So, not much is going on in the NBA right now. The only thing that people are talking about on Twitter is the NBA player’s 2K tournament which… is not the kind of content I crave. With the 2020 NBA season in limbo, it’s also rather difficult to focus on recent events, or think about who might win the championship this year. Erik’s recent articles on the modern Clippers over the past week have instead pushed me to think more about the past. Specifically, I can’t help but think about the Lob City era and the last time the Clippers were contenders. That look backwards together with some of the highlight mixes popping up on Twitter for random players has inspired in me a desire to rank every Clippers player of the 2010s. All 117 of them.
However, before we get things under way, there are a few ground rules. First, this list includes only players that were on the Clippers from the 2009 – 2010 season until the 2018 – 2019 season. That is, by definition, the “2010s decade”, and seemed most accurate to the goal. Also, ranking this year’s players would be extremely difficult due to the incomplete nature of the season, so it all works out.
Second, the list only focuses on the seasons that the players had in that decade. Therefore, Lamar Odom doesn’t get ranked higher for his Lob City year because of his stint with the Clippers in the early 2000s, and Ivica Zubac doesn’t get a boost due to his increased role and improved play this season. The rankings are based on how these players impacted the Clippers in this set time frame, no more or less.
Third, the rankings are somewhat different than “best player”. Ultimately, the rankings are a mix of quality of performance, duration of time on the team, subjective stuff like being a fan favorite, and how much they really impacted the team. Expectations and role on the team, too, will play a part. In other words, someone who was great for one season might be ranked below someone who had a lesser impact but played significantly more games. On the other hand, players who might have had short stints but were so disastrous in their play that they’ve been reviled ever since will be ranked below virtual non-entities. Even if they were “better players”, they left a more negative impact due to their higher volume of minutes.
Some of the descriptions of the players will be short. Man will be long. Some will be more stat-heavy, others will try to capture the player is a more narrative element. I’m still not sure of the order in its entirety, nor even in what groupings I will release the player rankings. However, I am sure that I will have a lot of fun doing this, and I hope you all have fun too!
Without further ado, the first player rankings will be coming out some time this week, and will cover “The Villains” of the 2010s for the Clippers, the players that to this day make fans gnash their teeth and claw at their hair and piteously moan on random occasions into the wee hours of the morning. I can’t wait.
