Speaker 1: What is going on? Clippers fans?
Speaker 2: Welcome to season four, episode eighteen of Clips in Dips.
I am Chuck Weckler, joined by Adam Oslind and William Updyke.
We have the full crew for you today. Oh what
a what a time to be a Clippers fan. We're
playing great basketball. We're gonna talk the road trip, the
upcoming week against some you know, beatable opponents, of course
the Pablotory episode. If you're watching us at YouTube dot
com Slash Clippers podcast, thank you, And if you want
to do more than listen, you can find us there. Adam, Will,
how the hell are we doing after that? Uh two
and one on the.
Speaker 1: Three and four?
Speaker 2: Oh wait road trip? Will? How are you feeling after this?
Speaker 3: Elated? Ecstatic man? Not like the prettiest wins, but we
got it done. Who cares?
Speaker 2: Adam?
Speaker 4: You know, I couldn't rely on my Panthers or my
Ducks this weekend, but the Clippers always come through in
the end.
Speaker 2: I do like it's been nice because I feel like
we've watched the Clippers team. Like obviously the six game
win streak was a spike in like productivity or whatever
that maybe wasn't sustainable. But now we've gotten to the
point where the Clippers are able to win gross games,
and they were losing every single gross game to start
the season. They didn't play super great and the loss
to start the road trip, but that's whatever. But like right,
it's nice to see them overcome some of the bad
stuff that they do still have to work on.
Speaker 4: I would like to point out I saw this stat
at the very end of the game, and I couldn't
believe it. They're four and three in games where they
have twenty turnovers this season.
Speaker 3: Unreal, that's insane.
Speaker 4: So he gotta dude, it's a five and three. No.
I that was an incredible victory. They were down fourteen
with I think nine to thirty seven left in the
fourth and in two minutes they were within two points,
and most of that was I think Kawhi had nine
of the points on the twelve zero run and then
John Collins had a three pointer. Just incredible flip the
switch ability late that game to lock in. And also,
I mean the the twelve turnovers by Detroit in the.
Speaker 2: Fourth quarter, it was insane.
Speaker 4: The Clippers did generate them, but they also were awful.
Speaker 2: I like to where are we at well? We talked
about ahead of the week maybe Hard not being fully healthy.
But now we're dealing with Kawhi's ankle tweak. It hasn't
seemed to affect him super bad.
Speaker 3: No, no, not form a productivity standpoint. He is questionable
for tomorrow's game according to the injury report, but I'm
assuming that he's gonna be good to go.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I thought he would sit one of the games out,
but he was. I liked the first game he was
moreked questionable against the Nets. It was nice that we
got like the early flurry from Harden because that didn't
that made it so Kawhi didn't have to necessarily be
Kawhi right off the bat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean he needs whatever help out
there you can get.
Speaker 2: So Zoo with a few okay performances. He was good
down the stretch against Brooklyn and Detroit, which was nice.
Speaker 3: He kind of like, when is the show gonna stop
shielding Zoo?
Speaker 1: We're not.
Speaker 2: You've completely flipped. Will's flipped to the other side.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: The other thing we all like, we don't have to
choose between these two centers is the other funny part.
We just have both centers. If you like both of them,
but the clips are nine and two over the last
eleven games. Adam and Will, what's been your favorite part
of this stretch of very good basketball from the Clippers.
You can only pick one thing.
Speaker 4: Some of the young guys and their contributions. Jan Miller
Jordan Miller against Brooklyn was awesome and he was good,
especially to start yesterday too, and then Kobe Sanders here
and there. We're starting to see a blend of Okay,
you can win games. You have these good veteran performances,
but also the young guys are going to supplement here
and there too. That's great to see.
Speaker 3: And that's gonna be the one, like most positive thing
so far about this season is even if you're not
happy with the results, which you know, agree with you,
I don't know how you could be. It doesn't that
they turn a corner, but they've managed to even as
they've started to stack up wins in the win column,
still fine meaningful minutes for these young guys to be
able to produce. Uh. Still giving a little bit of
leeway to play through mistakes and stuff. So yeah, it's
it's it is one of the better storylines of this season. Uh.
Speaker 2: Was that a go if you're miss if you're not
watching it, you just missed a ghost open up Will's
door and then close it. We don't know what that was. Yes,
and Jordan Miller being good has been like, I'm surprised
how good he's looked. He's had a great run of
form this last like week and a half or so.
Speaker 4: It's awesome healthy again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like it's and they're all the young guys are
kind of trying to do the little stuff too, which
I like, it's not just the scoring. You know, before
Yanni came out, we before he kind of stopped playing two.
We saw it, and it's been so clutch with I
mean Bogie and Derek Jones Junior. It's just like those
are the Derek Jones junior shoes are a lot bigger
to fill. But it's like we still need bodies, right,
Chris Paul's another empty roster spot that we're not getting
like any from So that makes the young guys being
good all the more fun to watch. Will, what's your
favorite thing? Since it seemed like Adam stole the young
guys point from you, I mean a purpose, No, I
mean that.
Speaker 4: With these young guys here.
