Jared Dudley believes he can see the writing on the wall for his former team.
In an interview with James Blancarte of Basketball Insiders that ran on Tuesday, Dudley offered his thoughts on his old LA Clippers squad.
“I love L.A., maybe not the Clippers, but I love L.A.,” he said. “But overall I think it’s just a good place. I mean the Clippers had one of the best teams they’ve had when I was there with CP [Chris Paul] and Blake [Griffin].
“I think you see with them, it’s like the Titanic, it’s slowly going down,” the veteran forward continued. “You can tell they’re getting ready to blow this thing up with the All-Star break coming up and all the injuries and [Clippers executive] Jerry West taking over.”
Dudley’s outlook on the Clippers’ future wasn’t all doom-and-gloom however.
“Overall I think they’re heading in the right direction because they have good leadership and Jerry West has proven it,” he added. “You know it’s not going to take that long. His track record shows that he knows how to draft players.”
The 32-year-old Dudley, now with the Phoenix Suns, played with the Clippers for just one season in 2013-14. It was an eventful one though as it was the year that owner Donald Sterling was ousted for racially-insensitive remarks. The team also topped the Golden State Warriors in the first round of the playoffs that year before collapsing against the Oklahoma City Thunder in Round 2.
Now in 2017-18, the 13-19 Clippers have indeed had injuries largely derail their season. Like Dudley, many other NBA teams appear to believe that they could blow it up before the trade deadline, so maybe he’s onto something here.
