The date was Dec. 20. It was the day everything changed for the Clippers.
Kawhi Leonard has been the leading scorer in the NBA since, averaging 31.8 points per game. James Harden has averaged 25.1 points in that stretch. The Clippers have the best scoring differential in the Western Conference over that span. They’ve been rolling.
This is where Robert Flom enters the story.
Flom is a blogger who covers the Clippers, and Dec. 20 was when he wrote the following on X: “If they go 15-3 in any stretch this season will print and eat this tweet.”
The Clippers have gone 15-3 since. True to his word, Flom printed the tweet Monday and ate it.
“Pretty crunchy,” he said.
Social media wasn’t around in 1953 or 1985, which means it’s highly unlikely anyone in Baltimore or Cleveland had to endure a crunchy moment like the one Flom put himself through on Monday night.
The 1952-53 Baltimore Bullets got into the playoffs by finishing fourth in a five-team division, in a year when eight of the NBA’s 10 teams made the postseason. The 1984-85 Cleveland Cavaliers got into the playoffs despite spending more than three months of that season holding down last place in the Eastern Conference.
Both teams started those seasons with 6-21 records. Of the 121 teams that started an NBA season with a record that bad or worse, including five this season, those Bullets (who finished 16-54) and Cavaliers (who finished 36-46) are the only two that wound up reaching the postseason.
The Clippers started 6-21 this season. The playoffs were a million miles away. Not anymore.
Going into Tuesday’s game at Utah, the Clippers are three games under .500 at 21-24. They are 10th in the West, but that would be enough to get them into the play-in tournament and give them a chance at a playoff berth.
For a team that was a half-game out of last place in the West a couple of days before Christmas, just getting back to play-in range this soon represents a minor miracle.
“We’re confident, we’re playing well, but we’ve still got to play better,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said after Sunday’s 126-89 romp over the Brooklyn Nets. “We still have to run through the tape and continue to execute the right way. … Overall, we’re playing well. We’ve got to keep it going.”
The Clippers, to their credit, were aware of Flom’s tweet. The Clippers’ social media team had a blast with it — all in good fun, like the tweet itself — and players couldn’t help but react when they got that 15th win in 18 games that ensured Flom would be chewing on paper for a half-hour or so.
“We gotta get him on camera,” Lue said.
“I don’t know how healthy that is for you,” Leonard said.
Clippers fans got into the act as well, chanting “eat the tweet” during Sunday’s game. It’s a feel-good story, such as it is. And there have been a few of those in the NBA this season.
Among them: Toronto started slowly but is vying for home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs now. BetMGM Sportsbook had Phoenix’s over-under for wins this season at 30.5; the Suns have already won 27 games. The Celtics, even without Jayson Tatum, are No. 2 in the East, something few outside Boston probably expected.
The Clippers were supposed to be good, like title-contending good. Starting 6-21 was beyond unexpected. Then again, so was the turnaround. And the tweet is a neat part of why everyone seems happy in Clipperland these days, after tons of drama going back to the summer.
There was a probe of whether a business relationship between Leonard and a California company was legitimate or merely a way for the Clippers to circumvent salary cap rules, then Chris Paul being sent home in a stunning early December move, and a whole lot of losing.
Now, there’s a whole lot of winning. For the record, Flom now says the Clippers will finish 45-37. The way they’re playing, he might not have to eat those words.
