If the Los Angeles Clippers fall to the Utah Jazz in the first round, it’s reasonable to expect the franchise to undergo some change.
Those modifications just won’t be coming at the executive level.
According to Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical, Doc Rivers and company are going to stay put:
If the Clippers can’t come back against the Jazz, it is extremely unlikely there will be management upheaval. What there will be is this: an orderly, exhaustive process on the next steps, because these are complicated crossroads.
For one thing, Rivers isn’t leaving the Clippers. He’s owed $22 million-plus over the next two years, and he has the confidence of Ballmer. The Clippers didn’t promote Lawrence Frank to executive vice president of basketball operations, give him a long-term deal, only to tear apart the management structure months later. Ballmer, Rivers and Frank have worked to build out the front office and scouting department, and examine the processes of what they all agreed was the most important summer in franchise history.
Truth told, there likely won’t be much turnover on the roster, either. Luc Mbah a Moute might price himself out of Hollywood, but the Clippers can offer whatever it takes to re-sign J.J. Redick, Chris Paul and Blake Griffin—and they’re likely to do just that.
Indeed, there is risk in perpetuating a status quo that, through both misfortune and shortfall, has proved to be not good enough. But the Clippers have no viable alternatives. They don’t have the cap flexibility to pay other players unless they renounce everyone, and letting two top-20 players, in Paul and Griffin, walk for nothing is deemed taboo.
If Griffin and/or Paul decide to window shop in free agency and sign elsewhere, that’s one thing. But it would be flooring to see the Clippers break up the band by their own hand. Any teardown is likely to come later on, via trades that allow them to capitalize on exits, if they come at all.
