Photo Credit: Frank McGrath/PS&E
NBA Offseason Grades – Indiana Pacers & Los Angeles Clippers
INDIANA PACERS: C-
If you’re the Indiana Pacers how are you going to trade Paul George for Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis?! I mean, they’re nice young players but come on now Indiana! The Pacers basically went into rebuilding mode this offseason, as they couldn’t hang onto PG who was far and beyond their best player. They will still stay somewhat relevant by adding Bojan Bogdanovic, Cory Joseph and Darren Collison, but it wasn’t a successful offseason by any means, especially considering Kyrie Irving was on the table and they failed to make a trade for him if they were going to say goodbye to George. A slip down in the Eastern Conference rankings for sure.
LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS: A-
Despite losing their franchise point guard Chris Paul this off season, I’m going to give the Clippers an A- for their offseason. The franchise could have easily thrown in the towel and completely torn down the roster, but they may in fact now be more balanced than they were in many years strangely enough. Blake Griffin and Deandre Jordan are now the main two stars that will anchor the front court, but now they can boast an array of productive talent throughout the roster. Those players include Lou Williams, Patrick Beverley, European star Milos Teodosic, and Danilo Gallinari. It will be hard to recover from losing Paul, but the Clippers did salvage their situation in a lot of ways. They still remain in the playoff picture in this way, not a disaster offseason by any means, despite it becoming very likely with the Paul deal.
