Are the Clippers a Playoff Team?

The Clippers will not only make the playoffs, but they'll win 40-45 games this season. Golden State will be nasty too, but the Clippers are my sleeper team. The days of failure are over, this year the Clippers will become a very solid team. The West will be like this:

San Antonio
Houston
Dallas
Sacramento
Denver
Clippers (might take Phoenix spot too)
Golden State
Lakers

I want to give Seattle some respect, but they lost big this offseason.

 

If the Clippers do win 45 games this year, they will make the playoffs. The West is good but 45 wins should be enough to get you the 8th seed. Iam not sold on Golden State everybody puts them in the playoffs already, imo they are know different from the Clippers in the fact they have to prove themselves. Everybody is going off the fact they played well last year after Baron Davis came to town, but Davis came to Golden State when they were clearly out of the race. And not many teams took a matchup with them seriously...lets see what they do with expectations on their backs and teams seriously coming to play.

Utah should be interesting because we dont really know how good they can be due to so many injuries last year..but two years ago they were right on the verge of getting into the playoffs as a scrappy young team...but the only thing they were missing was a go to guy with 4th quarter experience, so they lost alot of close games all year and especially during the stretch run 2nd half of the season...but they never addressed that problem, so it still may hender them this year, even if they are healthy.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Rock4life:</div><div class="quote_post">The Clippers will not only make the playoffs, but they'll win 40-45 games this season. Golden State will be nasty too, but the Clippers are my sleeper team. The days of failure are over, this year the Clippers will become a very solid team. The West will be like this:

San Antonio
Houston
Dallas
Sacramento
Denver
Clippers (might take Phoenix spot too)
Golden State
Lakers

I want to give Seattle some respect, but they lost big this offseason.</div>


Spurs, houston, and dallas in top 3????
Top 3 goes to the division winners and phoenix will be one of those top 3 teams. As for putting golden state above seattle is ludicrious. Seattle's players are much better. Golden State did really well during the end parts of the regular season, but you also have to count in injuries. Baron Davis is injury prone and the Sonics are better scorers than GS. Losing McMillan was bad, but Seattle is still better the GS.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">If the Clippers do win 45 games this year, they will make the playoffs. The West is good but 45 wins should be enough to get you the 8th seed. Iam not sold on Golden State everybody puts them in the playoffs already, imo they are know different from the Clippers in the fact they have to prove themselves. Everybody is going off the fact they played well last year after Baron Davis came to town, but Davis came to Golden State when they were clearly out of the race. And not many teams took a matchup with them seriously...lets see what they do with expectations on their backs and teams seriously coming to play.</div>
45 wins would put them in a hard position. While it's enough to get you 8th, their's a few other Western teams capable of getting 45 wins. Last year the 7th seed Denver won 50 games, the 8th seed will be in the 45-47 win area.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting og15:</div><div class="quote_post">45 wins would put them in a hard position. While it's enough to get you 8th, their's a few other Western teams capable of getting 45 wins. Last year the 7th seed Denver won 50 games, the 8th seed will be in the 45-47 win area.</div>

More parody in the West actually means less wins for alot of teams...certain teams that won 50 games last year probably drop down to the 45 win range because you dont have those 3 or 4 automatic wins anymore against teams like Golden State, Clippers, Utah etc...only really definate win a any team in the West can possibly expect is when they go to play the Hornets....so you arent going to have a bunch of 50+ win teams...you are going to have alot more 45-50 win teams because of how competive the conference will be...

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Rock4life:</div><div class="quote_post">The Clippers will not only make the playoffs, but they'll win 40-45 games this season. Golden State will be nasty too, but the Clippers are my sleeper team. The days of failure are over, this year the Clippers will become a very solid team. The West will be like this:

San Antonio
Houston
Dallas
Sacramento
Denver
Clippers (might take Phoenix spot too)
Golden State
Lakers

I want to give Seattle some respect, but they lost big this offseason.</div>
Ha. Phoenix, Seattle and Memphis all finishing out of the playoffs? The Suns got better; the Sonics lost a center who gave them 6/4 on a good night and a backup point guard; and Memphis got a much more mature lineup, and Gasol is ready to shine. All three teams are better than Golden State and the two LA teams.

 

I can't see Phoenix not making the playoffs, I'd say they are almost a lock with the Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire and Shawn Marion Trio. They lost Joe Johnson, had Marion and Richardson struggling, and still managed to do ok in the Spurs series. Plus, they added defense with Kurt Thomas and Raja Bell, who are both also solid scorers.

Anyway to get on topic, I'd say that the Clippers can definetely make the playoffs. They got Elton Brand, Corey Maggette, Cuttino Mobley, Shaun Livingston, Kerry Kittles, Sam Cassell, and whoever their new rookie is. This is a team brimming with potential and talent, but has failed to show up because of injuries(Major injury on Kerry Kittles and one on Shaun Livingston) and some bad luck.