Bradley Beal Joins Clippers: Are They Contenders Now?

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00:00Bradley Beal is now a Los Angeles Clipper joining Kawhi Leonard and James Harden and

00:05Avica Zubats under head coach Tyron Liu. Does it mean that the LA Clippers, the RS, are a true

00:11contender in the Western Conference? The win total for LA this year is 49 and a half. Can they go

00:18over that? Sure. They've had 50 plus wins each of the past two years. They were the five seed in

00:24the Western Conference this previous season. The four seed with home floor advantage in the

00:29opening round of the playoffs in 2023-24. But can they put a scare, a fright into the 10-1 number

00:36to win the West? The 17-1 number to win an NBA championship? I would say no. In the five years

00:43currently under Tyron Liu, the LA Clippers have made the postseason four of those five years.

00:50First year, hot like a rocket. They made the Western Conference finals, but still came up

00:56short of the NBA finals. The Clippers, as a franchise, the RS, have never reached the NBA

01:00championship series. The last three years in a row, a first-round exit for Kawhi, Harden, and Ty

01:08Liu in LA. Are they a playoff team? Yeah. Might they even see the second round? Okay. Are they going

01:16to have any time there is value on that 10-1 number to win the West? Right here, right now,

01:21I would say not so much. Yeah, they're all in their mid-30s, right? The primetime players that

01:26you're talking about once they sort of like, you know, hit their birthdays, which are coming up

01:30before the season. Harden, Beal, and Leonard were talking about. So here's what we say. If you're a

01:34veteran-laden team, the goal is not actually the regular season, Ben. It's getting your veteran-laden

01:39team healthy and still being energized by the time you get to the playoffs. So I see that 49-1.5,

01:44my first inclination is to bet the under, because I don't think that shows a successful season

01:48if they got 54 wins. A successful season to me is they're in the playoffs and you still have

01:53Harden, Beal, and Leonard that are not under duress of playing 79 games apiece here and are out of gas

01:59and or injured at the end of the season. So if they want to make a run at the conference

02:03championship, at the NBA championship here, I think it's in their best interest to actually go

02:08under the 49.5, which means you gave ample rest to Harden, Beal, and Leonard in hopes that they're

02:13healthy by the time you get to the playoffs. Because typically we talk about the Clippers making a

02:18playoff run without their superstars. That's a tough Western conference to begin with, and you

02:23don't win a championship in the regular season. You don't win a championship because you fought

02:27for the three seed and wound up maybe with the six seed here because you overplayed your players.

02:32Just get to the playoffs and get healthy. So for me, I look at the 49.5 and say,

02:36I want the Clippers to be below that because that means we rested our starters accordingly,

02:41hoping that they would be healthy for that run in the playoffs.