The Los Angeles Clippers have been of the better teams in the NBA for much of the last decade but they don’t have anything to show for it. First, it was the “Lob City” era that ended in disappointment and the next iteration looks set for the same fate.
When the Clippers managed to land Kawhi Leonard and Paul George in 2019, it was finally supposed to be their time, but untimely injuries have ensured it wasn’t to be. Jerry West, who is a consultant for the team, thinks forces outside their control might be in play here.
“We’ve had two chances here with the Clippers, two chances,” West said during an appearance on Podcast P. “And for whatever reason, the big guy in the sky didn’t want us to get there.”
West then stated he had never seen injury issues like the ones the Clippers have had in his whole life.
“Injuries. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life,” West continued. “In my whole life, two players of the caliber of you and Kawhi can’t play half the season. I mean, it’s crazy. You look at Kawhi’s body, I mean, how can he ever get hurt? I feel so badly for him. It drives me crazy. He didn’t have a chance, and he works his fanny off.”
West added that at the end of the day, you need star players to win in the NBA.
“I say to myself, who you gonna win with? You’re gonna win with guys like you because you have to do the heavy lifting at the end of the game,” West stated. “Some people can’t do that. You and Kawhi can do it.”
At this point, West thinks the Clippers might be jinxed.
“You go home and you say to yourself, ‘My gosh, it’s almost like there’s a jinx somewhere’,” West said.
"It's almost like there's a jinx somewhere."
Hall of Famer and Clippers special consultant Jerry West on the franchise's injury woes pic.twitter.com/pKr9XEgF4p
— Podcast P with Paul George (@PodcastPShow) June 13, 2023
You certainly can’t blame anyone associated with the Clippers for starting to think they just might be cursed at this point. One way or the other, things just seem to go wrong at the worst possible time for them.
The Missed Opportunities For The Clippers
The two missed opportunities West was referring to here would probably be the 2021 and 2023 playoffs. In 2021, Kawhi tore his ACL in the Western Conference Semifinals when the team was looking really dangerous.
They would win that series against the Utah Jazz without him but then lost in six games to the Phoenix Suns in the Conference Finals.
This year, George missed their entire first-round series against the Suns with a sprained knee while Leonard only played the first two games and then went down with a torn meniscus.
The undermanned Clippers again gave the Suns a run for their money, but ultimately lost in five games. Had their stars stayed healthy, who knows how differently those two postseasons might have panned out for the franchise.
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