Of the six Western Conference teams that secured a playoff spot, the Los Angeles Clippers were the only ones to finish below .500 in the final 10 games of the season, including losses to the Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder. This has led to speculation that the Clippers tanked down the stretch in order to avoid an early crosstown playoff matchup with LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers. However, one could argue that the Clippers should prefer to play them earlier rather than later in the playoffs while LeBron is rusty and could be 100 percent by June. Skip Bayless explains why he believes the Clippers tanking is “the biggest bunch of hocus-pocus, phony baloney he ever heard.”
