Tag: Lawrence Frank

Lawrence Frank on Kawhi Leonard returning this season: No one knows

Ohm Youngmisuk: Asked if Kawhi Leonard could return this season, Lawrence Frank says “no one knows” and “we don’t even breach that” thought. He says Kawhi has a detailed plan and team will wait until when his body is ready and doctors clear him. …

What’s the buzz on Twitter?

Ohm Youngmisuk @NotoriousOHM
Lawrence Frank says all Clippers are good to go for camp besides Kawhi Leonard (ACL), Jason Preston (foot) and Serge Ibaka (limited due to back). – 4:36 PM
Mirjam Swanson @MirjamSwanson
Lawrence Frank says beside Kawhi (ACL), a limited Serge (back) and, now, Jason Preston (foot), everyone is good to go for training camp. – 4:35 PM
Ohm Youngmisuk @NotoriousOHM
Lawrence Frank says Paul George is ready for the challenge with Kawhi Leonard out. On PG’s state of mind entering camp and how he has overcome adversity like admitting depression in bubble, Frank says PG showed “great strength” with his vulnerability and that helped his teammates – 4:28 PM
Ohm Youngmisuk @NotoriousOHM
Asked if Kawhi Leonard could return this season, Lawrence Frank says “no one knows” and “we don’t even breach that” thought. He says Kawhi has a detailed plan and team will wait until when his body is ready and doctors clear him. – 4:13 PM
Ohm Youngmisuk @NotoriousOHM
Lawrence Frank reiterates that Kawhi Leonard has significant rehab after ACL surgery and that “it’s going to take time.” He says the focus will be his recovery and that “Kawhi is very much engaged day to day with his teammates, coaching staff and front office talking about team.” – 4:10 PM
Law Murray @LawMurrayTheNU
Lawrence Frank’s offseason priorities:
1: Bring Kawhi back
2: Bring core back (Reggie Jackson, Nicolas Batum, Serge Ibaka)
3: Improve roster – 4:05 PM
Mirjam Swanson @MirjamSwanson
“Priority No. 1” Lawrence Frank says, was re-signing Kawhi.
Makes sense.
“It’s great validation … says a lot about his teammates, Ty and the coaching staff and where we’re at and where we’re trying to go.” – 4:04 PM

More on this storyline

Ballmer admits he has often thought of what could’ve been if Leonard hadn’t gotten hurt. “It was painful,” Ballmer said. “Painful for Kawhi, painful for our team, painful for me and, most importantly, painful for our fans. But yeah, we gave it a go. We gave it a good go. We managed to push past Utah, even without Kawhi. “I was proud of our guys. We were within a whisker or two of taking care of business in the Western Conference finals, even without Kawhi. We’ll see when we get him back, but we basically have most of the same team back for next year. … I remain optimistic.” -via ESPN / September 17, 2021

If Executive of the Year voting was after the bubble, would Sam Presti have won?

Thunder GM Sam Presti may have won Executive of the Year voting if it took place now. Maybe Lawrence Frank still would have. Or maybe there would have been a third true challenger who took it:

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Coming out of their respective NBA Bubble experiences, fans of the Oklahoma City Thunder are looking at last season with more pleasure and to the future with more optimism than those of the Los Angeles Clippers.

Yet Clippers general manager Lawrence Frank was named Executive of the Year on Thursday ahead of Thunder GM Sam Presti, who finished second.

The voting was conducted based on games through March 11, the night league play was suspended due to the coronavirus.

At that point, Frank was a pretty easy pick, as he had acquired stars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George while retaining key players Lou Williams, Montrezl Harrell, Patrick Beverly and Landry Shamet. The Clippers also acquired Marcus Morris and Reggie Jackson at the trade deadline for a potential postseason run.

But looking back, there’s certainly an argument to be made that the Thunder won that George deal.

Presti, in two swoops — dealing Paul to Los Angeles and then Russell Westbrook to the Houston Rockets — secured a future for the Thunder with more than half a dozen new first-round draft picks and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. He kept the team competitive by adding veterans Chris Paul and Danilo Gallinari.

His moves helped set the Thunder up not just for the future, but helped them achieve a higher winning percentage than they had the year before.

Oklahoma City lost to the Rockets in the first round of the playoffs. That was not unexpected. The Clippers, though, as title favorites, fell way shy of expectations and did not get out of the second round. Head coach Doc Rivers and the organization parted ways at the end of the season.

Suddenly, the Clippers are unexpectedly down a coach and looking at the end of their stars’ contracts with knowledge that they must be better this upcoming season. The Thunder, meanwhile, had a less abrupt ending with head coach Billy Donovan and can dcide whether to keep competing for a playoff spot or gain more assets by trading away Paul and other veteran players.

It’s not inconceivable to say that Presti should have won his first Executive of the Year Award.

Yet he would have had another challenger had voting taken place after the bubble.

Frank won the award with 61 points. Presti finished second with 41 points. Right behind him: Miami Heat president Pat Riley with 39 points.

Riley oversaw a team who added Jimmy Butler, created room for Bam Adebayo by trading Hassan Whiteside, and found roles for a group of players that helped the team reach the NBA Finals.

At the beginning of the bubble, he seemed out of the range of Frank and Presti. Months later, it may be Riley who is deserving.

Or perhaps it’s Presti.

Or maybe it truly is Frank, whose trade for George was not simply a trade for that one player — it was a trade that netted them George and convinced Leonard to sign, a bold move that put the Clippers among the top teams in the league while the Thunder were a middle-of-the-road western team who, while exceeding expectations, did lose in the first round of the playoffs.

Hindsight isn’t always 20/20, but it is fair to speculate that Presti would have gotten more love if voting took place in October than he did when the ballots were submitted.

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“If you ever want to see an example of …

“If you ever want to see an example of Pat being quiet, you watch the first couple minutes of that game against Hassan Whiteside [and] guys are texting like, ‘What’s wrong with Pat?’” Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank said last week about teammates watching Beverley play. “‘Is Pat sick? Is Pat under the weather? Does the volume not work on Pat’s control?’ And then all of a sudden, he started to get a little rhythm.” And everyone else got to see in this NBA 2K Players Tournament what the Clippers see on a daily basis. “Pat was back being Pat,” Frank said.