Speaker 3: That is one of the like it just is one
of the bright spots for this season. I mean, how
many years have we've been begging for some sort of opportunity,
you know, to get some sort of player development in
you know, not only did we knock the Sandors draft
like out of the park, being able to actually develop
that into something is huge. You know, it will probably
get word any day about him being being moved up
to a regular roster spot, and you know, coming into
this season, especially looking at the roster that that wasn't
necessarily something I was expected, and you know, with the
injuries and everything, it has been needed, but it's still
good nonetheless to get that sort of development in there.
The other thing is just been it despite the turnovers,
it does look a lot more cohesive and we are
veering back into having an identity that we knew what
this team was and it's gotten. I think the thing
that was so frustrating about that losing portion wasn't just
the results obviously, but like man, I would have trouble
tuning into games because it's just like, what is this
team right now?
Speaker 2: What's that like?
Speaker 3: What are they trying to like, what are they trying
to achieve? Who are they on the court and to
be able to get back defensively a little bit to
where they were and to figure out a way to
make to sort of hobble this thing together. I think
it just gives it a little bit more of a
through line, and they are able to get back to
that sort of like Clippers underdog thing. We're even under manned.
They're able to stay close in these games. They're never
you know, they're never completely out of it in the
way that it felt that they were during those during
those dark days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that Celtics game kind of gave us shade. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
those are I.
Speaker 3: Mean, look, that's gonna happen to every team there. Knights
like the other night, right yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: Or thunder for two weeks now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, or your opponent's shooting lights out or something like.
You know, you you end up behind the eight ball.
It's that, you know, it's a long season for a reason,
and but but they've made noticeable steps and for a
team that looked utterly rudderless, I think that's been the
must the most important thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I liked the straight through line. Adam brought up
something like a week or so ago about how like
bad teams react strongly when something like when the spike
of badness happened.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's what we were all sitting talking about,
right Yeah, Like, that's what we were all sitting here
talking about, right, Like, Yes, things are going bad. To
pull the emergency cord right now, it's not guaranteeing a
much better result when you look at the realistic options
out there, you know, find like cleaning house from a
staffing perspective, firing you know, your head coach and GM
trying to hobble together some sort of trade with whatever
you're willing to give up in salaries to match. Like,
you know, there there's a reason that some franchises get
into a cycle like this and just cannot get out
of it. And I do think that it says a
lot about the organization, even in light of certain developments
which you're going to talk about later, that they have
to do with the guys, that they have been able to,
uh to figure out a pass forward, Yeah, without having
to clean house, you know, totally.
Speaker 4: It's almost like sometimes you just can't overreact, even when
you're six and twenty one.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's really difficult though. It's really difficult though,
And I get it. I get it from the fans perspective.
You know, I totally understand why everyone would want a change,
and you know it just sometimes you got to play
things through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to go a little more uh drilled down.
For my favorite thing over the eleven games, watching John
Collins get comfortable within the starting lineup has been awesome.
Speaker 1: He obviously when he first was on the team.
Speaker 2: You know, one of the reasons they talked about he
was coming off the bench was like just learning how
to play within the system. He'd be in the dunker
spot sometimes when him and Zoo were on the floor together,
like he was just getting used to what was happening.
While the Clippers were also going through like having Bogey
losing Bogie, having Derek Jones Junior, losing Derek Jones junior.
It's been a lot of turnover and to see him
like he's played some of his best basketball over these
eleven games, Like he's shooting seventy percent, he's shooting shooting
sixty seven percent from three, he's grabbing six boards a game.
Like we've seen him do all the stuff that we
wanted him to do from the start of the season.
And I hope he's played his way into a contract
with the Clippers. I hope this play kind of it's
going to level out, obviously, but I hope like he
can just ride this momentum out because it's been huge
for the Clippers, aside from you know, James and Kawhi
being otherworldly. To have him come in and like just
be be as good as he has been, there's.
Speaker 4: A good call by youth Chuck to stay steady with it.
This is a guy that could be in the next
air of Clippers basketball. He's young enough, and even though
he's not playing well right now, we expect that to
turn around. It's happened in a massive way. That is
right behind the defense and Kawhi Leonards heater for why
they're in this position right now. John Collins hitting everything
from three rebounding, blocking two shots per game and playing
very good defense. His offense has fueled his defense. You
can see all of a sudden, that motor and the
energy we knew he had. Now that he's comfortable, now
that he knows where he's supposed to be out there
at all times, he can just be instinctual. It's been
remarkable watching him the last couple of weeks, just a
totally different player.
Speaker 2: I've enjoyed the spacing that they've all been able to
play together. The starting lineup has had some good spacing together.
Speaker 4: No idea who's at center, you know, no idea what his.
Speaker 2: Contract looks like next because he's unrestricted after this year,
or he's got one more. He was it twenty five?
Does he get higher than that?
Speaker 4: I believe it's this. This is an expiring contract. He
opted in. Yeah to the twenty six million this year.
Speaker 2: Check, that'll be an interesting one to keep.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for what he'll want unrestricted.
Speaker 2: Interesting, Well, we'll cross that. Bridgeman get to it. We
got a lot of basketball players. The standings are relevant.
They keep becoming more relevant, which is fun. We kind
of stopped looking at these for a while. The Clippers
are one game back of the ten seed based on
winning percentage. The Clippers have one of the easier schedules
left in the league. I think it's like the third
or fourth easiest or something like that.
