The Los Angeles Clippers seem to have a reputation of always crying to referees. Players have expressed their feelings towards the Clippers as whiners. In a poll last year via Sports Illustrated the Clippers was the 2nd most team “fans love to hate” only behind the Los Angeles Lakers. Players such as DeMarcus Cousins and Draymond Green also made it clear they also dislike the team.
Clippers backup point guard Austin Rivers made an appearance on the Jim Rome Show today and provided his explanation on why he thinks teams dislike the Clippers, His response:
“For one, if I had to choose a reason, a lot of times people feel like our team complains a lot, you know what I mean? So I think that’s where it started, where I think we’ve gotten a lot better at that, but a couple years ago, I think that’s where it started,” Rivers said. “I think the second and most important reason is I think when Chris [Paul] came here, and we had DJ [Deandre Jordan] and Blake [Griffin] and all these guys, everybody kind of jumped on that wagon, you know what I mean, as far as we were going to win that year and they don’t understand it takes time. So when we didn’t win, but we got a lot of hoopla or hype and ‘Lob City’ and all this stuff and we didn’t win and when people would dunk, we’d be jumping around everywhere and going crazy, but we didn’t win a championship. That rubs people the wrong way. It’s kind of like the Warriors were doing what they were doing, like all the stuff they did, but didn’t win. People would be like come on man, you got to win. I think that’s why people get irritated with us, because they’re like, you got to win first, but our defense is like, we just love playing the game and we’re excited when somebody does something special and were not doing anything anybody else is doing. It’s just we got a lot of hoopla, and that’s where I think a lot of the hatred comes from.”
Even Rivers admitting to his team doing a little too much crying to the refs, as he says thy have improved on that issue. As far as the other reasons he stated it’s definitely some truth to that. The Clippers do like to have fun when they see one of their teammates perform well on the court. But their window is closing as they try to meet the expectations they were slapped when “Lob City” started.