- The Clippers recalled C.J. Wilcox from the D-League’s Canton Charge, the team announced. Wilcox averaged 21.7 points in three games during his latest assignment and has appeared in 14 games for the Charge. He’s also played 14 games for the Clippers, averaging 1.6 points in 4.4 minutes.
The Clippers’ Blake Griffin, who hasn’t played since Christmas Day because of a partially torn quad tendon and a fracture in his right hand, is scheduled to return to action April 3rd, the team announced. Griffin will begin serving his team-imposed four-game suspension, which he received for a fight with assistant equipment manager Matias Testi, during today’s game.
A report earlier this week said coach Doc Rivers was preparing for the possibility that Griffin might be out for the rest of the regular season. Griffin has missed the last 41 games, but the Clippers have been able to succeed without him, winning 25 of their first 34 games after he was sidelined and coming into today’s action fourth in the West at 44-27.
Rivers isn’t sure if Griffin will start right away but said he wants to give him enough minutes to build his endurance, tweets Ben Bolch of The Los Angeles Times. He has been medically cleared for all basketball activities, according to the Clippers. A perennial All-Star, Griffin is averaging 23.2 points, 8.7 rebounds and 5.0 assists in 32 games this season.
- A federal district court judge dismissed an antitrust lawsuit that former Clippers owner Donald Sterling brought against the NBA in his continued dispute of the 2014 $2 billion sale of the team to Steve Ballmer, as Nathan Fenno of the Los Angeles Times details. The suit, in which Sterling sought more than $1 billion in damages and named wife Shelley Sterling and former NBA commissioner David Stern among the defendants, alleged that the NBA conspired to strip him of the team.
LeBron James is holding out hope that he can team with Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade and Chris Paul for at least one season before they retire, as he told Howard Beck of Bleacher Report. James, 31, and Wade, 34, can hit free agency this summer, but the 30-year-old Paul’s locked in with the Clippers through next season and Anthony, 31, doesn’t have an opt-out in his deal until the summer of 2018.
“I really hope that, before our career is over, we can all play together,” James said to Beck just before the All-Star break last month in comments that Beck kept under wraps until today (Twitter link). “At least one, maybe one or two seasons — me, Melo, D-Wade, CP — we can get a year in. I would actually take a pay cut to do that.”
Each is probably powerful enough to force a trade, with most such chatter surrounding Anthony, who has a no-trade clause that he’s been reluctant to consider waiving. Rumors about a three-team deal involving the Knicks, Celtics and Cavaliers emerged before the trade deadline this year, but it never appeared as though Anthony was close to joining James in Cleveland. Anthony once more reiterated his commitment to the Knicks today, as Marc Berman of the New York Post relays.
“I know the reason why I stuck it out,’’ Anthony said. “People that really understand it know why I’m sticking it out. It’s odd to question my loyalty at this point in time, especially when you showed and I’ve showed time and time again my loyalty to not just the organization, but New York and vice versa.”
Still, commitments change. That was the case with Anthony and the Nuggets, a team ‘Melo believed in strongly enough in 2006 to resist what James admits were veiled overtures meant to convince Anthony to sign a shorter extension that would allow him to become a free agent in 2010, just as James and Wade did, as Beck details. That was the summer that James and Wade teamed up on the Heat while Anthony and Paul remained under contract in Denver and New Orleans, respectively.
Anthony told Beck in January that he was disappointed that the Pistons passed him up with the second overall pick in 2003, saying that he’d been told Detroit would take him. It’s not clear who told Anthony that the Pistons would draft him instead of Darko Milicic, the center the Pistons fatefully selected when the time came. Regardless, the bond between James, Anthony, Wade and Paul is strong, and it’s made an impression on Team USA coach Mike Krzyzewski, who’s mentored all of them with the USA Basketball program.
“I think they love one another,” Krzyzewski said. “It’s so damn genuine, and it’s so cool to see. … They have each others’ back, on everything.”
Do you think James, Wade, Anthony and Paul will all play together on an NBA team at some point? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.
- Doc Rivers won’t rule out the possibility of Blake Griffin missing the rest of the regular season, but he’s confident that he’ll be back in game action within the next three weeks before the regular season ends, observes Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times. Griffin will have to serve a four-game suspension once he’s healthy enough to play. The Clippers signed Jeff Ayres for the rest of the season last week.
- The Clippers have assigned shooting guard C.J. Wilcox to the D-League, the team announced. Wilcox, who is making his fourth trek to the D-League on the campaign, will report to the Canton Charge as part of the league’s flexible assignment rule, since L.A. does not have its own affiliate.
- At least two other Western teams are also waiting to see if players collect significant bonuses, Marks writes in the same piece. Tim Duncan is due to get an additional $750K once the Spurs reach 62 wins, which will raise his salary for this season to $6MM and push San Antonio’s tax bill from about $3.8MM to $4.9MM. The Clippers can save $1.1MM in luxury taxes relating to a Jeff Green bonus if they fail to reach 56 wins. He will receive $450K if L.A. gets to that victory total.
- There will be a reunion of sorts tonight when the Grizzlies host the Clippers, according to Ben Bolch of The Los Angeles Times. The Memphis roster includes Matt Barnes, Lance Stephenson, Ryan Hollins and Alex Stepheson, all of whom spent time with the Clippers over the past three seasons.
Nearing age 36, the Clippers‘ Jamal Crawford isn’t giving any thought to retirement, at least not until 2021, writes Dan Woike of The Orange County Register. The veteran shooting guard will mark another birthday Sunday, but he believes he still has five years left in the NBA. Crawford has remained among the league’s most productive bench players this season, averaging 13.7 points and 26.5 minutes per game. “I’m a product of clean living,” proclaimed Crawford, who credits abstinence from smoking and drinking with helping him prolong his career. How much longer he’ll spend with the Clippers is uncertain, though. Crawford is in the final season of a four-year contract and was mentioned in trade rumors earlier this year.
- Jeff Green isn’t expecting much of a reaction Saturday in his first game back in Memphis since last month’s trade, according to Rowan Kavner of NBA.com. The Clippers acquired Green from the Grizzlies in a deal at the deadline in exchange for Lance Stephenson and a 2019 first-rounder. “It’s not, like, emotional,” Green said. “I wasn’t here long enough. I could see if it was Boston, a team that I spent four years with, you know, went through a lot of personal stuff there, too. That was an emotional return.”
- The Rockets held another players-only meeting after Wednesday’s lopsided loss to the Clippers, writes Calvin Watkins of ESPN.com. “This is fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, I don’t know which meeting it is,” said power forward Donatas Motiejunas. “I think talking shouldn’t be the one thing that we do. We shouldn’t talk anymore; we should look at ourselves and try to change some things.” Houston tried to shake things up last month by trading Motiejunas to Detroit, but the Pistons canceled the deal due to concerns about his back.
- The effort to get an NBA team back in Seattle received support from Clippers shooting guard Jamal Crawford, who wrote a piece promoting the idea for Sports Illustrated’s The Cauldron.