[Daniel Li] Kawhi Leonard’s Lazy Defense Drives Chris Paul Crazy
How can a hof player be disruptive against losing and they’re mad about it?
The status quo in that new arena is acceptable now?
kawhi said get cp off my dick before i start yapping about aspiration
You…,you gotta add the 3, man
Release the Epstein list
Best we can do is bomb some more boats.
Boats *with Brown People
Important caveat
The drug cartels have better defense than the clippers. Both deserved to be bombed.
Bro just stackin up the charges
Kawhi got everything he wanted already, he simply does not give a fuck anymore. He got his money, he got to play in his hometown, he gets paid leave whenever he wants, he already got his rings… I mean he CLEARLY has no real drive to be as good as he COULD be.
He has set that franchise back until the next decade at minimum, all for his comfort.
SAS was right when he called him the worst superstar ever, and I rarely agree with him.
The Clippers deserve it. The way they treated Blake and CP3 and how shady they were when they went after Kawhi. Karma caught up.
“how shady” it’s okay to say it they cheated and circumvented the cap. They deserve everything bad happening to them
That wasn’t until after though. When they first signed him as a free agent he basically forced Paul George to request a trade to the Clippers as a prerequisite, right after he signed an extension to stay in OKC. It was all around a pretty shady move and that doesn’t even include the cap circumvention.
The Thunder should be the only team to retire Kawhi’s number. I’ve never seen a player unwittingly stack another team’s deck like this.
Clippers were tampering the whole 2018-19 season when Kawhi was in Toronto. Lawrence Frank was a fixture at Raptor games. Clips deserve all that’s come to them.
He was literally waiting in the tunnel for a chance to talk to Kawhi. It wasn’t like Lawrence Frank was just in the stands. Same with Ballmer. Pretty sure he was there sometimes too.
That we know of.
We know that uncle Dennis requested illegal things from both the raptors and the lakers to the point they filed a league complaint against him. If they did that with two of the three teams, why would we expect them to not also do it to the team he actually signed for?
Personally I’m 100% convinced they circumvented the cap to get him in the first place. If we’ll ever get proof is a different story.
How did he force Paul George? Wasn’t that pgs choice?
Your naive to think clippers are the only ones that do this. I think they are the first to get caught for doing an excessive amount of money though. A lot of owners have done sweeteners that are maybe under the table its just not $20+++ mil
Streetlights over spotlights Montrezl Harrell face
I mean falling out with Pop, leaving the Spurs, and leaving the Raptors after one year as a finals MVP and champ tells you all you need to know about this guy. He does not give a fuck about basketball legacy
So funny to look back at the Spurs years and the narrative around who he is. This guy doesn’t care about money, look he drives an old pickup truck! He just loves basketball and only wants to win!
People have a tendency to be romantic when it comes to quiet people. “Look, he is very quiet - this means he is extremely humble and nice.”
Not to mention Timmy D was actually that way and I’m sure Spurs fans felt like they had another good one with him
Im a fun guy…. huh HAWWWW HAW HAW HAW
My FiL has an ‘89 Silverado he didn’t have room for at hime so he let me drive it and keep it in the driveway, that truck is hands down my preference over the ‘23 SUV we have. Radio only works on 1 side, no airbags, heat / AC take forever to warm up, shocks are like a bounce house, barely goes above 55 MPH.
If I had the cash to burn and didn’t need car seats every day, I’d just buy an old beater and be very happy with it for local drives. Newer cars with the over-computerized features are dogshit IMO and I’m not even a car guy, but I hate every new car I’ve been in. Just make analog buttons, my heater doesn’t need to be in a damn screen.
I think maybe we were all fooled by that Toronto run. The silent assassin who just wanted to hoop. In reality if you look at his career he’s been surprisingly open about wanting to make huge money. He doesn’t seem too bothered about legacy. He is of course an outstanding basketball player and has worked hard to be where he is. But he doesnt seem all that bothered about playing anymore. Hard to go jogging at 6am when youre sleeping in silk sheets
Board man got paid.
More like Bored man, amirite?
Boo
Kawhi was amazing. 3rd most points in playoff history during 2019. Shutdown the other side’s best player notably Giannis.
