The Los Angeles Clippers have built a team of stars past Prime, but their roster is expected to find more success than the Golden State Warriors, who have aged for one important reason.
This offseason, the Los Angeles Clippers have reunified the roster, adding aging stars Bradley Beal, Brook Lopez and Chris Paul to the already experienced roster.
After taking the Denver Nuggets to seven games in the first round of the playoffs, LA showed that James Harden and Kawi Leonard’s cores could compete, with the addition of a winner to the roster boosting the odds for the title.
The Clippers are under attack for being a “nursing home” team, but their state rivals, the Golden State Warriors, are in similar positions, although not taken seriously.
Next season, the Clippers will be led by Beale, Leonard, Harden, Lopez, Paul, Ivika Zubuck, John Collins and Bogdan Bogdanovic. The youngest player in the group is 27-year-old Collins.
The Warriors, meanwhile, rely heavily on Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green. Simply put, the Clippers have depth, and the Warriors do not.
“Jimmy Butler misses a lot of games on a regular basis. Steph is currently 38 and misses a lot of games on a fairly regular basis,” ESPN’s Tim Bontemps outlined. “If these two guys are healthy, they have a pretty high ceiling. The Clippers are much deeper. The Clippers are 10 deeper.
In addition to the depth, the Clippers have one of the best medical staff in the league and should be able to withstand more injuries than most teams.
Currently, the Warriors only have nine players on their salary. Their only true center is a Quinten post. The wings of Butler, Buddy Haard and Moses Moody are not too deep either.
Meanwhile, the Clippers have the space with Zubac and Lopez two true centers, Paul and Harden two true point guards, Leonard, Beal, Collins, Bogdanovic, Chris Dunn, Nicholas Batam and Derrick Jones Jr.
Curry and Butler are undoubtedly better than the Single Clippers players, but Los Angeles is built to withstand regular season bruises and bumps.
If either Curry or Butler, or Green misses a significant amount of time, the Warriors are at risk of missing the playoffs entirely in the Loaded Western Conference.