Patrick Beverley's rehab is coming on strong

In a season that has been riddled with injuries and subsequent underperformance, a bright spot of news was provided to Clipper Nation, courtesy of Patrick Beverley. The Clippers' starting point guard who was sidelined for the season after a knee injury provided fans with an injury update on how his rehabbing his torn meniscus was going.

#wolverine

A post shared by Patrick Beverley (@patbev21) on Dec 9, 2017 at 5:41am PST

#wolverine

A post shared by Patrick Beverley (@patbev21) on Dec 9, 2017 at 5:41am PST

While the Clippers at the beginning of the season looked to have more depth than they had in years, the slew of injuries that hit the team over the course of the first quarter of the season turned the Clippers' depth from a strength to a problem. Therefore, with Beverly, or should I say the 'Wolverine', looking to be ahead of schedule, then his chances of making training camp and being the player we loved next year looked good. It was generally thought that Beverley's return may be after training camp and during the early part of next season.

To help the Clipper's cope with the loss of arguably their best defensive player and one of their most integral, the NBA granted the team with a $2.75 million disabled player exception. It will be interesting to monitor whether and how the front office decides to use the exception, or whether they just roll with the pieces they have.

Patrick Beverly out for the season after knee surgery

The Clippers have been sinking over the past few weeks, having lost 9 out of their last 10 games. Part of this can be attributed to injury, with Gallo, Milos and Beverly having missed time to due various maladies. However, part of the reason for the losing streak can be out on the team completely sinking defensively and deploying an awful crunch time offence. With the team looking to turn things around, they suffered another huge blow. Patrick Beverly is out of the season.

Clippers guard Patrick Beverley will miss the rest of the season, league sources tell ESPN. His surgery required a repair of a microfracture and meniscus injury to his right knee.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) November 22, 2017

After coming back for one game against the Knicks on Monday after missing 5 games, Patrick Beverly, the Clippers' starting point guard, was sent back to LA to undergo Knee surgery for what was initially thought to be to repair his meniscus, although the damage appeared to be worse than what the Clippers anticipated.  Despite the loss of a key, integral piece for the Clippers, the team is looking on the bright side of the situation and believes the team can still turn things around, even without their tough, hard-nosed point guard.

"I think we recognize the situation we're in," Blake Griffin told the media. "We're pretty banged up right now. But we've been in some of these games and had a chance to win I'd say at least half. So, I think our spirit is pretty good. I just think we need to keep doing what we're doing. We're learning from each loss."

Now, for the Clippers to stay afloat and keep their playoff hopes alive, it's important they hold down the fort until at least Gallinari and Teodosic get back from their injuries. While the Western Conferences has had a slower start than anticipated, if the Clippers fall too far from the playoff race, the front office may indeed start thinking about whether the franchise needs to have a change of direction. Such a move could involve the trading of key players before the trade deadline. Only time will tell how the Clippers fare. 

The relationship between Chris Paul and Blake Griffin was 'weird', says Austin Rivers

For years and years, there was speculation. It became more intense with each and every playoff defeat. Every year reports would fly around the internet that there was friction between Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, the two best players on the Clippers from 2011-17, and the two players most responsible for the franchises renaissance.

Over years many Clipper plays have responded, saying such reports that the relationship between the two star players had deteriorated were overblown. However, Clippers combo-guard Austin Rivers recently shed more light on what the relationship was like.

Per Lee Jenkins of Sports Illustrated,

“The dynamic with Blake and Chris was weird,” said Austin Rivers. “I don’t know why. It was just strange. No one knew who the leader was, and if you had something to say, it would turn into an argument. I think people were sometimes scared to say something to Blake, because you didn’t know how he’d react.”

This may come as surprising news to many fans. On the court, there never seemed to be any overt tension between the two superstars so perhaps the arguments Rivers is referring to were strictly locker room issues. Regardless, with the departure of CP3 the leadership duties of the Clippers have clearly been handed over to Blake Griffin so there is no question whose team it is now. With leadership duties being clarified, it's up to Blake to prove that he should have always been the true leader of the LA Clippers.

Blake has a shiny new toy, and it's effective

In the first few games of the 2017-18 season for the LA Clippers Blake Griffin has been putting up points with relative ease, especially in LA's first 4 games when the team soared to a 4-0 start. Defenses have been giving him an open shot that he's had his whole career, only know, he's able to drill them with consistency. That's the 3pt shot.

With Blake's 8th NBA being underway, he enters the season as the most complete player he has ever been. So far this season he is shooting 5.5 three-point attempts per game at a blistering clip of 42.4%. He's a legitimate shooter now and his game-winning dagger over the Portland Trail Blazers put the league on notice about his newfound, consistent accuracy from range.

