Should the LA Clippers push the panic button? Perhaps not this early, but for a contender to be struggling this bad, anything is possible.
This is the suggestion of Sir Charles In Charge when they mentioned that one bold move that the Clippers should make is for Doc Rivers to trade Chris Paul. It sounds hard to believe, but according to them:
"And I firmly believe..Doc Rivers isn't going to sit idly by as his team continues to fail to live up to expectations."
Rivers is not thinking about rebuilding or tanking for the future, of course. The recourse that SCIC suggests is to trade Chris Paul for Kyrie Irving of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
"The Cleveland Cavaliers could benefit from a true point guard, distributing to Kevin Love and LeBron James, while the Clippers have use for a younger, explosive leader."
There is some speculation that one of the reasons for Kyrie Irving's extended absence is to get the Cavs fan base accustomed to life without him, but that may be overthinking.
In a Zach Lowe column in the now defunct Grantland, Rivers was quoted that "they are on the borderline" and "I'm a believer that teams can get stale. After a while, you don't win. It just doesn't work." The way the Clippers are playing, it may have come sooner than later.
Actually, trading Chris Paul is not so difficult to rationalize, as he is also a polarizing player. DeAndre Jordan cited CP3 as one of the main reasons for (almost) choosing the Dallas Mavericks.
The sense of urgency for the Clippers revolves around Chris Paul's desire to win a ring at this stage in his career. DeAndre Jordan is only 27 and Blake Griffin, 26. The Clippers can develop to become contenders down the line if they have Irving.
For Chris Paul, joining LeBron James and Kevin Love-all players with a sense of urgency for the title (in the case of LeBron, it's winning for Cleveland), is a combo that could possibly beat the Golden State Warriors.
The SCIC article stated that this is a "bold move they want to see but probably won't happen." With every Clippers loss, one might wonder as stranger things have happened in the NBA.