Speaker 3: They really need to take advantage of this next five
game stretch. They played Wizards twice that they got the
bulls in there. The Raptors, like, you know, they need
to three and two should be the absolute floor for
what they're aiming for over this next five game stretch
before they take on the Lakers at home.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought they were going to go We thought
they might go one and two on the road trip.
I am so happy and.
Speaker 3: That will seem like a realistic possibility. But it's funny
because the game that we figured that they would drop.
Speaker 2: They didn't.
Speaker 3: They ended up winning the backback.
Speaker 4: So yeah, to be fair, the Pistons had four of
their five starters out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll take it.
Speaker 4: We'll take everybody took advantage of the Clippers.
Speaker 3: Okay, there's no risks on that.
Speaker 4: You might want to look at that twenty twenty asterisk.
Speaker 2: No, that's the Patreon app. One game back in the
ten seed, a lot of games back in the eight seed.
You i't think they're like six or seven games back
in the eight seed or something like that. You want
to be right where you want to be. Let's just
keep marching right, like, get into that play in next stop,
you know, the higher half of the play in.
Speaker 4: I want that seven eighth spot anywhere in there, because
if you end up being seventh and miss okay, see
in the first round, then you can really start to dream,
then you can dream big.
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: The Clippers? Are you want the seventh seed?
Speaker 4: I mean yeah, yeah, I don't want the a seed.
I don't want to see okay see in the first round.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: As good as they've been playing, it's like, okay see
shuts down a lot of this stuff with just their
prim their defense and how many guys that they can
throw at Kawhi and James Harden. It's just a bad,
bad matchup for anyone, but definitely the Clippers.
Speaker 2: Well they have depths. Like it's just the Clippers do
not have anymore what we thought their greatest luxury was,
which was depth, not luxury, greatest need. Right, we thought
we had a guy for each spot. That we have
like a guy for every one and a half now.
So yeah, I'm interested.
Speaker 3: To see eight and a half games out of six.
Speaker 2: You're saying there's a chance.
Speaker 4: I don't know what happens in March.
Speaker 2: A lot of basketball happens in March.
Speaker 1: A lot of is what happened fifteen and three.
Speaker 2: If you haven't been keeping up with Eric Bueze Clippers
postgame drawing series, go look at them. He's at lolwtf
Eric on Instagram and and Twitter. Chuck has a car now.
Chuck is grinding, he's out of rehab. He has a
car now.
Speaker 4: Because the Clippers are rolling.
Speaker 2: Is that yeah?
Speaker 1: Doing great?
Speaker 3: So getting his life back together track.
Speaker 2: Surely this can only continue to go up Coming up,
we're gonna talk the upcoming week, which we'll mention is
a good chance for the Clippers to stack some dubs.
If you're listening to us, there's gonna be a quick
audio break. If you're watching us, we will still be
here clips upcoming week coming up in three two?
Speaker 3: What all right? Welcome back into Clips and Dip. We
talked our favorite thing from the Clippers, sort of going
nine to two of the last eleven game stretch turn
things around, and they have an excellent opportunity to build
on this momentum with the five game stretch against some
I'm just gonna say, some winnable games. There's some winnable
games and this stretch starting out at home against the Hornets.
Charles and I will both be at this.
Speaker 2: One as fans, credentialed people.
Speaker 4: You guys, Scout Lamellow, Damn.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I need him. I have a lot of stuff
I needed him to sign I have a lot, a
lot of my income is based around.
Speaker 3: To see how he h you know, digsos holes for trees.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna see his his skills with the with
the you know, our trowel. It is Chris Dunbobblehead night.
It's an awesome bobblehead, which is partly.
Speaker 4: Why we're going but the dungeon Master.
Speaker 2: Yes, the Hornets beat the Jazz one hundred and fifty
to ninety five, and some poor guy on the Jazz
had the worst plus minus in the history of the game,
which was minus sixty.
Speaker 3: Incredible stuff.
Speaker 2: Incredible stuff. Dude minus six, Like that's crazy.
Speaker 3: Had a plaque in the Hall of Fame for that.
It's a little.
Speaker 2: Plaque they should have, like send him his shoes. His
shoes should be in the you know, like, yeah, something
minus sixty is absurd.
Speaker 3: A plaque in the bathroom or something. Does that.
Speaker 2: They've won three of their last five. As we mentioned,
Kawi is questionable.
Speaker 4: They beat the thunder by twenty seven. That was remarkable.
Speaker 2: In ok C, they're a really good three point shooting team.
They are fifth in attempts and sixth in percentage. Like
that's legitimately good. Like that's an issue that could come
up against the Clips.
Speaker 4: And by the way, the Clippers during this streak where
they won nine to eleven all nine games, they have
outshot those wins. All nine wins, they've outshot their opponents from.
Speaker 2: Three interesting, Yeah, the Clippers are shooting forty one percent. Well,
how do you feel about this?
Speaker 3: I guess it depends a little bit on Kaui's availabilities.
Like I said at the top, I'm assuming that he's
going to be good to go ultimately for this one.
I don't know. It's as like one of those games
that could get decided sort of early. If the if
if the Hornets are in an early rhythm, we have
seen him like you know, we have battled back from
that before. But if this is looking anything like that
Celtics game early.