Blake's three-point shooting will do nothing but good things for this LA squad. It gives DeAndre more room for his rim rolls, it unlocks Blake's pump-fake drive and finish\kick game and generally provides spacing for all his teammates to operate. While the sample size is relatively small as the NBA season is young, such developments just give more reasons for Clipper fans to be positive about this team in the wake of Chris Paul's departure. Blake Griffin is one of those rare players that has added something new to his game literally every season of his career and his game is all the more deadly for it. 

Milos Teodosic injects a lot of fun into the Clipper squad.

The Clippers may have lost one of the greatest point guards and passers in NBA history in Chris Paul, yet, the Clippers' 2017-18 preseason has been filled with numerous passing highlights thanks to the arrival of Milos Teodosic.

The European stud who signed with the Clippers this past summer brings a passing flair to the squad which fans haven't seen in a while. While Chris Paul was known for his surgical precision, perfect timing and unmatched ability to control the tempo when it came to his passing and play style, Milos brings an adventurous, magical flair with his passing to go along with insane court vision. All preseason, Milos had fans wondering how he was seeing some of the passing lanes in the half court.

Milos Teodosic is a magician with the basketball. #NBARooks pic.twitter.com/IZ24pbCNmf

— NBA Draft (@NBADraft) October 13, 2017

However, it was the full-court passes from Milos that wowed fans the most. Here is one of many from the Clippers' preseason action, a full-court heave to the running Blake Griffin for the dunk.

Milos sees the open floor for the @LAClippers! #NBAPreseason

📺: @NBATV pic.twitter.com/bVMgiSoczY

— NBA (@NBA) October 13, 2017

With the Clippers' adding an elite passer this off-season who was already widely regarded as one of the best point guards and playmakers in Europe, who is unknown to many of the casual NBA fans, it seems the Clippers have found themselves a secret weapon.

The Clippers weigh in on the Trump vs NFL situation

The whole world of sports took notice of the NFL protests that took place on Sunday, in which some players chose to take a knew during the US National Anthem, meanwhile, other players and coaching staff members chose to lock arms in solidarity. It was a bold move to show unity in the face of Donald Trump who was doing his best to take his divisive rhetoric into the sports world, with him calling for players who knelt during the national anthem to be fired or suspended.

The LA Clippers voiced their support for the actions of NFL teams on Sunday in response to President Trump. Clippers coach Doc Rivers talked about how he didn't believe the players wanted to protest but felt it was necessary "because they think there's injustice and there's prejudice and there's bigotry" and that if The President did his job "players wouldn't be kneeling at the end of the day".

Steve Balmer also voiced his opinion on the matter, stating on social media that "stop vilifying athletes who stand up for issues they deem important" and that citizen participation should be "encouraged".

Since NFL protests much of the conversation has now shifted as to whether NBA players and teams will choose to protest pre-game in order to send a message about being aware of the inequalities seen in various communities. The NBA's resident superstar LeBron James said it's something he may consider but he felt taking a knee was something he didn't need to to get his message across. Whether the Clippers choose to send some sort of message this season will be interesting as many players were supportive of participants in the recent NFL protest.

"It's important for guys to speak their minds. Everbody has an opinion" said 5-time all-star Blake Griffin. "I like the guys who have been using their platform to do that".

The Clippers' newly acquired 6th man stud Lou Williams appeared to be more directly supportive of the possibility of his team protesting, saying that "if we're going to protest, I want it to be for the right reasons, not to be spiteful".

With so many feelings being stirred up over President Trump bringing his divisive rhetoric to the world of sports. If NBA players do decide to protest and send a sort of message about the issues they care about, it will be a landmark moment indeed.

We Are Back

For Clippernation, the 2017-2018 season just has a different feel to it in comparison to previous seasons. The former resident point god of LA, Chris Paul, has left town for the Houston Rockets and LA Clippers have seen an influx of fresh, young talent with new, redesigned uniforms to boot. The offseason for many Clipper fans has just felt like a breath of fresh air and a much-needed change of direction. This is most excited I have personally been for an upcoming Clipper season in quite some time after all the injuries and post-season failings of Chris Paul era, especially near its end, began to wear me and many other fans down. Therefore, with a sudden spurt of motivation that just built up over the offseason, I've decided to reboot dailyclippersnews. All the highs and lows of the season and the dramatic storylines will be followed and analysed in detail on this site and you can count on us for honest assessments on where this team is headed. My hopes for the season are high, and like the rest of Clippernation, I can't wait to get this ride going.