Waving the white flag

Phil Gurnee ♦ March 5, 2019 ♦ Leave a comment

There was this silly talk after Feb 7th trade deadline that the Clippers were tanking.  They had just traded their best player and their starting shooting guard. Even though the Clippers were in front of the Kings and Lakers for the 8th spot in the seeding, every pundit around said the Kings and Lakers would surpass them.

I had friends walk up to me at softball and say they were sorry the Clippers were giving up. It struck me as funny so I wrote a post about it and put it on facebook for my softball friends to see.

Giving up? These folk forgot one important aspect of the Clipper deadline deals. Patrick Beverly was still a Clipper and no team with Patrick Beverly is going to tank. If Jerry West and company wanted the team to tank they would have also traded Beverly. I could understand those who don’t follow the team to think they were waving a white flag. I couldn’t understand those who do follow to say the same thing.  Patrick Beverly is the player you hate the most when he plays against your team because he is relentless. If there is a player in Los Angeles who makes his teammates better, his name is Patrick Beverly.

Not only did the Clippers keep Pat Beverly but they acquired three veterans who would help the team in the postseason hunt and a center. An actual center. Zubac is not very good yet, but he replaced Gortat who while a good guy had become a horrible basketball player whose only skill was setting screens.  The Clippers certainly took a hit with Harris headed to Philly, but they were able to add Patrick Beverly and Landry Shamet to the starting lineup, and JaMychal Green replaced Scott on the second unit seamlessly.

There is a team in Los Angeles that is waving the white flag, but it is not the Los Angeles Clippers.