The Los Angeles Clippers recently made a blockbuster trade with the Philadelphia 76ers to acquire superstar guard James Harden, with the plan to have four star players on the roster and make a run at what would be the franchise’s first NBA title.
So far, things haven’t gone as planned for the Clippers, with the team actually looking worse with Harden in the fold rather than massively improved as one would expect after adding another former NBA MVP into the mix in Los Angeles.
Even though it was incredibly tempting for billionaire Steve Ballmer to go all in with Harden, the fact of the matter is that sometimes these superstar pairings don’t work because there’s not enough ball to go around.
Four games into the Harden experiment, the Clippers front office might be regretting the move to bring in the often disgruntled star, with the team losing all four games thus far and today’s loss to the lowly Memphis Grizzlies arguably being the worst of them all.
The loss to the Grizzlies was so bad, in fact, that Kawhi Leonard, of all people, expressed his frustration, according to Clippers reporter Justin Russo via Legion Hoops.
Kawhi Leonard was reportedly seen “growing increasingly frustrated” today and “took a while to come back to the bench” following a timeout.
(via @FlyByKnite) pic.twitter.com/QVUViI7fDI
— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) November 12, 2023
Obviously, it is very early in the process for the Clippers to panic about the move they made to become a legitimate title contender in the Western Conference, as it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the narrative changes in a week or a month from now.
Even though some star-studded teams don’t ever figure it out, there are some that do and never look back.
