"We Ultimately Didn't Accomplish Anything" - Blake Griffin Is Being Way Too Hard On The Perception Of Lob City

(Yahoo Sports) – A central theme came out of the press conference: the Clippers were turning a new page and ready to finally be relevant next to the Los Angeles Lakers. Of course, this seemed to ignore the success the Griffin-Chris Paul-DeAndre Jordan teams had, even if they never made it out of the second round of the playoffs.

“We ultimately didn’t accomplish anything,” Griffin says. “In sports, that’s how you get measured… If they succeed, they’ll be the ones who really turned the franchise around and actually solidify them as not the same franchise that it was back in the day.”

Griffin doesn’t have a gripe with the Clippers, even though they organized a mock jersey retirement ceremony as part of their free agency pitch two summers ago, convincing Griffin to re-sign for five years, before trading him six months later to the Detroit Pistons.

I get what Blake is saying here, I really do. In today’s world most people make it all about the RINNNNGGGGZZZZZZZZZ when evaluating the run of a certain era. By that standard sure, Lob City didn’t bring an elusive championship to LA so in that regard they failed. But to think they didn’t accomplish anything or weren’t the ones who started to turn the franchise around and make them not the laughingstock of the league? Blake’s being a little too hard on himself and the Lob City trio. Remember how fucking fun they were?

Let’s also not forget history. In the year before Lob City became a thing, the Clippers won 32 games and missed the playoffs for the 13th time in 14 years. Then 2011-12 rolled around and boom, 40 wins and a 2nd round appearance. The next year, 56 games (and a first round exit). Year after that? 57 wins and another second round run. In fact, from 2012-2016 the Clippers never won fewer than 51 games, and sure they never got close to the postseason success they may have wanted, that’s in my opinion because guys like Blake and CP3 kept getting hurt. But they certainly turned around the franchise and actually made them respectable, something that didn’t exactly exist prior to their run.

Those three helped legitimize the Clippers and make them an actual destination. They were the reason Doc Rivers actually wanted to keep coaching and not retire after his 2008 title, and in case you’ve been living under a rock Doc River was a gigantic reason why they were able to land Kawhi/Paul George. If this new look Clippers team does actually win, in my opinion they would just be the ones who got the Clippers over the hump, I wouldn’t say they were the ones who turned the franchise around. That work had been done years earlier by Lob City, they just couldn’t get over that final hurdle.

Make no mistake though, despite all their shortcomings if there wasn’t a Lob City, there probably isn’t this Dynamic Duo and the Clippers are not the title favorites in 2019-20. I’m not saying give those dudes a ring if the Clippers pull it off, but we shouldn’t just discredit everything they accomplished just because there’s a new, shinier toy this time around.