Speaker 2: A three point volume perspective, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Bridges
in Canoople are a large matchup at the three and
four that I'm a little as much as we've loved
John Collins his offense, it's been great. His defensive blocks
have been good. But he's gonna have a lot He's
gonna see a lot I think in this game because
they're probably gonna wat Lemelow on him at some point
and yeah, I don't know, it's it's gonna be interesting.
Speaker 4: I agree with Will. Just set that tone in the
first quarter. Make this game a honor defensively, you shut
the water off early. Don't let them see some shots
go through. Sprand and Miller just hit seven threes last
time out. Uh yeah, hopefully they got it out of
their system in Utah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, does that game even really?
Speaker 2: Like, I mean, I know it matters, but like there's
not a lot right, Like, I don't know if it
means anything.
Speaker 4: When they hit threes, they beat you, they beat you bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Charlotte has not been fair at their top ten
is scoring in the first quarter, they're seventh, so I
mean they're only separated by less than a point from
the Clips, So it is possible. Like the way the
defense has been playing, okay, I could see them slowing
them up.
Speaker 4: Like Done was so good in that Pistons game. Also,
oh my goodness, his defense to start that third quarter
getting a couple of steals right away because they're going
to try to get into the paint. They have these
young quick guys with Charlotte and then Peyton Spray, so
you got to stop them from blowing by you to start.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they also they take what do they take? They
they're twenty third and two point percentage. They don't take
threes and they don't really make or they don't take
two's and they don't really make them either. Like they're
bottom ten and two point attempts and percentage. So like
trying to run them off the three would be ideal
as well. So the scrambling is gonna have to be
on point, which will be interesting. If Kawhi can't go, Yeah.
Speaker 4: His defense has been good. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2: If Kawhi can't go, I mean, obviously that's a huge
issue offensively, but yeah, defensively, some concerns there.
Speaker 4: If Kawhi can't, who would play Kobe?
Speaker 2: Oh? Man, I don't I hope not.
Speaker 4: Have just started recently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, would it be Nico.
Speaker 4: Maybe, but like Kobe could create for himself.
Speaker 2: More, Yeah, he can't technically, Yes, you are that is correct. Well,
I'm trying to mean that's a tough question.
Speaker 4: Maybe Jordan's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, will who would you start? Would you start Brook Lopez?
Finally take this team to the modern basketball?
Speaker 3: Uh? I mean it's a tough call. You mentioned the
size of the three and four for the Hornets, I
think just body of work wise, I'm probably trusting Kobe Sanders.
I'm giving him the nod h in the starting spot and.
Speaker 4: He just he just dropped.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, So you know, obviously I don't feel as
great about it, but I think I think of my options,
like moment wise, body of work wise, I would probably
go with Kobe Sanders. Yeah. I like that.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like not the options are all very
like the same level. Obviously the guys do different things,
but it's all kind of the same threshold.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think, like any of the three guys that we've mentioned,
I think at this stage.
Speaker 3: Of his career, Nick Mutomb is being utilized at his
best and in the starting lineup. Obviously you know it
can be matchup de Pendant and stuff, but like for
the glue things that he has to do, and like
from a usage perspective.
Speaker 2: We need shooting off the bench.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just think it makes more sense to continue
to bring off the bench.
Speaker 2: Yeah if again, yeah if if.
Speaker 4: Oh, and that's a really big front line if the
Toomb's in there, neck to Collins next to Zubots against
a team that has a lot of quickness. I don't know.
Kobe Sanders defense is solid too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Tyler is gonna be shuffling guys out again
if Kawhi cannot go, which I don't. And he looks
pretty good right.
Speaker 4: Like he had. It looks like they're still trying the
last two games to keep him under a certain amount
of minutes. When you saw the Detroit game and he's
he's at the scorers table, he didn't come in and
then they bought him another forty five seconds and then
brought him in. So something is up there that could be,
you know, part of what happens tomorrow. He could he
could be playing, but he's on a minister distriction that
we don't know about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he played.
Speaker 3: What's the call? She predictive market saying on his alive
to call.
Speaker 2: Yeah, uh Well, according to Calsee, there's a fifty three
percent chance John Harbaugh is going to be the Clippers
next or the dolphins next head coach. So we'll see. God,
I hate prediction markets. Wednesday versus the Wizards, they will
not be playing Trey Young since he's hurt and they
want to keep their top eight predict or protected pick.
Must win against the Wizards. Yeah, I mean they're all
must wins obviously because the team is in the spot.
Speaker 4: But you know what I mean, this is like a
must win five game winning streak, like you got gotta
get them all.
Speaker 2: The Raptors game is see, I think will be difficult.
They have a legitimate defense, and they could have had
the Clippers number weirdly kind of recently, so I'm a
little worried about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they play interesting style and their rosters a lot
of switch ability. Still, they cook the Clippers and just
like movement, at times, they wear you out how much
you have to guard.
Speaker 2: Will you unhappy if they go anything less than three
and two?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Absolutely, that's the floor.
Speaker 2: They've been playing good.
Speaker 4: I'm okay with that being I need one. I mean, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3: This is the this is the absolute. It's not fine
if they go if they go two and three, packing.
