The Clippers like how things are running right now — after decades of being a league punch line they have become one of the league’s up-and-coming teams. The entire culture of the locker room has changed. They like the power structure in place. They are winning and selling out the building.
When things are going better than ever, you don’t make changes. Then general manager Neil Olshey bolted for Portland (just because they offered a massive pay increase). That’s a big change.
So in their new search for a GM, it shouldn’t be a shock the Clippers may stick in house. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports tweeted this on Wednesday.
It makes a lot of sense. With the Clippers team president Andy Roeser is still the cap guy who negotiates deals anyway. Donald Sterling likes Vinny Del Negro. It’s working, so they don’t want to bring in an outsider (who would want to change things), they don’t want to upset the apple cart.
But there are big questions for the Clippers in the next year. It starts with can they do enough to keep Chris Paul? This is his team now, not Blake Griffin’s, and with him they are potential future contenders. Without him they are middle of the road.
The next big question is can Vinny Del Negro really coach this team up to the next level? We know what Bulls fans are saying. But to the Clippers they were a playoff team and won their first round series — they have gotten that far just one other time since the USA’s bicentennial. This was a good year, you don’t make changes after that. In the end, the Del Negro question ties back into the first question above about CP3 — it’s harder to find superstars than coaches.
Or, you can sum up the questions this way: Can Donald Sterling not screw it up? He hasn’t so far, so to keep doing what they are doing makes sense.