Jovan Buha: Leonard, George “Can Be Best Perimeter Pairing Since Pippen, M.J.”

Last Friday night, Los Angeles residents, among people in others places such as Las Vegas, felt a 7.1-magnitude earthquake. Within nearly two and a half hours, the Clippers had pulled off an earth-shattering pair of moves that would bring both Kawhi Leonard and Paul George to Los Angeles, not too far from where either superstar was born and raised. For the occasion, The Athletic’s Jovan Buha appears On the NBA Beat to discuss how the long-suffering franchise positioned itself for such a major offseason coup, how dominant these Clippers can truly be after the earth-Kawhiuake, the question marks surrounding Paul George’s shoulders and much, much more.

8:23-10:52: “I think for the Clippers to be able to get Doc [Rivers] to basically take a demotion and not have to fire him, not have him quit, I think that was huge, because Doc still has a lot of cachet around the league, he’s still regarded as a players’ coach, he’s still someone that people want to play for. … [They] completely revamped this front office, and that really changed things for the Clippers, because every single move they’ve made over these last two years has been so calculated and has really put them in this position to do what they just did.”

13:04-14:22: “The Clippers have just continued to flip players for more assets and more players, and then they just cashed in on this Paul George-Kawhi Leonard situation. It was a historic price, what they paid for Paul George…but I think the context you’ve gotta look at it in is it’s not like they traded for Paul George only; they traded for Paul George and Kawhi Leonard. Had they not gotten Paul George, they would not have gotten Kawhi Leonard. … Yes, there is risk into the mid-2020s, but if the Clippers win a championship or make the Finals over the next two, three years, I think that’s clearly worth it.”

14:47-16:26: “I think they can be the best perimeter pairing we’ve seen since Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan, and that might sound like hyperbole, but I don’t think it’s that ridiculous. … Perimeter defense has arguably become the most important thing in the league outside of shooting.”

21:16-21:36: “I think Landry [Shamet]’s shooting is gonna unlock so much stuff with Kawhi and Paul George that to bench him is really gonna be a potential difference-maker offensively, just in terms of their spacing, their gravity, their ability to do things offensively. To me, Landry is a huge key.”

23:45-25:00: “Especially with the shoulder injury, that directly affects your shooting. I don’t know. That’s kind of the wild card. I think it [the Paul George injury] could swing the Clippers’ season from like a 47, 48-win to a 58-win team. … That’s kind of the one semi-dark cloud hanging over this whole thing.”

30:44-31:12: “The Clippers have never been the favorites. They’ve always been third, fourth, fifth, whatever, during the whole Lob City era. They were never No. 1, so I think there’s the pressure of that. But with this new development with the Kawhi Leonard contract, it does put pressure on them to really cater to what he wants over the next two years, to meet his expectations of what he thinks of the roster and what he thinks of the team and their potential.”

38:50-40:00: “The Lakers do have LeBron [James] and A.D. [Anthony Davis], who are bigger than Paul George and Kawhi, if they’re matching up, but outside of that, they have no one to really guard those two. … I just think that the Lakers are too small on the perimeter, not good enough defensively, and I still have some questions about their shooting and their rotation. I think the Lakers have maybe the highest upside in the league, just because I think there’s a chance that the LeBron-AD pairing is the best pairing in the NBA. … I’d still probably put those two in the top two, but at full strength, everyone’s healthy, the Clippers, to me, are a five-to-eight-win better team than the Lakers.”

42:36-43:55: “The Blake Griffin trade and the Tobias Harris trade. … This guy, he just looks at things in such an objective, business-like, borderline ruthless approach. … And he deemed, and the front office deemed as an organization, that Blake wasn’t [and] the same thing with Tobias. Both of those moves scream Jerry West.”

Here’s Jovan’s feature on the Clippers new-look defense referenced during the interview. Jovan can also be heard hosting the Clip City podcast and seen on TV contributing to Fox Sports West.