Speaker 2: Up, cancel the rest of the season. Man, what's your
four out of porn one?
Speaker 4: I think for four and one. If I was mentioning
the seventh seed earlier, can we get into that, so yeah,
four and one.
Speaker 3: I mean that would be like seven eight is a
huge difference from the nine ten seed, not only see
in the first round. But like having home core and
only having to get one win is I mean, it's
a pretty big difference.
Speaker 2: Pretty big diff Yeah, they dropping the Raptors game I
would be not okay with, but I can see them.
That's a difficult game. Fast team plays good defense. But yeah,
the Wizards twice, as you said, will the Hornets and
the Bulls like. Yeah, the only issue is that it's
at three pm local time, which I think my fuck
the Clippers up a little bit. I like if they
go five and oh and then they play the Lakers,
I feel.
Speaker 3: Pretty good about where the team is at.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I feel great about the matchup
against the Lakers, but shout out Donnis Shroud by the way,
But I don't Adam, you have something to say on that.
Speaker 4: No, I kind of get what he's saying. Wait, so
you're gonna call me a bitch on the floor and
then act like everything's cool off the floor.
Speaker 2: Really, he smacked him. There's been a bunch she'll saying.
He actually smacked him.
Speaker 4: Damn, I don't know.
Speaker 2: That's King's basketball baby.
Speaker 4: Showing in the West.
Speaker 2: Yeah, showing more fight off the court then on. Okay, Now,
that I'm looking at it. I'm on the I'm on
the four and one is the floor train.
Speaker 4: Taking five? And oh? Five and oh floor?
Speaker 2: What's the ceiling?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: How was this house constructed?
Speaker 4: It's a fun house.
Speaker 2: Being John Malkovich, you gotta crawl in.
Speaker 4: Yeah there, I don't know. Was there a secret tunnel
also constructed into a tilb to get to that five
and over one? Four one is acceptable?
Speaker 3: Exceptable?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the shooting variants will be interesting. But seeing the
Wizards twice feels good.
Speaker 4: I say, because they don't want to win, because.
Speaker 2: They're actively trying not to win basketball, Like they've come
out and publicly stated they're doing their best to lose basically,
So why not give the old guys one, you know.
Speaker 3: Losing to the team that wants to lose. We can't just.
Speaker 4: Sweep Detroit and then lose a game to Washington.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like we can't, Like Trey Young, can't watch his
new team beat us Like that would not feel good.
Speaker 4: That would be pulling out hair like Trey. Yeah, I
love Trey.
Speaker 2: I was just saying, yeah, were you disappointed that he
didn't become a Clipper?
Speaker 4: I mean, he's one of those guys we were watching
there's believe it or not, there's still time and it's
not a long term contract right now with Washington. We'll
see what happens there.
Speaker 2: That's true, he's recovering from that injury. Perfect guy to
bring in anything else on this upcoming five game streak
before we talk about off court stuff.
Speaker 3: I don't know. Clippers are zero and five against Papula
Torrea apparently, I don't know.
Speaker 2: All right, coming up, we're gonna be talking the pablotry
stuff and then there's been some trade ideas. I guess
all that coming up after quick audio break in three two.
Speaker 4: One, welcome back in clips and Dip, I'm out of Mason.
We got Will Updyke and Chuck Mockler here as we
get set for the Clippers being back home for the
next couple on Monday and Wednesday, and there's something else
happening that you know. The Clippers losing was really a
distraction from things going on off the court for a while,
and then, for the first time in months, the aspiration
situation reared its ugly head with the seventh episode done
by Pablo Torre about this going back four months of
the off season now and Chuck I think you already
spoke about it a little bit and your thoughts, maybe
you want to reiterate those and give us a jumping
off point.
Speaker 2: So the whole point of the episode was to demonstrate
that the Clippers and Aspiration actually did know about each
other before this Kawhi sponsorship happened, because that's what Balmer
had said, like that, that's just what the whole episode
was about. This one didn't feel great. Watching this one
didn't feel great. There's just more smoking guns. I'm not
saying that this means the Clippers for sure did this.
It just does pull the thread of like, why would
you say you didn't know about these people when there's
a tweet from twenty eighteen of Doc Rivers talking to
the Aspiration team, like a photo of him talking to them,
So that to me, I'm just like, it's frustrating from
the the fans are gonna get punished from this standpoint,
and this is just more stuff to be like to
have to throw your hands up and be like, I
don't know, I don't know why he bought a penthouse
owned by the guy who started this other financial thing.
Speaker 4: I thought that was concerning. I also felt like the
other side of it was not the penthouse but the
doc rivers thing. The other side of it is he
not moving goalposts again now saying look, Kawhi Leonard even
had aspiration on his bobblehead and they asked him to
sign fifty basketball. It's like, wait a second, what happened
to the no show job? What happened to all that?
Now it's this is the evidence. Actually you have to
believe this. And by the way, everybody in Clipper Nation
knew about the bobblehead when he did the first episode. Yeah,
it was kind of weird, like, aha, I got this,
Like dude, we're way ahead of you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. What It just feels like they're doing the thing
where it's like here's a mountain of evidence and because
it's public and again, like I said, it doesn't look
incredibly great for the Clippers coincidentally wise, but this also
is just like here's a flood of evidence. Now we're
talking about Kawhi's penthouse stuff to kind of get you
to think a certain way of how Kawi operates to
then help the publatory argument and the investigation. Like I
don't know, well, how'd you feel about it? Did you
watch the whole thing.