Went from DPOY to legit defensive liability
Well yeah, that was 6 years and like 4 major injuries ago lmao. Anybody expecting him to still be a great defender at this stage is insane. Once he went down in ‘21 the Clippers championship window was closed.
yeah the couch surfers are crying as if Kawhi’s hasn’t single handedly carried teams to the finals and torn up his body in the process.
Teams? Kawhi never “single-handedly” carried any Spurs teams to the Finals. He also didn’t carry the Raptors. He was the difference maker to bring them over the top.
You make it sound like he was the last role player that Toronto needed to win a chip. Nah dude, kawhi was the mvp and the first option. I consider that carrying a team
My words are clear. He was the difference maker of a good team to make them a championship team. Your definition of carrying a team is clearly different. By your definition players like Kevin Durant carried the Warriors and LeBron carried the Lakers when it’s much more complex than that.
Nah, what LeBron did in the 2018 playoffs was a carry. Just being the best player on a championship team doesn’t mean you carried them.
This. Kawhis teammates weren’t scrubs in 2019 lol. We had a deep as fuck squad. That’s why we got the 2 seed in the east with 50+ wins even though Kawhi sat out 20+ regular season games.
His play during close out games was nothing short of extraordinary in 2019.
who just wanted to hoop
lmao people really believed that shit. Wanted to hoop so hard he said “fuck you” to two franchises to go back home.
This seems true about the NBA in general, just listen to the Kellerman/Simmons conversation about road games in Miami/LA/Toronto, you are 22 years old making $20M/year, it’s hard to make a meaningless regular season game be the thing you actually care about.
He also (literally) has a degenerative knee condition which is more important than everything else.
Retire then.
I wouldn’t retire. If one of the richest people in the world wants to throw bags of money at you, take it.
Va y he medically retire and still get paid? Is that a thing?
Not sure tbh.
People thought Pop was being dramatic when he said Kawhi wasn’t a leader
The man has a chronic knee condition..
If someone is willing to overlook that and drop piles of money on him, then that’s what it is..
He actually is though. Everything about his timeline adds up to him genuinely not caring. We used to and still do meme about how he was basically emotionless and non vocal in interviews. He got a ring. He got his bag. Even when he is healthy he rarely plays hard.
Dude showed who he was when he left an awesome stacked team in Toronto with a legit chance to repeat to go live in LA. Toronto is an awesome city and that team was really good. Lamest move in the last 20 years, even worse than KD. At least KD did it for a better bball situation.
Or he’s 34 with a degenerative knee issue
100% accurate. Dude literally bullied his way into the clippers and hasn’t done shit or given that defensive effort. One of the introverted leaderless superstars I’ve ever watched. Dude is trash
He’s having an insane offensive season but I guess at the cost of his elite defense. But yeah clippers need to blow it up but theres not much leeway.
He’s always only mildly cared.
Every day Lakers fans thank the basketball deities that they didn’t “win” the Kawhi sweepstakes, AD and an older Bron managed to win a ring and they still don’t even have a good playoff run to show for it.
Kawhi is Diddy of the NBA
It’s Kawhi what did you expect?
Same dude who sat games in San Antonio because his personal medical team told the team he can’t play.
And that was in his prime. Lol.
Fleeced a whole franchise out of a golden era lol
Legendary
Raptors really caught lightning in a bottle. Kawhi took the bag and ran
Toronto might be the only fanbase that still appreciates him at this point, and he was there against his will.
I definitely appreciate him but I don’t love him like i do for Kyle, Pascal and DeMar.
Hell he wasn’t even my favourite Raptor of that run from a sentimental perspective, for some weird reason it was OG Anunoby cause that was before his breakout.
Yeah OG was my fave in general (check my name) but I just feel so much more emotional attachment to almost everyone else. I was sad OG didn’t get to play at all during the playoffs
Do you think he’s ever getting his jersey retired with the Raptors or no?
i feel like that run was too legendary not to right? obv cant speak for all raptors fans but i know most of my raptors friends still love him
I mean I’ll tell you I still love Kawhi and his time here but I still don’t think it happens because we’ve already given away the number and while you could say we also gave away 15 to multiple players before we retired it for Vince, Kawhi still means less to the team than Vince did overall despite the pain he caused the fanbase with how he left. Being here 1 year makes him a beloved player for what we accomplished but still just isn’t enough
I don’t know. That Kawhi run was legendary. VC can still get fucked as far as I’m concerned.
