It’s been over a week since I’ve done a post where I mentioned Blake Griffin…so of course, this post has to do (partially at least) with none other than Blake Griffin. As free agency was approaching last summer, Bill Simmons wrote a column where he rated all the possible destinations for LeBron to land. While he picked New York, Miami, Chicago, and Cleveland as the most likely choices, Simmons theorized that the best place for him to go (all things considered) would be the Clippers…really, the Clippers? He would have to somehow shake off the stink of an owner and a franchise that had been the laughingstock of the league for the previous three decades, but Simmons pointed out that there was a lot of potential upside to going there. He would be in a big market, he would be playing with a young talented nucleus that included Griffin and Eric Gordon, and he would undoubtedly be the lead dog on the team. Now, this theory had almost no chance of becoming a reality. First, there was that thing about being a perpetual loser of a franchise for thirty years. Second, the owner of the Clips is by all accounts a pretty big scumbag…this might not deter everyone from signing with the Clippers, but it definitely will keep some away. Third, everyone thought that Griffin and Gordon had the potential to be great, but no one knew for sure if Blake was going to get healthy and if Gordon would finally put it all together. Fast forward a few months (incidentally, the rising Clippers just ended the Heat’s 13 game road winning streak last night): Griffin is a beast, and Gordon has shown that last summer’s Team USA experience really pushed him to be a better player.
What does this have to do with this year? Well, anyone that has been following the NBA this year knows about the perpetual melodrama – get it, Melo-drama….damn, that’s funny – that has been Carmelo Anthony’s eventual exodus out of Denver and to New York or New Jersey. Basically, Melo wants to be a Knick, and Denver wants to trade him before the season’s over so they can get something back for him rather than be left empty-handed when Melo leaves via free agency this summer. Anthony would also prefer to do a sign-and-trade because he wouldn’t get nearly as much money if he simply signed in New York this summer (let’s not even mention the collective bargaining issue…oops, I just did). However, New York doesn’t really have all the pieces that Denver is interested in to make a trade. The Nets, on the other hand, do. Ending up with the Knicks through a trade isn’t impossible, but it’s likely going to have to involve other franchises as well, which makes things more complicated. As it stands right now, it appears that potential trade scenarios that would ship Melo to the Nets are in the works, but Anthony seems to be blocking them. So, the question is does Anthony hold out for the Knicks, or does he decide that New Jersey is close enough and accept a trade there. Coincidentally in his latest column, Simmons (who was the first person I saw say, “What about the Clippers?” concerning LeBron last summer) basically wrote, “What about the Clippers?” regarding Melo’s eventually landing spot as well. His arguments for Melo going to LA are similar to his arguments for LeBron to have gone there last summer. Just like last year, this idea just had never occurred to me. For one, it just seemed like a foregone conclusion that Melo was heading east. Also, even though they boast my favorite current player in the league, I guess the Clippers are still an afterthought even to me. For full disclosure’s sake, I should note that even though Simmons is a diehard Celtics fan he is a Clippers season ticket holder, so it’s easy to see why he would like to see Anthony suit-up in home white with red and blue trim next season…still I have to admit that just as the what if LeBron went to the Clippers scenario was the most fun to think about last year, the what if Melo went to the Clippers scenario is the most intriguing possibility here as well. (On a sidenote, in this last column Simmons called Griffin “the most meaningful in-the-air player since Shawn Kemp.” No wonder he’s my favorite individual to watch play since the Reignman himself.)
Anyway, this Melo to the Clips stuff is nothing more than pie in the sky right now. Other than Simmons, I haven’t heard a peep about this even being a possibility to this point. There could always be something in the works that we don’t know about, but there has been no mention of LA even being on Carmelo’s radar. Still, it would be fun to have a team that was potentially good enough to unseat the Lakers as the best team in their own town. If the Clippers can keep their core of young guys together though, they might actually be poised to take over the role of best young up-and-coming team in the league from the Thunder within the next year or two without having to deal for a megastar like Anthony. They have Griffin, Gordon, DeAndre Jordan, Baron Davis, Eric Bledsoe, Al-Farouq Aminu, Chris Kaman (whose expiring contract could be used in another trade), and I believe they have not one but two first round draft picks again next year. They have a lot of pieces (and trade chips) in place, and while it’s always fun to make a splashy trade and/or signing, it might be in their best interest just to stand pat and continue to stockpile young talent the old-fashioned way. It’s almost impossible to believe, but with a few more of the right kind of moves we might be talking about the Clippers as the model franchise in a year or two in terms of how to build a roster from scratch.
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