On Monday night inside the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, you could hear the sound of disbelief slowly turn into belief.
Belief that turns into hope. Hope that turns pessimism into optimism.
Because three months ago the LA Clippers were dead.
On December 19th, the Clippers were 6–21, a record so ugly it sat just one loss above the New Orleans Pelicans for the worst mark in the entire NBA. Their offense looked like five strangers arguing over which Waze route to take. Their perimeter defense was optional. They were allowing the most three-pointers attempted and made in the entire league. Their locker room felt like a tense Thanksgiving dinner where nobody wanted to sit next to crotchety Uncle Chris.
Because if we’re being honest — brutally honest — the Clippers’ historic turnaround began the moment the franchise made the most uncomfortable decision imaginable:
Exiled mid–road trip in the middle of the night in Atlanta.
When the news was announced, it detonated across the league like a grenade. Players complained. Coaches whispered. Former teammates rushed to defend him. Analysts called it disrespectful.
With Paul on the roster, the team had been winning a paltry 23 percent of its games. Since the split? That number has exploded to 62 percent. That’s not a tweak. That’s a complete atmospheric shift.
It wasn’t immediate. After winning their first game without Paul, the Clippers lost five straight after the move and 10 of 11 overall. But if you were inside the arena — and many of us were — you could feel the change like grey clouds parting after a storm.
The skies cleared for the Clippers on December 20th. That was the turning point.
Less than a week before Christmas, the crosstown rival Los Angeles Lakers walked into the building with LeBron James, Luka Doncic, and all the Hollywood noise that usually follows them.
A 103–88 demolition that felt less like a regular-season win and more like a declaration.
What followed was a six-game winning streak, then a 16–3 surge that became the best stretch in the league over that span. The Clippers stopped playing like a team trying to survive the season and started playing like one determined to rewrite it.
And just when the story began to stabilize, the franchise lit another match.
At the February 5th trade deadline, the Clippers traded James Harden and Ivica Zubac.
They had already lost Bradley Beal for the season after just six games with a fractured hip. Now they were shipping out a former MVP and their starting center.
Since those trades, they’ve gone 9–5, and most of those games came without new point guard Darius Garland, who arrived in the Harden deal but hasn’t fully integrated yet after returning from a toe injury.
“I came here and just wanted to win games,” said Garland on Monday night. “We have a lot more wins to go. We’re not done yet.”
Only the 2016–17 Miami Heat, who climbed from 11–30 to 41–41, have ever erased a deficit of more than 15 games under .500 to reach even.
No team in NBA history has climbed above .500 after digging that deep a hole.
But if the Clippers beat the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday night?
They’ll step into territory no team has ever reached.
“To start 6-21 and be .500 right now, it’s a big thing for us,” said Clippers head coach Ty Lue. “We continued to fight. Continued to compete. Our guys always keep fighting with our backs against the wall.”
And there’s another twist quietly sending relief across front offices around the league.
That pick belongs to the reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder, who also happen to have the best record in basketball.
The league collectively exhaled when the Clippers climbed out of the cellar.
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And this turnaround? It’s a reminder that the NBA still runs on volatility.
It’s a league where superteams collapse, rebuilding plans combust, and sometimes the most important move a franchise can make is subtraction.
Even when it’s painful. Even when it involves a legend.
The Clippers are still chasing the Phoenix Suns for seventh place — a gap of five games that would guarantee them home court in the Play-In Tournament.
“It’s cool, but the job ain’t done,” said LA Clippers superstar Kawhi Leonard “The season isn’t over. Like I told the fellas, we don’t train to lose, we train to win.”
But then again, so was everything about this season.
Three months ago the Clippers were a basketball obituary waiting to be written.
Now they’re flirting with the greatest in-season resurrection the NBA has ever seen.