Yeah I personally am ehh on the VC thing but I think it was a political move by the team and in his retirement he basically went out of his way to try and mend bridges. Kawhi kinda was like ok I’m out and never had wanted anything to do with the team again. Even if I don’t personally agree with the VC retirement I still think that’s where the difference lies
I think it’s likely getting retired, Kawhi is the best player in franchise history, he’s still well-liked by fans and left without burning bridges unlike the end of his Spurs tenure.
Even though he was only here for 1 season, he gave the team everything he had during that playoff run, despite being hurt with free agency looming, and led the franchise to it’s 1st and only Finals appearance and championship.
Nah, they already have given the number to numerous other players at this point. I think the players who haven’t had their # retired that will at this point are Kyle, DeMar, and Pascal. If he signed back it’s retired no question, even if it was a 3 year thing like KD on GSW. He had the greatest single season in franchise history but still him being here for only 1 year means he doesn’t mean as much to the team as others who stayed at least a little longer.
It’s all that positive karma we stored up off VC fking us over, and then CB4 leaving town (this was just a business move though). Too bad we couldn’t bring DeMar along for the ride.
Don’t forget about enduring Lebronto
Thanks for reminding me though. But in all seriousness it’s easier for me since I’ve always been a lebron fan.
And by lightning in a bottle I think you mean Alex McKechnie
Pat McCaw
He is now paying it back, through Clippers - OKC.
Spurs got the last laugh after a “lengthy” rebuild of 3 years.
As stated by others, he legit is the one of, if not the worst superstar player ever. soon as he got paid he didn’t give a fuck. The fact he had zero interest in going back to Toronto and just took $ instead lol
Aspiration check didn’t clear.
What a dogshit franchise
Oh yea not to mention their GM gave OKC the infinity stones
Remember how scared the league was when Kawhi and PG joined the clippers?
Lmao 😂
hindsight is 20⁄20 but it was a good roster. they just cant pick themselves up for whatever reason
Hindsight may be 20⁄20 but when they made the move, everyone’s criticism was that these guys are injury prone and they were injured half the time, so they never won.
Agreed. There were known risks, and it was a huge package to send to OKC, but all of those assets make perfect sense if you consider that trade for both PG & Kawhi, which it essentially was. That pairing, if healthy, would’ve been the best perimeter defensive duo in the league at a time before bigs regained their importance on offense.
Also, Kawhi wanted to play in LA, so if the Clippers didn’t get PG, Kawhi would have likely made his way to the Lakers. I still hated the move at the time, but I get it in the broader context. Losing Kawhi to the Lakers was unacceptable.
em no, prime LeBron+AD duo is definitely more impactful defensively than PG+Kawhi.
Good thing I wrote the word “perimeter” in my comment.
AD is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Whatever being a superstar who can’t be held accountable, demands illegal shit, is unreliable in his availability, and is a massive diva behind the scenes
Yeah the sooner clippers can get rid of kawhi, the sooner they can rebuild.
But kawhi is like this bc it is the same clippers enabling. So it is best for owner change again
For what? Ty Lue was the coach.
ESPN comparing Kawhi and PG to Jordan and Pippen on defense. A real segment they did.
lol @ 30-2 run.
Its crazy that Kawhi still has so much power in that organization despite everything he’s done to destroy it.
Feels like at this point at least some of the power could be of the blackmail variety
What made you Aspire to that conclusion?
Release the Leonard files!
He’s still a clippers fan favorite at this point too
You CP3 haters were right about CP3 in this aspect.
From the coaching staff to the “vet” players to the front office. This bum ass franchise doesnt wanna win, doesnt wanna listen and doesnt want to move out of their comfort zone. Never thought I would feel bad for clipper fans but holy shit, no fan base deserves this.
Never thought I would feel bad for clipper fans
Why? I feel nothing but bad for clippers fans. Like relative to lakers fans they tend to be more blue collar and chill they just keep getting fucked by circumstance and a bad front office.
