Last summer, Chris Paul was, like many Southern Californians, curious about the new Inglewood arena that the Los Angeles Clippers were only weeks away from opening.
Unlike most locals, however, Paul had been one of the best players in the NBA while playing for the Clippers from 2011-17. And although he was about to play for the San Antonio Spurs, he still knew well the new arena’s ultimate tour guide: Steve Ballmer, the Clippers’ owner, who showed the point guard around.
“I was like, ‘Damn, I wonder what the locker room looks like?’” Paul said.
One year later, Paul walked back into the locker room before his introduction Monday as the Clippers’ latest offseason signing and took note of the differences between his two eras playing for the franchise. New arena, new logo and this: During his first stint, he headlined a team of young, athletic upstarts challenging the league’s entrenched title contenders. Next season, the 40-year-old Paul and the Clippers will still be pursuing their first NBA championship — but this time behind aspirations that hinge on the NBA’s oldest roster.
“There’s a lot of gratitude or whatnot to still get a chance to play at this age,” Paul said.
The NBA has never been more of a young man’s league. Last season’s average age was 26.3 years, and tireless young legs propelled both Oklahoma City and Indiana to June’s NBA Finals. Oklahoma City made the finals with an average age of 25.6 years, the second-youngest team to reach the championship round in the previous 70 years. And when the Thunder won the championship, they were the youngest to do so since 1977.
After the Clippers’ last season ended in the first round, the team’s top basketball executive, Lawrence Frank, described adding youth and athleticism as a priority.
Yet the Clippers have since become one of the NBA’s most fascinating teams by eschewing such youth, betting that experience will give them a puncher’s chance.
The team expects to play a nine-man rotation, Frank said this month, but could credibly go 11 deep. The average age of those 11 is more than 33 years old, which Yahoo Sports determined would be a year older than the previous oldest roster in NBA history.
“What’s age? It’s just a number, right?” Frank joked with reporters earlier this month.
At 40, Paul might be an outlier as the NBA’s second-oldest active player, behind only LeBron James, but he fits right into an offseason that has seen the team sign 37-year-old center Brook Lopez, retain 37-year-old do-everything forward Nicolas Batum, re-sign 36-year-old guard James Harden and sign 32-year-old former All-Star guard Bradley Beal. Of the team’s 11 players who are largely expected to earn regular playing time, just three — Ivica Zubac, Derrick Jones Jr. and offseason acquisition John Collins, all of whom will be 28 when the season begins — are under 30.
“The goal is to get this team as good as we possibly can get it, regardless of age, and everyone’s entitled to the judgments they want to make on the group,” Frank said last week, after the signing of Paul. “We’re super excited about the group. I think part of the things that, with age, typically, people worry about [is] increased chance for injury. That’s why we lean into the depth.”
The Clippers, clearly, see their experience as a strength. Yet there is a reason only the 2010-11 Dallas Mavericks (31.6 years) and 1997-98 Chicago Bulls (32.1 years) have won NBA titles with an average age older than 31. Deep playoff runs require skill, which the Clippers undoubtedly possess, but also durability and stamina, and no one can foresee what next season holds for Beal, who has played 196 out of a possible 328 games his past four seasons, or Kawhi Leonard, who has played 157.
Yet when asked about the team’s age, Frank immediately recited that Paul and Lopez, the Clippers’ oldest players, had started a combined 162 out of 164 possible games just last season.
“So it’s not like these guys were productive three years ago, or four years ago, they were productive players last year,” Frank said.
The Clippers aren’t the only contender to believe it needed more seasoning. Houston was one of last season’s biggest success stories, producing the Western Conference’s second-best record despite owning the league’s ninth-youngest roster, with an average age, by minutes played, of 25.2. Yet after losing in the playoffs’ first round, Houston decided it needed Kevin Durant, who’ll turn 37 before the season starts, to realize its potential.
Going old in a league that skews young wasn’t the Clippers’ master plan. In the short term, and by Frank’s admission, landing Lopez as a free agent was no guarantee, Beal wasn’t initially expected to be available — becoming a free agent only after Phoenix bought his contract to the tune of $96 million — and signing Paul required the starter for virtually his entire two-decade career to accept a role as a reserve. The Clippers made those moves, ultimately, because they allowed the team to improve, regardless of age, while still being “disciplined to our plan,” Frank said.
That long-term plan, as rival executives view it, has seen the team unwilling to extend pricey contracts past 2026, a priority that will wipe clean virtually the Clippers’ entire current payroll within two seasons. It’s just the type of blank slate, in an attractive market like Los Angeles, that might woo a disgruntled star seeking a trade, or a big-name free agent.
Most teams would clear their books and transition for the future by filling the team with low-cost, younger players. Yet the Clippers have not begun a youth movement for a variety of reasons. One is resources: A 2019 trade with Oklahoma City hamstrung the number of available first-round picks the Clippers could use to theoretically rebuild their roster through the draft. As a workaround, the Clippers have tried giving second chances to young, talented players who had burned through their welcome with previous teams for either on-court or legal reasons, yet none has panned out.
Philosophy has also been a significant factor in why the Clippers have owned the league’s oldest roster each of the past three seasons. Ballmer, the owner and former Microsoft chief executive, does not believe that building a roster to intentionally lose its way to a top draft pick is good for business, or retaining fans in a city already saturated by its rival.
“Each year we are going to put the best possible team we can, while staying disciplined to our plan, to give ourselves and give our team and give our fans the best possible experience of a team that’s trying to compete at the highest level,” Frank said.
That was an attractive enough pitch for Paul, who wanted not only to chase a first championship in his 21st season, but to do so while living in the same city as his wife and children for the first time since he last left the Clippers, in 2017.
“Tell you the truth, my wife and my kids probably tired of me already,” Paul said.
Paul spoke with a broad smile all afternoon Monday when talking about his return to the franchise. But before he could exit a reception celebrating his reunion, one of the estimated 650 fans who had packed a court inside Intuit Dome spoke up, catching his attention.
Sitting a few rows back from a raised stage where Paul sat, the fan told Paul what had been said about the team’s offseason moves: that the team’s roster now included so many older 30-or-older players that they were being called “uncs,” or uncles.
“I’m definitely an ‘unc,’” Paul said. “I think we got a great mix of young guys, older guys and whatnot. And it’s up to us to figure it out.”
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