Disaster Watch - Episode 2
Los Angeles Clippers
Next on Disaster Watch: the Los Angeles Clippers.
A roster built on old legs, empty cap space and a scandal hanging over the franchise like a storm cloud. This is what happens when a team tries to outsmart time and loses.
A SUPERTEAM BUILT ON OLD LEGS, BAD IDEAS AND A SCANDAL THEY CAN’T ESCAPE
Some franchises collapse slowly. Some collapse suddenly. The Clippers are collapsing from every possible angle at once.
On the court they are 5–16. Off the court they are under NBA investigation for a salary-cap circumvention scandal involving Steve Ballmer, Kawhi Leonard and a $28 million “no-show job” with Aspiration. In the locker room they are leaning on a 36-year-old James Harden to keep their season alive. And every night they play basketball with the pace of a team rehearsing for a documentary.
This was supposed to be a contender. This was supposed to be Ballmer’s masterpiece. Right now it is the clearest disaster in the league.
THE OFFSEASON THAT BROKE THEM
Start with the decision that made no sense.
They let Norman Powell walk to protect future cap flexibility.
The best bench weapon they had. The only guard on the roster with real pop. The last trace of athletic scoring behind Kawhi.
Gone for the sake of accounting.
Then they spent that flexibility on:
James Harden (year three)
Bradley Beal
Chris Paul
John Collins
Brook Lopez
This isn’t roster building. This is nostalgia in uniform.
A mix of aging creators, creaking defenders and frontcourt pieces who thrive only when protected by length and speed. The Clippers have neither.
They traded the identity that made them a 51 win team for a collection of players who peaked while TikTok was still experimental. The league got faster. The Clippers got stubborn.
This was the moment the decline became inevitable.
THE SCANDAL THAT MADE EVERYTHING WORSE
Now add the Aspiration scandal.
Investigations. Investor lawsuits. NBA scrutiny.
Allegations that Ballmer used a fintech company to funnel $28 million to Kawhi in a way that violated the cap. A bankruptcy filing that dragged the Clippers into financial disclosures with sources describing the endorsement deal as a “no-show job.”
The organisation denies wrongdoing. The league continues to probe and the locker room carries the weight of a story none of them can control.
This isn’t noise. This is a credibility crisis.
A franchise under investigation plays differently. Every loss feels heavier. Every decision is magnified. Trust erodes. The roster tightens. The future looks unstable.
This is the context surrounding a 5-16 start. Not excuses but reality.
JAMES HARDEN: ELITE BUT EXHAUSTED
Now we get to Harden. Year three as a Clipper and year three carrying more than any guard his age should.
He has been brilliant. He has stabilised possessions and dragged lineups that have no scoring outside of him.
He has masked the flaws of a roster that can no longer run, cut or defend at NBA playoff speed.
But the workload has become reckless.
With Beal out for the season, with CP in his final year, with Kawhi missing 12 games and returning clearly managing himself, Harden has become the entire offensive brain and engine of the team.
When Harden sits, the Clippers cannot score and when he plays, every defender stares at him like he is the only threat. He still gets to his spots and creates looks few players can generate. But it is unsustainable.
The fear isn’t that Harden will regress, it’s that his minutes will break him.
No guard should carry this much weight at this age with this much dysfunction around him. Harden has been elite. The roster has been irresponsible.
If he goes down, the Clippers fall through the floor.
KAWHI LEONARD: TOO GOOD TO FAIL, TOO INJURED TO SAVE THEM
Kawhi is still the foundation and he is still one of the best two-way players in the league when active. But he missed 12 straight games with an ankle injury, and the Clippers went 2–10.
This roster cannot stand on its own for even a week. It is built entirely around the hope that Kawhi is available, aggressive and dominant. When he’s not, the whole construction folds.
The scandal only magnifies every bad game and every decision to rest him.
A franchise under investigation cannot afford uncertainty from its star. The Clippers have uncertainty in every direction.
CHRIS PAUL AND THE FINAL CHAPTER THAT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING
CP3 announcing his retirement after this season should have been a farewell tour. Instead it’s a reminder of how unrealistic this roster build was.
Paul is still brilliant mentally. He still sees plays before they happen but the legs aren’t there and niether is the speed. The defensive resistance is gone and his creation ability is patchy.
You cannot run a modern offense through Harden and Paul simultaneously. It releases all the oxygen from the room and without Beal, there is no relief valve.
Paul isn’t the reason for the collapse. Expecting him to still be a difference-maker is.
JOHN COLLINS AND BROOK LOPEZ: GOOD PLAYERS IN A BAD ECOSYSTEM
Collins wants to run and the Clippers don’t. Lopez needs protection but the Clippers give him none.
Both need spacing. The Clippers kill their own spacing.
This isn’t about talent it’s about context.
Every good thing they do is swallowed by the fact they’re playing in an ecosystem designed for 2018 basketball.
They operate in mud and defend in panic.
They score through individual brilliance rather than any cohesive structure.
That is not how you win in 2026.
THE 5–16 TRUTH
The Clippers are 5–16 because:
They are painfully slow
They have no scoring when Harden sits
Their defensive perimeter is non-functional
Kawhi missed nearly a month
Their bench collapsed without Powell
Their roster is built on reputational value, not basketball value
They are carrying the weight of an organisational scandal
Their cap space is burned through on players in decline
Nothing about this team scales upward and nothing suggests a fix exists internally. Every sign points to a franchise stuck in its own contradictions.
WHAT THE CLIPPERS ACTUALLY ARE IN 2025–26
A team that got older trying to get smarter and a team that needed Harden to save them and then asked him to carry everything. It’s a team that loses all identity the moment Kawhi is unavailable.
It’s also a team drowning in off-court noise while the on-court product sinks on its own. A team with no runway, no flexibility and no immediate path out.
The Clippers are not unlucky or misunderstood and they are not one move away.
They are a disaster team because everything they built depended on perfect conditions and this season has delivered the opposite in every direction.
