{"id":572875,"date":"2026-01-31T12:22:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T12:22:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/572875\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T12:22:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T12:22:27","slug":"last-year-was-my-last-year-trusting-a-harden-team-in-the-playoffs-bill-simmons-explains-why-he-is-not-buying-the-hype-about-the-clippers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/572875\/","title":{"rendered":"“Last year was my last year trusting a Harden team in the playoffs” – Bill Simmons explains why he is not buying the hype about the Clippers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite losing to the Denver Nuggets during the return of Nikola Jokic on Friday night, the\u00a0Los Angeles Clippers<\/a> are still the hottest team in the NBA right now. Winners of 16 out of their last 20 games, the Clippers are just three games below the .500 mark after they were 6-21 in mid-December and have now entered play-in tournament position with still 35 games left to play.<\/p>\n

With their mid-season push, many people are starting to talk about the Clippers as the sleeper team in the Western Conference. However, “The Ringer” founder Bill Simmons<\/a> says that what we’re experiencing right now with the Clippers is the annual roller coaster run.<\/p>\n

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Another magical show by James Harden<\/p>\n

According to Simmons, the Clippers always have a stretch every year when they look like title contenders and put together several long winning streaks. However, in the end, they still go back to, well, being the “sorry a” Clippers, who have consistently disappointed their fans.<\/p>\n

Personally, Simmons admitted that he does not have faith in a James Harden<\/a> team after watching “The Beard” pull off another magical show in Game 7 of the Clippers’ first-round playoff series against the Denver Nuggets. In that series, L.A. took a 2-1 series lead over Denver but ultimately got eliminated after losing in Game 7, thanks to Harden’s magical disappearing act.<\/p>\n

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“Last year was my last time ever trusting a Harden team in the playoffs,” said Simmons.<\/p>\n

“Because watching him not look at the rim for the first half of Game 7, that was my ‘Never again’ moment. It’s like Tom Hanks in ‘Castaway’ when he gets mad at Wilson. And then he finds him in the water, ‘Never again.’ He got mad at Wilson. He thought Wilson was talking back to him. Wilson was a volleyball that could not communicate. That was me with James Harden watching him just get rid of the ball at halfcourt.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Related: “Israeli Spies” – Stephen Curry faces backlash over “tens of millions” in controversial tech investments<\/a><\/p>\n

Never again<\/p>\n

In one of the more popular scenes<\/a> from “Castaway”, Hanks’ character “Chuck” was getting frustrated about being stuck alone on the island that he argued with his volleyball “Wilson” and ended up throwing him away when he did not get an answer.<\/p>\n

Almost right away, he realized that in throwing the ball away, he got rid of his best friend and the only companion that kept his sanity while being stuck there. So he looked for “Wilson” and when he found him, he repeatedly said, “Never again.”<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, in the Game 7 that Simmons was referencing, Harden took only one shot in the first quarter and ended up taking just eight shots in 35 minutes, scoring just seven points. Although he had 13 assists in the game, that was not what he was there for in that big game.<\/p>\n

But if you look at his history, that performance wasn’t a surprise. Game 7 Harden averages<\/a> just 19.3 points per game on 35.5 percent field goal shooting, including 22.4 from 3-point distance, while averaging 4.0 turnovers per game.<\/p>\n

It’s unclear if the Clippers will even make the playoffs this season. But if they do, don’t expect Simmons to pick them against anybody. Because, as Chuck told Wilson in the movie, “Never again.”<\/p>\n

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Related: James Harden reflects on the two biggest “what if” moments in his career<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Basketball Network<\/a> on Jan 31, 2026, where it first appeared in the Latest News<\/a> section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite losing to the Denver Nuggets during the return of Nikola Jokic on Friday night, the\u00a0Los Angeles Clippers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3789],"tags":[7,2161,559,187,77654,560,4034,192,4032,251,135,4033,4031,6,253,574],"class_list":{"0":"post-572875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-clippers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bill-simmons","10":"tag-clippers","11":"tag-denver-nuggets","12":"tag-hottest-team","13":"tag-james-harden","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-la-clippers","16":"tag-laclippers","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","19":"tag-losangeles","20":"tag-losangelesclippers","21":"tag-nba","22":"tag-nikola-jokic","23":"tag-western-conference"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115989692099817772","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}