Law Murray

They got through their first series against the Pelicans, no problem, and then they ran up against the Mavericks, and the Mavericks wound up outlasting them in six.

Is there anything that these next six weeks can do, these next six, seven weeks can do, where they can prepare at all for the scrutiny of that stage other than just play the games?

I'm punch drunk, but it is All-Star weekend, and eventually the spirit will find me, and I'm looking forward to it.

I'm happy to be with you guys, though.

We're a bit overdue, I feel like.

That's a tough question for me because the Clippers, I don't feel like we're driving the bus on these transactions.

I feel like James Harden was.

And I'm surprised that James Harden was aggressive, but I probably shouldn't have been.

What I've been saying for some time is James always drives the bus on where he's going.

And as it stood, the current contract situation, where the Clippers were,

The Clippers had certain leverage over James' situation because of the agreement that they had contractually over the offseason where James had a player option that if he opted in, he would have until, or the Clippers would have until July 11th to waive him off of that deal, guaranteeing James $13 million, something like that.

And think about it.

James Harden's history is not to let teams dictate what's happening with him.

He is going to let you know when he's going, where he is going next, and he'll even pick out the return for you.

And I feel like that's what happened here.

And the good thing that the Clippers did is they didn't wait long.

Until James went to Asia and called the GM a liar in front of a bunch of kids at his camp.

They are a smart organization and realized, you know what, James, you're right.

Let's get somebody back for this while we can.

The Clippers needed to put a face to the prospective names that they were going to be holding out for this future flexibility for.