The Los Angeles Clippers are nobody’s favourite team these days, even Clippers fans. Amidst the fallout from the Aspiration Scandal’s conclusion, the Clips have been stripped of their picks, their leadership, and are potentially about to relinquish their best player to the Raptors.
All in all, it’s been a pretty bad couple of days for LA’s other team.
It seems that the Clippers are just doubling down on bad decisions connected to the Raptors, as they have just stripped away an honour from arguably
their greatest player of all time, Chris Paul. Today, it became known that his jersey number, 3, will be worn by Bradley Beal in upcoming campaign, only one season after he retired from playing basketball after being traded to the Toronto Raptors. Bleacher Report confirmed this on social media, noting that the franchise had committed to retiring Paul’s jersey after the end of his time with the team.
Now, I think this is an awful move for a number of reasons. Opinions of Paul varied throughout the league and the fanbase, but the man’s basketball and leadership abilities were something never in question throughout his storied career. His time with the LA Clippers is something I attribute to first getting me interested in the sport of basketball. Those Lob City teams are among my favourite non-Raptors squads of all time, and what Paul did for Los Angeles in the mid-2010s is something that should be praised by the franchise, rather than buried.
With the Clippers facing down the barrel of a potentially long period of uncompetitiveness, retiring Paul’s jersey would be an easy win for the upcoming year in which wins might be few and far betwee, giving the fans something to rally around. But instead, the Clippers seem hell-bent on continuing to burn bridges rather than build them up, in a period of time where they seem to need support the most.
Of course, while disappointing, this is not shocking behaviour. While the Raptors have for years had some difficulties with the Clippers surrounding bids for Kawhi Leonard from all parties involved, this most recent move to push away Chris Paul just shows how much disdain the Clippers have for Raptors greats. I saw Paul as someone with great potential to mentor our young guards, and to this day, I see it as a missed opportunity that the he and this franchise couldn’t come to an agreement putting him in a basketball role for the team. Paul is coming off a shockingly rocky last season in the league, where he was unceremoniously dropped from involvement with the team, a move that he recently called “one of the most disrespectful things that I’ve endured.”
This came in the wake of a level of dysfunction that was punctuated by acomment from ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne, who noted that Chris Paul attempted to step into a leadership role by offering to host players at his home, and exercise together. Most publicly, Paul was reported to have thrown a Halloween party that only three teammates — known to include Ivica Zubac and Bradley Beal — attended.
Wow.
So, Chris: I can’t have promised you a ring on the Raptors, but I will assure you’d Toronto would have treated you a hell of a lot better than this, and at the bare minimum, have come out to your party. I might have even bought myself a Chris Paul number 3 jersey in the red and black. I guess that can’t happen anymore, though.
Thanks, Clippers. We really appreciate it.
