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.