I think I understand what you mean but in my experience in the city clippers fans are absolutely not more “blue collar” lol. I don’t know if you live in la and have a diff experience, but, that characterization is WILD to me
Yeah as a native, I knew exactly ONE Clipper fan that was dyed in the wool, born and raised.
Everyone else was a hater of one player on the team or another. Or hated the legacy of the Lakers, or the price of a ticket. Or anything like that.
Also, infinitely funny that whole “Streetlights Over Spotlights” campaign.
Yeah I didn’t grow up in LA and was just a temporary transplant in 15⁄16. But the few clips fans I actually met were transplants themselves, most often of the white hipster variety. So that made the “blue collar” thing in the above comment very funny to read, and totally out of whack w my experience in the city.
I’ve only met one Clippers fan in my life. What would you say is the general demographic of their fandom?
You’re better off asking someone who still lives there or grew up there. I was just a temp transplant during lob city era. But, in my experience, the only noticeable differences among the very few clippers fans I actually met was that they were more often transplants themselves, and very much NOT working class/blue collar. If you know what I mean!but yeah, maybe it’s different now…?
Upper middle class transplants and upper middle class people from Orange County who hate all things LA
There are too few Clippers fans in LA to say that there is a demographic that skews towards them in one way.
Based on my experience geographically many fans come from the San Fernando Valley (northwest suburbs of LA) and the San Gabriel Valley (suburbs east of DTLA). There’s also a decent amount in Orange County too.
During lob city and like 2020-2022 it was common to find more bandwagon fans but now every Clips fan I meet today has been a fan for awhile and is in constant distress
The Blue Collar thing is a total lie. The Lakers absolutely have more blue collar fans than the Clippers
The lakers have more of every type of fan
Seriously. Things were looking up for the Clips. They were winning the series against the Lakers. They were always in the playoff mix, and some people even thought they could get a title. By all accounts, Steve Ballmer seemed to be a model owner: a deep-pocketed fan willing to write big checks and put his money where his mouth is. Ty Lue was respected for his ability to get the most out of his teams. They swung for the fences with Kawhi and PG. For the first time, the Clippers were a real alternative to the Lakers, and they had a legacy with Lob City that they could look back on and build off of. A new fan could feel pretty good about choosing the Clippers instead of the Lakers.
And now they’re watching it all melt down before their eyes.
It was always media bias and fans wanting them to win over the Lakers. But, reality is the Clippers tend to lose focus in the playoffs. They’re great at overachieving when they have roster limitations. They’re good at underachieving when they don’t. Ty Lue is the guy to have every adjustment figured out after losing 3 games in a series. Ballmer is the guy to make salary-saving decisions at the deadline without getting any criticism like any other owner doing the same. Even now, you hear from the media how the Clippers front office is so good. That just isn’t true. Hitching your franchise to an uncommitted star and making illegal actions to get him is why they’re here now.
Clippers and Lakers have never met in the playoffs. Winning regular season meetings doesn’t mean much without the playoff success. Their biggest achievement is making the Western Conference Finals - something a flawed Lakers team also achieved by trading away Russell Westbrook. They lost their “streetlights over spotlights” identity the moment they traded away Shai for PG to sign Kawhi.
Does CP have any run left in him? I didn’t watch any of their games.
I think he still has a role as a 10 MPG guy that does what this video describes. Suggest certain adjustments and help manage the floor. Essentially an assistant coach that plays occasional to make a few passes.
Exactly. His body can’t keep up with his brain anymore. His mind is still one of the best in the league. If you have that making decisions and directing motion on the court, you have a winning situation. The problem is egos getting in the way.
We may need someone like him to reign Suggs in. He’d be like Tyus Jones but respected and old. Can’t be much worse.
Wait what’s that about (unironic) Grizz great Tyus? I’m going to start paying attn to y’all soon I promise but it’s not going well with him so far?
There’s 14 roster spots. Having CP3 even if he doesn’t play is more valuable than some Gleague level player. And it’s a nice gesture to give him a nice send off.
I would not hate having him. I would. But I wouldn’t
He would be great for young teams or those who have the grit and mentality to win. Knicks would benefit from having CP3. Miami would be a great place for CP3 and any of these hungry teams.
