A reporter lobbed a question the way of Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers regarding Lou Williams, the veteran scoring guard who this week made it 3-for-3 in Clippers training camps in Honolulu.
No small feat, that, in today’s rapid-fire roster overhauls spanning the NBA.
“It is interesting, when you think about it. He hasn’t been here but a couple years, and he’s the old vet,” Rivers said.
The Clippers, who bid current and future assets goodbye to acquire superstars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George this summer, are expected to sit the two superstars in this week’s games. Today they take on the Houston Rockets — themselves contributors to the league-wide trend of megadeals this summer — at the Stan Sheriff Center.
Leonard stunned the league by leading the Raptors to their first NBA title in June. Then he did it again by signing with the Clippers in July and bringing George along for the ride, shifting the landscape of the Western Conference.
The Clippers’ identity as an all-for-one squad that succeeded with good, but not great, NBA players was changed in an instant. But Rivers intends to keep a firm grasp on the grit that defined that group, and the one before it, even as personnel changed drastically each time the Clippers visited Hawaii.
“It’s building. I think we started the identity when we got here (in 2017), making that case,” said Rivers, who has coached the Clippers since 2013. “And we’ve grown from there. You know, I think we won’t change much from last year about who we are. We just have more players to do what we do.
“But they’ll tell you, I don’t think I’ve ever said, ‘Hey, this is your identity.’ I think the team tells you eventually and then you’ll know who they are.”
When the Clippers arrived for camp at this time last year, they were just discovering that collective persona with players like stretch big man Danilo Gallinari, defensive-minded guard Patrick Beverley and second-unit studs like Williams and Montrezl Harrell.
The year before, when they arrived in Honolulu for the franchise’s first camp here, they had stars, if not superstars, in Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, holdovers from the Lob City era.
George, an All-NBA player last year with the Oklahoma City Thunder who demanded a trade this summer, could draw on only one comparison from his childhood for the kind of movement that is standard around the league today.
“For me, what was big was when GP (Gary Payton) and Karl Malone came to the Lakers (late in their careers),” George said. “That was big for us as Californians. But outside of that, you didn’t really see it too often.”
You do now.
