So, yes, he has been wildly inconsistent, rarely “himself” and more bad games than good games. But maybe one of the advantages of keeping track of nightly grades all year is to see a guy’s progression:

First 5: A- C- F A- A-
Second 5: D- C D D- F
Last 3: C+ B+ B

So, aside from the Dallas game, we can see that Zu got off to a normal start to the season. He played like himself opening night against the Lakers, had foul trouble iirc against Denver, took his share of the blame for the blowout to Dallas and his share of the credit for the blowout wins over Minny and Portland.

Then he fell into a severe 5-game rut, but the new rotations in the last 3 games have made his job a lot easier so he’s been more solid (not great, but solid) and rebuilding confidence in the last few.

None of that is to undersell how bad he was in those 5 games, or even the fact that in this Kings win he had ugly moments alongside his bright moments (as reflected in this post and his B grade), but I think I’m a little less worried about Zu’s season outlook than most other folks are at this point.

For Zu’s sake, I hope he just sucks (because sadly he does right now) and it’s not a major re-occuring health problem.

At the end of the day, they paid above market to avoid the 10% chance that someone swooped in with a massive offer after striking out and they lost a player they traded a lot for for nothing. Remember when we traded a 1st for Jeff Green and then lost him on the opening night of free agency because a random lottery team with cap room–Orlando–came in and offered him a 1-year, $15M deal as a stopgap?

What if some team had called Luke on the opening night of FA and offered him a 2/50 deal with a team option for the second year? You can say it’s outrageous and it would be but remember that JJ got 1/23 in Philly and Jabari Parker got 2/40 with a team option from Chicago. Then the Clippers would have risked trading Shamet, who still had another year left on his rookie deal, for a guy they lost after just one season. And as a deep-in-the-tax team, they’d have no avenue to replace that production. The worst-case scenario if they were cheap w/ extending Kennard was pretty steep. The worst-case scenario of “overpaying” him–if the deal is indeed an overpay, and let’s remember that we’re 13 games into 5 years of Luke–is that if Kawhi leaves our cap sheet is fucked (it is anyway because we have no picks, PG, and Morris), in which case our whole team would be fucked anyway. And if Kawhi stays, the Clippers are already never going to have cap room again so it’s way more about contracts being tradable than being “good” or “bad” value for that player’s on court production. Luke’s team option makes him that “double expiring” which is helpful in that regard.

There’s just no excuse to not at least put his hands up – it’s not like he was guarding James Harden who would rip through his arms to draw a foul.

There are plenty of reasons the Clips would want to lock him up now. You can disagree w/ those reasons, but don’t pretend that there *aren’t* any reasons for re-signing him early.