Speaker 3: Just I just caught some highlights. Yeah again it it
doesn't seem great. I think Adam early on in this
brought up sort of like the best point that I
keep coming back to if you're a Clippers fan, and
that's like the way that Aspiration operated as a company
sort of throws all bets outside of the window. You know,
you have two high level members that have already pleaded
guilty to fraud. Like it's you know, it's just it
isn't a regular company. It isn't a regular situation. And
I think that that could cut either way, Like that
could shield the Clippers from impropriety, or if there was impropriety,
this is a wild enough card that it would kind
of leave you exposed if you had hoped to do
something clandestine. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Like I feel like really you're solo that like yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it you know, it's not it's just not
a normal situation. But again, this isn't a core of law.
You know, there's not gonna be depositions in this like that.
You know that, like this is going to come down
to a judgment call from Silver essentially, I mean, and
and how that all works.
Speaker 2: Out well, and the other part of this was so
they went they had a meeting with the lawyers who
were doing the investigation. That whole meeting was confidential, so
instead he just like showed the evidence that he brought
to the meeting, and his lawyer was like, when we
showed them the evidence, I could tell that they were like,
you know that they had not seen stuff like this
yet or something, is what he was kind of putting
out there. So it was like, yeah, just just frustrating.
The company was poorly run. It feels weird. It does
seem like Balmer knew them before this Again, just literally
Doc Rivers talking to the team leads me to like,
it's hard for me to not trust my eyes on
that one. But it doesn't mean that they gave Kawhi
fifty extra million dollars or whatever. It's just like more, Yeah,
I just felt exhausting. I guess to listen to it
again from the fan perspective, which I'm sure is not
a unique.
Speaker 4: One, especially, yeah, it's it's really frustrating and you hate
to see this and the reminder of this in the
backdrop of this season and the Clippers still being fifteen
and twenty three right now, and the All Star Games coming,
and what's going to happen? This is looming over everything.
Is there going to be a ruling at some point
here soon? Who knows. I just do think it's a
little bit curious that Pablo started with it's twenty eight
million dollars. Oh wait, now he got twenty more million
dollars in stock options. Oh and Steve Bomber put in
you put in fifty, so that's way too close to
be a coincidence. And then he found out, oh Obama
put in more money. So now the money doesn't add
up that you were saying it was too much to
be a coincidence, but no, this is still hard proof.
And then we go from it's a no show job,
what has Kauai even doing to now saying, well, we
got the aspiration, we got him signing basketball, So what
happened to its proof that he didn't do anything in
this episode when now you're saying he has done stuff
for them. It just seems like anything he finds he
can spin his way to say, now this is proof, yes,
and it has Yeah, but it still doesn't look good
and it doesn't mean the Clippers are off the hook.
And we'll see what happens. I'm rooting for the truth
to come out.
Speaker 2: Well do you plead the fifth?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Now, I mean, look, you know it sucks, but
it you know, like if league guidelines and league rules
were knowingly circumvented, I gotta say, I mean, like, you know,
if this was another team, maybe specific typically won't even
across the hall. I would hope that, you know, I
would hope that you know there, Yeah, their status or
relevancy or anything else wouldn't come into play. That Like,
if if Lee rules were circumvented, they would be punished.
And I you know, like it's got to be the same.
It's got to be the same for the Clippers. And
that sucks. Uh if you know, if if, if it
is found that they engage in impropriety. But I guess
we'll just have to see. Like it's that's the thing
that sucks.
Speaker 2: I no timeline either, no idea when the when the
ruling is gonna happen, but we will have the coverage
for you when it does.
Speaker 3: Yeah, does the does the sheer amount of stuff and
the amount of time right? Because the NBA came out
pretty early on and said that they weren't going to
make a ruling before they also breaking. Does the length
of time help or earth clippers? Do you think in
this whole.
Speaker 2: Thing, I think the lawyers are going to take as
long as they wanted to. Anyway, it doesn't make me
feel any better, right.
Speaker 4: I killed. I still can't stop thinking about how I
know a lot of people it's been misconstrued that this
is how they got Kawhi. I hear this from lakers Point,
this is how they got him in twenty nineteen c
cc no. Pablo was saying, this is how they got
him on the extension after each for his ACL in
twenty twenty one. And I still just have a hard
time believing they needed to go above and beyond the
max that the maximum they gave him to get him
to resign after tearing his ACL in the playoffs? Does
that really make a lot of sense? I And then
maybe they would say, well, no, this was the plan
all along, and it was especially because they had this
relationship with Aspiration. But I don't know, it just doesn't
It doesn't seem that rational to me. It doesn't seem
that likely they would have to do that.
Speaker 2: Right, like, in four years, give me an extra fifty
million dollars. I mean, I would like.
Speaker 4: It well, and wouldn't there be a much cleaner way
to do it if you're going to do something like that, right, like, oh,
and now another guy's putting money in and siphoning it
through during this time. It just seems so I.