He’s essentially Lowry 2.0, for what he still can do for a team
Legitimately, I think he’s got a home on the raptors, of all places.
Brandon Ingram LIKES it when Darko yells at them, young team with some guys who can learn from him.
Give him 15-20minutes a game, and the best spot on the bench.
Lmao none of these guys voluntarily go to Canada
Would love this since can especially mentor IQ and Shead.
20 mins for cp3 would be hilariously bad lol
We’re pretty deep on the wings and guards and we’d rather continue using minutes to develop them or at least increase their value in a trade.
Ochai is expendable and expiring so maybe we could do something with his contract
You think Chris Paul should be the raptors 6man? lol
He should just ride the bench and play 8-10 minutes half of the games. Shead is their back-up PG, and CP3 could really help him and Quickley become better guards
No I agree but OP said 20 minutes which would be the most MPG off the bench for the Raptors, there’s a big difference.
Ok ok, my mistake…..20 minute MAXIMUM seemed reasonable.
He hurts the defence, but he’s still something.
Not the 6th man bruh, like the 11th man who is a big locker room and coverage guy. Cp3 still has a good basketball iq even if his body has worn down
20 minutes a game would lead the raptors bench bud, highest right now is Mamu at 19.6
then let him play less than 20 minutes bruh
Him playing 20 minutes was OPs idea, not mine lol
Would love if the lakers picked him up
Bring it full circle — David Stern isn’t around to nix it this time
I think it would be great to have him on as an assistant coach to mentor, but I don’t know who Lakers would drop for him.
Not really, he’s got 32 % FG, 33% 3s, 50% FTs. 0 win shares… negative win shares per 48 min. And a bunch of other negative summary advanced stats.
Even in this video of Chris Paul pointing the finger at Kawhi you keep seeing Chris Paul falter himself.
You also see Paul make a nice move to get a bucket, put the defensive pressure on CLE to get them to stop rolling the ball, take on Garland for a possession, and give Leonard a talk to have him stop the ball rolling next time.
Those are all things Paul did while the same video showed Leonard not taking defensive assignment, slacking off with his on-ball pressure, and leaving his man open for a 3 on defense. He’s on a low-cost contract to be on the court for 10-15 minutes/game. He’s not really doing worse than, say, Mike Conley on Minnesota has with more on-court time each game.
Im sure we can cherry pick a kawhi highlights video.
Im just saying its ironic and hypocrit for Chris Paul to be pointing fingers during these sequences while he himself is fucking up during the same possessions. Extra ironic. its been established Chris is a giant asshole. And being a giant ivory tower self righteous asshole ppinting fingers and locker room lawyering doesn’t fly when Mr. Accountability is fucking up so much himself. Not to long time accomplished veterans on the oldest team in the NBA.
“OH but the Clips knew who CP3 was!” Yeah and they addressed it directly with him multiple times including before his contract, made it clear they want him to just chill and enjoy the favor they did for him. A lawyer will say the right things in the moment to get that contract tho….
CP3 also knew Clippers, knew the coaching staff, knew the players. In particular Kawhi and James Harden.
On a team that gives a shit and wants its players to, absolutely. Even in this video, you see him have some impact against CLE’s starters, on offense and defense. The video has its bias, but it also shows Paul’s awareness and effort in the game are there for himself AND for his team.
If there’s a team that wants Paul to come in and make sure players are putting in effort and paying attention, he can find a home. He might not want to do that on a team that isn’t competing or pulling its weight organizationally (like WAS or CHA), but he could go into most playoff locker rooms and have purpose.
He’s not our answer brother
Kawhi tired from his second job planting trees
Clippers are a fking joke it’s so funny 😂😂
Always has been.
When I was a kid, I went to a lakers-clippers game and the clippers scored 19 in the first half. I really thought the Clippers were in some league below the nba meant for real nba teams to beat up on.
Edit - found the box score https://www.espn.com/nba/game/_/gameId/191214013/clippers-lakers
Feels like half of it is CP3s personality and age,
And the other half of it is Kawhi being a diva and him and the rest of them not wanting to be held accountable
Kawhi has rings, the bag and no drive. Doesn’t want to hear someone chirping while on his staycation.
A young hungry team should grab cp3 just for his leadership.
