end of the road, and Doc and this Clippers organization,
they revitalized me.”
The team’s win total dropped from 51 to 42 in 2018 (Bev-
erley suffered a season-ending knee injury in November), but
the arrival of the Paul Haul “helped set the tone culturally,”
Ballmer says. The team began wearing its black uniforms
more regularly, for one thing, establishing its own brand
of L.A. noir. Moreover, the toughness of Beverley, Harrell
and Williams guaranteed that a team that went this hard
could never be embarrassed on the floor, no matter how
outmatched they were. Their influence reached throughoutthe organization. “We were willing to invest long term,”
says Ballmer. “We were willing to grind, and we were will-
ing to be bold.
“Owners don’t necessarily propose bold moves,” he con-
tinued, “but nobody’s gonna trade Blake Griffin without
saying, ‘Hey Steve, let’s at least talk about it in advance.’ ”
Seven months after dealing Paul, the Clippers sent Grif-
fin, their leading scorer and the most identifiable player
in franchise history, to the Pistons, in a deal that, like the
Leonard-George pact, was finalized in the wee hours.
They weren’t tanking—Ballmer insisted the team remain
competitive—but for the second straight season they had jet-
tisoned their most expensive player, in this case for a package
highlighted by Tobias Harris and a draft pick they flipped into
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. “We were betting on our future,” says
Winger, the GM. “We were betting on our ability to position
ourselves in two or three years to open that window. But it
was all hypothetical then, it was all just theory.”muscular 6' 8", has been known to post up overconfident
young Clippers after practice. Frank had never met any of
them before interviewing them. “It’s not like he brought his
buddies in,” says one NBA executive. “He wanted the best
fits, and no drama.”
They all work for the players, and for Steve Ballmer, the
wealthiest owner in the NBA (by a wide margin) and the
19th wealthiest person in the world. The energetic former
Microsoft tycoon, who once had surgery on his vocal cords
due to his overshouting, is defined by his intellect, creativity
and willingness to try anything once. In that spirit, Ballmer
last year conspired with Frank to hire Lee Jenkins,
author of dozens of thoughtful NBA profiles for this
magazine, as the team’s executive director of research
and identity, a funky title that asks him to contrib-
ute to roster strategy and make every aspect of the
franchise attractive to future players. Jenkins likes to
point out that meetings at Clippers HQ often include
“a dunk champion [Dee Brown, VP of integrated
development and evaluation] and a rocket scientist
[director of research and analytics Gregory Peim, a
Ph.D. in theoretical physics].”
The player development staff includes Natalie
Nakase, a 5' 2" former UCLA point guard who a few
years back paid her own way to coach a professional
men’s team in Japan. “The way Pat [Beverley] plays,
that’s the way I played,” Nakase says. “I picked up
94 feet, used my [size] as an advantage. Might as well
bother the ball, right?”
A diverse, intelligent workplace culture is all well
and good, but by Frank’s second year, the hub of
the Clips’ organizational chart had stopped rolling.
Despite owning the NBA’s third-best record from
2012–13 through ’16–17, “it was clear to management
and to our players that we were not going to hop to
that next level,” says Ballmer. “It was Chris Paul—his
decision, not ours—his decision to say, ‘Hey I’d love to go
[play someplace else].’ That lit the match.”
The Clippers sent the All-Star guard to Houston in
June 2017 and in return received three players who have
become known as “the Paul Haul,” or as Jenkins calls them,
“the Founding Fathers of this era of Clippers basketball.”
Beverley had survived an ugly banishment from the
University of Arkansas and relegation to the pro leagues
of Ukraine and Greece to craft himself into the peskiest
defensive guard alive. Harrell is a floor-running big who
loves hoops as much as Frank, loves it so much he runs the
courts in Venice Beach in midseason. And Williams—Lou
was Lou, the underground GOAT, a former mixtape star
who last season became the highest-scoring bench player
in NBA history. When the Rockets dealt him to L.A., Lou
cried, and not with happiness. “I came to this team at a
time in my career when I didn’t know which way was up,”
the 32-year-old Williams says. “I thought I was done, at the
42SPORT S ILLUS TR ATED- OC T OBER 21–28, 2019
NBA
PREVIEW
“This whole thing FEELS LIKE A
MOVEMENT,” says Rivers. “Us and the
fans. That’s how I feel. A movement
gathers supporters, it gathers
steam. My God, I never thought we
could get that going.”COURTESY OF LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS (2)BOARD MEN
The Clippers’
commitment
to the L.A.
community includes
refurbishing courts
and handing out
gear to schoolkids.