Clippers president Lawrence Frank says team needs to ‘get back to honoring and respecting the regular season’

[ad_1]

The Los Angeles Clippers’ season is over, despite a valiant effort in the first round of the playoffs against the Phoenix Suns with stars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George both sidelined by the end of it. At his end-of-season press conference on Thursday, team president Lawrence Frank said that, while they competed admirably in the postseason, that same energy wasn’t always there in the 82-game slog that is the regular season. 

“What I don’t want to do is have the injuries or how hard we fought in the postseason to mask a disappointing regular season,” Frank told reporters, via The Athletic’s Law Murray. “We have to be honest with ourselves, and we have to look in the mirror. It starts with me. And we have to get back to honoring and respecting the regular season.”

The Clippers finished with a 44-38 record, which was good enough for fifth in the unusually flattened Western Conference standings. Despite their depth, they had the statistical profile of a slightly below-average team: 17th in offense, 17th in defense, 17th in point differential. Much of this had to do with injuries — Leonard and George played 995 minutes together in 38 games — but, in Frank’s estimation, that wasn’t all of it. 

“I just think we need to compete harder every single night,” Frank said, via the Los Angeles Times‘ Andrew Greif. “I think we owe it to ourselves, we owe it to the fans. We want to be a championship organization and we have to invest deeper into the process. I mean, the last 28 years, the NBA champion has been a top-three seed. So you have to earn it, the regular season matters. And not that our guys don’t think it matters, but I just think we, all of us, starting with me, we can compete harder every day. We can hold each other accountable every day. And that’s what we have to do. 

“And I think you think about when you watched us in the playoff series, even if you go back to last year’s team that won 42 games, the trademark of this organization has to be about competing, hard work, toughness. And it’s not that we didn’t do it at times this…

[ad_2]
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/clippers-president-lawrence-frank-says-team-needs-to-get-back-to-honoring-and-respecting-the-regular-season/

Author : James Herbert

Publish date : 2023-04-27 21:20:27

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.