We did. But he wanted to go home and retire Pretty sure everyone on the team leveled up because of CP3
CP3 back to the Thunder would be pretty funny
This.
Certainly some, but it’s dumb to sign CP3 at 40 years old and be surprised at the result. He was always going to fall off a cliff, and he’s been something of an irritant as a personality for most of his career, if not all of it.
But most of what we’ve seen/heard with him doesn’t seem bad. Calling out Kawhi for his effort in this video is fair, and it’s not like he’s being psychotic or slacking off himself–he takes on guarding Garland after a bad defensive play, then responds to the Cavs’ ball rolling by coming into the backcourt himself. The post about his pointing out Kawhi’s defensive impact on Klay seems grounded in reality, based on Kawhi’s advanced stats.
There’s probably more behind the scenes, but given the results the Clippers have shown this season, it’s hard to blame him. They’ve been one of the worst teams in the league. Where people might fairly say that veterans don’t think they need Chris Paul’s harping on them, veterans should haven’t such poor cohesion or effort as some of these games and clips and stories have shown. Paul might have his own problems, but a lot of this just seems like the org is mad that the asshole is right, and would rather kick him out than fix it.
Took a while, but finally, everyone is on the “fuck kawhi” train that Spurs fans have been conducting for years now.
Kawhi was my fave player when he won the chip in SA. I despise him now and it started going downhill when he was fucking Pop of all people around
Uncle Dennis made the call
ballmer thought he could buy a chip, CP3 stays goated
It’s pretty obvious that the clippers are catering to kawhi in every way. Probably because he holds a lot of leverage over them in this aspiration investigation…
The ball-rolling clip was bad, but it annoys me when videos are trying to push a point and even their cherry-picked clips don’t match what they’re saying, like at 0:33 that is not an “easy” shot by Mitchell. And then toward the end, implying that Bam grabbing a long rebound over Harden is a sign of a lack of defensive effort.
implying that Bam grabbing a long rebound over Harden is a sign of a lack of defensive effort
He said before the clip that the team has struggled with grabbing rebounds. You then see 2 clips where the team is batting the ball on rebound attempt, not securing the rebound, and losing possession for it. He said Harden was too slow to get it. Even then, look at how that unfolded.
Bam didn’t grab a long rebound over Harden on the first play. Bam was pushed out of the play by Zubac. The tipped ball was near Harden. Bam was much further from the play. Harden took a half-step back when the tip happened. Bam proceeds to run to the ball, while Harden takes a waist-high swipe towards it. The ball wasn’t in the air, out of Harden’s reach or anything. It was near him, and he didn’t put that much effort into securing it, while Bam recovered from the box out and ran to the ball, recovering it from leg-height, despite the fact Harden started closer and had much better positioning.
The last one’s not that bad, but the second clip, where Bam fights his way into a rebound Harden could have easily secured, is definitely an effort issue. In the context of how egregious the first one was, and how the second one wasn’t a good effort, the third is really just leaning into a pattern of poor effort by this team on rebound attempts.
One player cares about winning and the other cares about money . Fuck the clippers for being a classless organization and fuck them for gifting the thunder a potential dynasty. All my homies hate the clippers
This is like 90% of the NBA defense today. lol.
Clippers fans need to wear bags on their heads. What a fucking disaster
If you on The Wall you need your IQ checked.
Kawhi should just retire. He should be suspended a year minimum for that aspiration/free agency bs but Silver would rather watch the NBA burn than upset the richest team owner (by far).
After aspiration, why should Kawhi have to “play defense” or “move” for his millions. He and his uncle are beyond this now…
I can see how toxic Chris Paul is here like some of Clippers apologist here are saying. He wants to win, cant blame him. They have talent, his teammates doesnt care though, they are getting paid. The coaches doesn’t care as well.
Wish we could get him on OKC
Why? And disrupt your team chemistry. F no
I love Jimmy and Kawhi and they’ve been legendary In the postseason but their lackadaisical approach to every regular season would irk my after all-especially if a certain level of intensity and play was needed
Enlightening to see a video about Chris Paul being bothered about Kawhi defense while simultaneously making a bunch of his own mistakes.
In what world is that second play bad defense? I despise when an analysis equates a good shot being made to bad defense.