Speaker 3: Don't know, and then people would implicate themselves in it,
like I don't know. We'll see what happened. Lawyer, I'm
not a lawyer, but this is also not going to
be in a court, so it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 2: So we kind of are lawyers in a very real sense,
and for a case that is not going to see a.
Speaker 1: Court of law, we are borderline lawyers.
Speaker 2: Order happened there?
Speaker 1: We're kissing the bar.
Speaker 3: Do you think if you added the bar scores of
the three of us we could pass of the bar
no of the three of us? If that would equal
one passable? Dude?
Speaker 2: I don't know. The California bar isn't it like the
second hardest in the US?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think. I don't think we can do it.
Speaker 2: I don't think we could either.
Speaker 1: I mean, Kim Kardashian can't do it, and she's using
chat GPT. What's the hope for us. All right, then
the last thing John Morant is available for trade.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't want any part of John
Morant on the Clippers, But I don't even think the
Clippers can get Ja Morant, right, Like.
Speaker 4: His contract goes past twenty twenty seven, So he's not
one of those guys that you could just take a
rental on for a year like Trey. It would be
you're committing to this guy and him cal calf.
Speaker 2: Space two more years after this year.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's after the summer of twenty twenty seven
when the Clippers are gonna have all that cap space. Well,
they wouldn't have as much of John Morants on the book,
so it doesn't seem like it seems like a non
starter to me. And just he's getting to the rim
twenty percent less of the time than he was his
rookie season. It's something's up.
Speaker 3: And playing about twenty percent of the time, right, Like
it's another situation of like the team seems to be
kind of better without him and he's not available that often.
And we talked about these sort of like you know,
quote unquote like negative assets in you know, Morant and
Ball and Young and Young was the most appealing, surely
because you know, there's not a lot of years left
that changes, you know, obviously, because you're gonna have to
resign him. Unless it was you know, just a shallery
like a salary shehtting move where you didn't have to
give up any like major assets. So I don't see it.
I don't see it. I do. I'm curious what the
demand is. It seems like the demand might be a
little higher than Trey.
Speaker 2: Some people said it was just going to be matching
salary like that was kind of like it, but like,
we never know what this is going to be.
Speaker 3: I don't think, yeah.
Speaker 4: I don't think they're going to get much. I think
it's going to be in the realm of what happened
with Trey, honestly.
Speaker 3: I mean that would make the lost sense.
Speaker 4: Like, yeah, so somebody is going to convince themselves that
the price is so low we might as well risk it.
Speaker 2: But it's funny because the price is low in relation
to him, but then we have to come up with
forty million dollars to ship out, yeah, from the Clippers,
which is John Collins and Bogie.
Speaker 3: It's what what is left on his deal, Like one
hundred and fifty million dollars, one hundred and sixty million dollars.
It goes up every year, right.
Speaker 2: He's got what it's thirty nine this year, forty two
a year after that, and then the final year is
forty four point eight.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, so a little bit.
Speaker 4: I think the only guy with the de escalating contract
is Kuzma. Yeah, like literally in the I don't know
how that happens.
Speaker 2: Who had who? The Clippers had someone on the D escalator,
A couple who was that? We had a guy on
the D escalator I can't remember anyway.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the Bobby yeah bus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because like the Clippers would trade John Collins and
Bogie for.
Speaker 4: Jahn Morant, Like I wouldn't do that.
Speaker 2: That seems like a nightmare.
Speaker 4: I'm not giving up I wouldn't give up John Collins.
Speaker 2: We're losing that depth and like, so what are we.
Speaker 3: Talking about sense for from a fit perspective at all?
Speaker 2: And you're not chipping James A. Memphis Well.
Speaker 4: I asked law about this the other day and he said, like,
the only people that want John or that want John Moran,
or people who don't watch John Moran, Like it's just
total casual stuff. It's just he's a big name.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the thing. That was the only reason
I thought maybe his demand would be higher because he
does have a high selling shoe. Like he is a
guy who, from an organizational perspective, if you're looking to
sell tickets, could theoretically site you some tickets.
Speaker 4: As you mentioned, not only is he hurt off the
court issues that we've seen contracts going up, his explosiveness,
which is the draw of him, seems to be rapidly
decreasing even though he's only twenty six, right, what is
the upside? Like, I don't know how he's a winning
player or positive net positive out there on the court.
His shot has never improved, and he's losing his superpower
which was rim attack and just wreaking havoc.
Speaker 2: It's worse, Russ.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like, especially with the contract.
Speaker 1: Right, like, with everything into it, it's like, well I
don't want that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Again, obviously I'm like John Collins on this team, So
it's like, why would we even give up a guy
who could be on the team, because again, no one
is on the roster for twenty seven to twenty eight.
It's Zoo and Yannick that's who's holding it down right
now and the Clippers U twenty.
Speaker 4: Honest or Yannick Sorry I couldn't hear it.
Speaker 1: Well, the real Greek freak. So like, filling that out with.
Speaker 2: Depth guys, to me is a lot more important than
if we were to bring Jahn Morant in to be
the centerpiece of the twenty seven twenty eight and on
Clippers like talk about same old clips right Like, if
it was like, oh, Jahn Morant's going to be the
centerpiece for this new era.
