{"id":849837,"date":"2026-10-03T09:13:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T09:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/849837\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T09:13:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T09:13:15","slug":"at-media-day-clippers-begin-with-an-apology-then-look-to-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/849837\/","title":{"rendered":"At media day, Clippers begin with an apology, then look to the future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A new age of Clippers basketball<\/a> started on Monday.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about moving on, or attempting to, after the franchise endured a nightmare offseason.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy entire summer\u2019s been basketball,\u201d guard Darius Garland nonchalantly said during media day at Intuit Dome. \u201cMy main thing is to come in here and win games. So, that\u2019s my main focus.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Clippers\u2019 offseason was engulfed by the NBA\u2019s salary-cap circumvention investigation<\/a> into the team\u2019s endorsement deals with Kawhi Leonard. The NBA fined the Clippers $30 million, stripped them of five first-round picks, dealt suspensions to<\/a> owner Steve Ballmer and president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank \u2014 and the Clippers ultimately traded Leonard<\/a>, who was fined merely $700,000, back to Toronto.<\/p>\n

Garland represented his teammates in prioritizing hoops.<\/p>\n

But for Trent Redden, the Clippers\u2019 interim president of basketball operations, things weren\u2019t that simple. The admittedly nervous executive started Monday\u2019s news conferences by apologizing to<\/a> the Clippers\u2019 faithful for the aftermath of the Leonard situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur fans deserve to hear from us before this, and for that we\u2019re sorry,\u201d Redden said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been listening to the thoughts, the concerns, and feeling the emotions of our fan base. They mean everything to us. \u2026 We hope to fulfill our promises to them, to build their trust and move forward through this time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis franchise often has done its best work with its back against the wall \u2026 We hope to represent our fans the same way we always have in dark times, by coming out fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fighting is all the new-look Clippers can do as they enter the 2026-27 season.<\/p>\n

Leonard is back north of the border. Other stars, such as Paul George, James Harden and the recently retired Russell Westbrook, are distant memories in L.A. For the first time in years, the Clippers aren\u2019t entering a season with championship aspirations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been difficult,\u201d said Ty Lue, who enters his seventh season as the Clippers\u2019 coach. \u201cBut I give our players a lot of credit \u2026 the leadership is great [and] the morale is great, even in these tough situations. That\u2019s good to see, when you have your players coming in every day, giving everything they have; a lot of teams don\u2019t have that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Clippers\u2019 league-record streak<\/a> of 15 consecutive winning seasons is in jeopardy. Nonetheless, the team will still feature plenty of intrigue roster-wise, with a mix of youngsters \u201cdoing TikToks\u201d and \u201cold heads\u201d trying to keep up, as Garland described it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we can surprise a lot of people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Garland himself, 26, enters his first full season in L.A. as the team\u2019s go-to scorer. A two-time All-Star, he\u2019s primed to lead a promising backcourt alongside 19-year-old rookie Keaton Wagler, the Clippers\u2019 No. 5 pick in the 2026 draft.<\/p>\n

Wagler is one of the team\u2019s promising young players, alongside fellow rookie Baba Miller, Kobe Sanders and the rehabbing Jordan Miller and Yanic Konan Niederhauser.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just going to do my best to stay mentally focused,\u201d Wagler said when asked about the pressure of being the team\u2019s first top-five pick since Blake Griffin in 2009. \u201cNot worry about all the outside noise.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Clippers return key role players like Derrick Jones Jr., Kris Dunn, Bradley Beal and Brook Lopez, and sport new ones like Max Strus and Gradey Dick via trades.<\/p>\n

However, the team\u2019s ceiling will rest on the influence of new forwards Brandon Ingram and Rui Hachimura. Hachimura is coming off a strong playoff run and four-year stint with the Lakers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing about here \u2026 everybody talks about how they take really good care of their players,\u201d Hachimura said of signing a two-year, $28-million contract with the Clippers this offseason.<\/p>\n

Ingram, the centerpiece of the Leonard trade, is a solid three-level scorer and will shoulder much of the offensive load alongside Garland \u2014 when healthy.<\/p>\n

Redden shockingly shared that Ingram is recovering from a partially torn Achilles tendon in addition to heel surgery.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had been dealing with some pain throughout the year with the Raptors, especially coming down crunch time with the Raptors,\u201d Ingram said. \u201cI didn\u2019t quite know what it was. Near the end of the season, we figured out what it was, and surgery was the best thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old Ingram, though, should make a full recovery and claims his best days are still ahead of him.<\/p>\n

He feels the same way about his new Clippers team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know [there are] little to no expectations for us this year,\u201d Ingram said. \u201cWe have enough in the building to compete. This is what we love to do. So, we\u2019ll go out and compete every single night, learn, go on to the next game and get better and better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new age of Clippers basketball started on Monday. It\u2019s about moving on, or attempting to, after the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":849838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3789],"tags":[7,7736,559,1836,789,5377,529,4034,192,4032,251,135,4033,4031,3857,6,100316,18,1012,2084,396,650,702],"class_list":["post-849837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-clippers","tag-basketball","tag-clipper","tag-clippers","tag-fan","tag-garland","tag-ingram","tag-kawhi-leonard","tag-la","tag-la-clippers","tag-laclippers","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-clippers","tag-losangeles","tag-losangelesclippers","tag-lot","tag-nba","tag-nightmare-offseason","tag-player","tag-rui-hachimura","tag-season","tag-team","tag-thing","tag-year"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117376214867459206","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849837","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=849837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}