This screams to me as a coaching problem. They need to fire the entire coaching staff and start over.
He has been living 9f his defensive reputation since he went to raptors, once his scoring went up to around 30 i swear his defense dropped significantly yet everyone called hik the best 2 way player for years
Thats true for basically any 2 way guy ever, Kobe stopped being a good defender in 2002 and still got 10 ALL D selections after that. MJ’s defensive activity slowed down in 1990 and people still viewed him as a ALL D 1st team player.
When people know you’ve still got it in the tank and just have to hit the switch when you want to then you get lots of…leeway, let’s say.
CP3 can’t help but be himself
Kawhi should just retire. Sick of seeing his sorry ass
They cancelled kawhis no show Aspiration job, so now Ballmer is telling the coaches to give him a no show nba job
At 1:53 you can see JVG pointing at the ball presumably telling Kawhi to pressure the ball to force Garland to pick it up, and Kawhi just waves him off dismissively.
If only the Cavs played against the Clippers all year. Might reach 68 wins
Clippers are just trash.
Kawhi used to be known as “The Claw” for this defensive prowess.
Now we can just call him “The Traffic Cone”…
I hate your voice. Sorry.
Those muscles!
Board man gets mad
CP3 really tryna win and have an effort first mentality and the Clips said nah, we’ll stick to our losing ways like we always have, gtfo
Coach Paul pls
Kawhi just wants to get paid and not have to work for the money. Toronto was the last year he put in effort, everything since has been rest, Aspiration corruption, injury, and just general disconnection.
Literally untradeable and a total negative on whatever team ends up with his contract.
Kawgi doesn’t get nearly enough hate
Chris Paul was ass 😂
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Nope, he fits right in over there.
Ofc now you bums will villainize Kawhi
For those that may be more recent fans, CP has always had a reputation of having an abrasive communication style throughout his career.
There are countless clips of teammates clearly being exhausted by his berating them, and every ex-teammate who has spoken about him acknowledges this.
It’s easy to say “it’s just about winning, dudes can’t handle being held accountable, Jordan was an asshole too, etc”…
But it’s not all the same. CP is the last guy on the bench, their 2 stars are soft-spoken and moody, and he was also clearly contradicting the coaching staff…
…all with his trademark gruff, in your face, confrontational style.
We have no problem slandering old coaches who “lose a team” and have to be replaced, but somehow fans want to give CP the benefit of the doubt despite the fact that he has no authority on this team.
Is an unpopular take, but imo it’s pretty obvious he just couldn’t adapt his communication style to this team and his low-man-on-the-totem-pole status on it.
He doesn’t have championships under his belt, and only a single finals appearance. Lue and Kawhi have him beat in every department, and Harden has been a scoring champ and an MVP.
It’s not hard to see how he could’ve been a net negative presence on this team.
Pro Life Tip: If you want to be heard, you have to read the room and adapt. It doesn’t only matter that “you’re right”. If you can’t communicate in a way that people can hear, it won’t matter.
I agree to an extent about ineffective communication, but it doesn’t seem like anyone else on the team is doing anything to rectify those clear problems.
Blake Griffin had mentioned they didn’t always see eye to eye, but respected his input, and SGA has only spoken highly about learning from CP3.
I suppose it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other regarding your points. Chris Paul is a great basketball mind and with Griffin’s Lob City was still the Point God and a serviceable player. Before that, with SGA, he was a veteran instructing a young player.
Now that his best years are behind him he doesn’t have that same cache, and the other two players are seasoned vets as well.
But that doesn’t change that there is clearly an issue with the Clippers, and the other two vets aren’t doing much from a leadership standpoint. Harden isn’t going to get on guys about defense, and whether it’s injury or not Kawhi is barely there.
Where do they go from here to improve in any way?
Adapt? The point god?
You may as well speak Greek because Chris doesn’t understand that language of adapt.
You gotta do it his way, otherwise you’re doing it wrong.
He has had an NBA lifetime of being abrasive with others. And finally, he is being held to account.
Too bad he didn’t learn the basic life lesson of getting along with teammates sooner.
If he made an effort to learn it, he wouldn’t be sitting at home…
all fhese insulting words cuz cp said get up.
People want to hop on a narrative