Speaker 4: What they're gonna do is, I think most likely is
they're only going like they're not going to take any
risks on guys that have huge contracts. If they strike
out with some of the big guys that they're after,
they're not going to say, well, we'll settle for this
guy instead. No, they're not going to do that. They're
going to bring in quality guys that are on shorter
deals that don't have the high end talent, and then
just something to keep the opportunity open for the next
big guy to come in. Like they're not going to settle.
I don't think, Well.
Speaker 2: You gotta think about it. You know, Kobe Sanders is
gonna need a max.
Speaker 4: At some point you gotta pay these young stads you got.
Speaker 2: You gotta pay them anything else on the trade scuttle.
But there was something too about like the this one
guy from Clutch Points keeps coming up as some kind
of source for things from aggregators for some reason. It's
not Yeah, b s. Eagel is like all of a
sudden the new woes for the Aggregators. But apparently it's
like the Celtics are.
Speaker 1: Interested in Zoo, but we don't like with Clippers rumors.
Speaker 4: Yeah, by confirmed that.
Speaker 2: So what what.
Speaker 3: I bet there's a lot of guys interested in Zoo.
Speaker 2: What do we think of the zoo.
Speaker 4: Bots take another first round pick coming from a team
like Boston, because like if you're getting to first, but
you're getting it from one of the top ten, so
they're gonna be at the very end of the first round. No,
that would have to be three first from them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well the offer was Anthony Simon's two first and
a young wing for Zubos.
Speaker 4: Young I am I am a Simon.
Speaker 2: Named Jason Tatum.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, Will's a Simon's guy too. But if we're
trading Zoo.
Speaker 2: The seat, like I know, people love Brook Lopez and Yonick,
But like the season is drastically different if that's our
center core.
Speaker 4: The Clippers that they have really no pressure on them
to have to move Zoo soon because it's not like
he's on an expiring contract or anything like that. He's
on a good contract. There's still a couple more years
left on it. They can hold out for the best
offer and see how desperate teams get for front court
help if they even are going to entertain it.
Speaker 2: And do people people forget that Zoo is twenty eight?
Speaker 4: They do?
Speaker 2: Do we think that happens?
Speaker 3: Is that?
Speaker 2: Like genuinely, I sometimes forget that he's only twenty eight.
He's been in the league for.
Speaker 3: Sex almost like seven Adams effect, where it's like it
feels like they've been in the league forever ten years.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, I think people forget he's twenty.
Speaker 4: Yeah that Moon didn't forget. When they beat the Warriors recently,
he showed Loot a Zoo love postgame. It was like,
I like going up against these good young centers because
now I'm on the older side and it's a good
measuring stike.
Speaker 2: There we go. That being said, if they trade Zoo,
let's hope it's for more than that. And if they
trade Zoo, I think it's a signal that they have
a trade for either Choir Harden figured out, because I
don't know how hyped they would be to play without
a starting Yes, Lopez is good, I'm not, you know,
but like the ceiling is different if Zoo is not
on the team at all.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like you said earlier, it's okay to have both
these guys. Now, some people want more Yanic and that's
difficult to facilitate right now. But I don't think you know,
Yannick isn't in that Kobe Sanders place as a young player.
He's not. He needs more seasoning. And it's okay. But
if they do have a complete selloff, then yeah, it's
it's gonna be a domino effect. If they trade one guy,
it's going to turn into likely moving everybody. But there's
still there's that's still really difficult. James Harden has basically
a no trade cause Kawhi Leonard, how much are you
getting for him? Right? I think this is all the
stuff that the Clippers weighed coming into the season, which
is why they're still We're trying to reload and make
the team better. Because the likelihood that it would turn
into a massive sell off was would be low because
of just how difficult it is to facilitate all that.
Speaker 2: And well, you're on the keep CP three train right.
Speaker 3: Yeah with the team. We're just redo Halloween. Everybody shows
up this.
Speaker 1: Time Halloween two. All right, that wraps things up.
Speaker 2: We're going to be back on Thursday with an episode
for everybody. Let's hope the clips are marching towards five
and zero will Where can people share their thoughts about
this little program that we put together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you're enjoying watching your stories and that story
happens to be closing to death the podcast, you could leave
a little radiing to review over on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
It would really really help us out. The best way
to watch a show, in my opinion is, of course,
we're on YouTube dot com. That's at Clippers Podcast. You
can comment on every single episode. You can subscribe to
the little notification to know when we're going live, when
we're doing fun stuff. But wherever you listening, wherever you watch,
you know we appreciate you.
Speaker 2: We very much do. Say what's up If you see
any of us at the game tomorrow, at into it Dome,
adam one positive thing to start these wonderful Clippers fans
weeks off with.
Speaker 4: I mean, they're backing into a dome and they've been
pretty dominant there as of late. I think they have
won one, two, five, six seven, Like we're talking like
seven of their last eight games there. The only loss
was that crazy Boston scoring output from Jalen Brown, who
was pissed off not getting Player of the Month in
the East that happened. He would have got the Dream
Team that night, like it wouldn't matter who was playing
him there.
Speaker 2: It is make some noise, excited to see the wall
in effect. Thank you for hanging out and as always,
let's go Clips.