The Clippers Are Circling The Toilet

As a close observer of an NBA franchise that has spent the past few decades in various states of putrefaction, an exercise I like to undertake from time to time is to consider which of the 30 NBA teams faces the bleakest medium-term future. This excludes most teams presently in the thick of the playoff race, because maintaining such a position is easier than attaining it. It also excludes most of the teams currently populating the depths of the standings, who have youthful talent and/or future draft picks with which to make their way out of fallow periods. Before the current season began, one may have thought the Phoenix Suns—who finished 11th in the West last season and do not control their first-round pick until the end of the next presidential administration—were the answer, but they have turned out to be super feisty. No, despite serious competition, the league's worst future outlook belongs to the Los Angeles Clippers.

The Clippers are 5-15 on the season, having just wrapped up a 2-13 month that a Clips beat writer argued could be one of the worst in the history of one of the NBA's losingest franchises. Given the unmitigated bleakness of the pre–Chris Paul era, and the fact that the Clippers nearly knocked off the second-best team in the NBA in a killer seven-game playoff series like six months ago, that might seem almost impossible to believe. It's also totally fair.