going to get exit interviews like the Clippers. A lot
of teams do like exit interviews, where they don't do every player, but
they do a pretty large group of the Clippers don't, so la Awrence's exit,
this is kind of what we're gonna get. Last year we got,
I think, but Tom and Morris like those were the two exit interviews we
got, and that just happened to be after the playoffs. Jonathan Ing maybe
English said this on our YouTube live, the team not taking the regular season
seriously as a culture issue. The team didn't have a guy that would be
the culture center all year, and it showed until Russ got signed. I
do think there's something too that there was something missing with Pat, with not
having Patrick Beverley over the last year and a half. The one thing I
would always say about Pat bab was he could turn a one out of eighty
two meaningless regular season game into a playoff like atmosphere with the edge that he
plays with the competitive streak in him, and it would come out and be
infectious for the rest of the squad out there. And Russ certainly is cut
from the same cloth in that way. Yeah, they got to bring him.
I like, I'm happy we have the front office we do because it's
gonna take some finagling to get Russell. Let's put back on this team.
Honestly, I think that's one of the most comforting things about this Clippers organization,
aside from Steve Vaumer, which is the biggest thing they have going for
them. I think this is one of the best front offices in sports.
Like they will leave no stone unturned. They will find a way to make
this team better. And it starts with staring at the face of failure that
this season was to a degree, and I'm not talking failure like jannest then
and coopone explaining all that They're in a different position there in Milwaukee, and
I thought it was pretty interesting, but I mean, they did fail only
winning forty four games in this regular season. It should have been closer to
fifty. We were talking before the year, acknowledging that Kawhi and Paul George
were likely going to miss twenty to twenty five games each, and we still
thought with the depth on this roster that they could be close to being the
first Clippers team to ever win sixty games in a regular season. They weren't.
It did not turn out that. Yeah, very true. Um,
someone in the chat said, if no rest and Pat Bevum, it's up
Anthony c that would be sick. I mean, but I'm just not sure.
Look at it. The contract real quick, and he went back to
Chicago and actually helped turn a miserable season around for them. At the end
they started to really win some games. I know they lost in the play
in they didn't make it into a seven game series. But Pat Bev is
certainly a winner. He has been someone who typically always makes the playoffs.
He would he would make that know, this was one of those rare years
he didn't. He bet. I mean he was a men contract, he's
unrestricted. I think if that, if no Westbrook bring obviously very different roles.
I don't think Bev is gonna start for this team if he's on this
team, but bring him in for the culture. I would love Bev on
a minimum next year if anything. Just yeah, Galvin eins the locker room
and get people walked in your fave five heads. I thought I was I
thought I was going to shed. He said, this organization is not as
well run as people thought. One hundred. I think Lawrence Frank acknowledging a
lot of the same missteps this season that the fans have been talking about,
goes a long way with me in this press conference. Well, I think
that's that's meaningful. Yeah, the proof is in the pudding. It's more
about actions than words always. But when they lost in the bubble, he
said, look, we have to realize what we did wrong. We have
to look at this as a failure and come back from this. We can't
just sweep it under the rug and act like it didn't happen when there were
obvious failures out there and they're doing the same thing now. Yeah, and
they got rid of our coach, ruined the bubble a situation for us.
So yeah, a bit of a I don't know. I don't know if
it's a good newsday. It was a little eye opening. It was nice
to hear Lawrence Frank acknowledge that thing failure because it was. And we'll just
wait for this front office to make whatever insane moves they gotta make. Adam,
we both have to go back to our regular jobs. Anything else you
want to send these fans out with before we go back to work. No,
but I a little tease of what's to come in this offseason. I
still think there's a good chance the Clippers go big game hunting and they go
after Zach Levine or Bradley Beale or Damian Lillard. And if that's the case,
I would expect Terrence Man to have to be included in one of those
moves to bring in a third star because I just think if you're doubling down
on having Kauhi in Paul George, you need to have a little bit of
a safety blanket or a security blanket during the regular season, whether that's Russ
or Russ and someone else or just that third guy to help support them during
a long regular season and take some of the the load off of two injury
prone superstars. I think there's a good chance that ends up happening. We'll
see, we'll see, let's hope. So all right, thanks everyone hanging
on the stream. We're gonna have this out as a podcast episode two whenever
we get around and getting that done. But hey, let's go clips and
we'll be back with Tripod next week, right, yeah, and Ken simmer
down now, all right, we'll talk to everybody later. I have a
good rest of your week and weekend, Clippers fans