But I’m guessing he’ll be back this season, since typically MLB players are the ones who need Tommy John Surgery for this injury, and the other NBA guys who had this injury were able to recover semi-quickly. But even if he’s ready to come back in say late February, if the Clips are still floundering, he might only be available for a few games before the team shuts him down again.

Also, I’m not holding my breath for the trade deadline, because I don’t think any of our assets are particularly appealing – like sure, we could probably get a couple of late 1sts if we sent off a couple of MM, Zu, Bledsoe, and Luke, but I don’t really see what the point of that would be, since next year’s draft doesn’t look very strong, and I doubt that cap space will be very useful this summer (don’t think Lavine or Harden leave their teams) – it just feels like we’re stuck in a holding pattern w/o our stars. The worst possible thing I think the FO could do is get desperate and do a John Wall trade, but I can’t believe they’d do something like that.

Anyways, just gotta keep on keeping on I guess. Buckle up fellow Clips fans, the ride’s gonna continue to be a bumpy one.

1. Elton Brand achilles tear, recovering and leaving as a free agent, and leaving us with a fat Baron Davis.
2. Clippers thrilling Game 7 Playoff win against Spurs, followed by several collapses against the Rockets when CP3 got injured (again), and Blake and the other players couldn’t hit a big shot if their life depended on it.
3. Clippers blowing a 3-1 lead against Denver two years ago. Those losses still haunt me.

After all that, I remember that sports are for fun.

But I’ve been watching the roster as it’s morphed from Lob City to whatever we end up calling this period, and I’m going to give you my opinion as a relatively basketball-unsavvy fan.

Keep:

• Kawhi and PG. Without the two of them, we will not win a championshop anytime soon.
• Batum, because he’s (as everyone keeps pointing out) the ultimate glue guy.
• Hart, because I think we’ve only scratched the surface on how good he can be, and because he’s fun to watch.
• TMann and Coffey, because they’ve both shown they can learn and grow as players, and they seem to fit the Clippers gestalt. (Though I’m a little concerned, as are others, that Terance maybe hasn’t shown the improvement we all wanted this year.)

Lose if the right scenario comes up:

• Zu. Again, I don’t know much about basketball, but there are simply too many times when he’s just kind of there, and he doesn’t seem like a champion’s center. Plus I think Hartenstein’s better than he is. (If Zu would be okay with being sent to the bench again, I’m okay with him as a backup.)
• Reggie. I mean, I love the guy and he’s done a lot for the team, and I’m not eager to see him go, but unless he stays around as an elder presence to help the youngsters, I think his value goes down pretty quickly over the next couple of years.
• Bledsoe. If he were to play consistently at the level we’ve seen in a few games, he’d be a keeper.
• Ibaka. Meh.
• Morris. I appreciate his value, especially with the Big Two out. If he were to continue to play like he did in that streak of 24ish-point games, I’d be happy to keep him. But, to my untrained eye (and that’s the last time I’ll mention how little I know about basketball), he has too many cold games.
• Winslow. Another meh.

That leaves:

• Kennard. I like the idea of having a deadeye shooter on the team. There are just too many games where he disappears. Jury’s still out.
• The three rookies and Scrubb. I’d like to see them all develop with the Clippers, but none seem impressive enough (yet!) to want to definitely keep them. (Boston is tantalizing but I need to see more.)

I think that’s everyone (less the remaining hardship guys). No basketball players were harmed in the making of this post.