The NBA’s all-time starting five: Los Angeles Clippers

You’re in your second semester of AP Basketball History, you love really good teams, and you love lists. With precious little drama left in the NBA’s 2015 offseason, why don’t we hit the barroom and/or barbershop, pour ourselves a frosty mug of Barbicide, and get to arguin’ over each franchise’s most formidable starting five-man lineup.

[Follow Dunks Don’t Lie on Tumblr: The best slams from all of basketball]

Because we don’t like making tough decisions, the lineups will reflect the All-NBA line of thinking. There will be no differentiation between separate forward and guard positions, and the squads will be chosen after careful consideration of individual merits only – we don’t really care if your team’s top shooting guard and point guard don’t get along.

These rankings will roll out based on when each franchise began its NBA life. We continue with the Los Angeles Clippers, who you can root for without hating yourself now!

C: Bob McAdoo. Needlessly maligned for the journeyman career that followed his initial stint with the then-Buffalo Braves (and properly maligned for his aversion to defense), McAdoo nevertheless acted as a scoring and rebounding machine in upstate New York. Prior to being traded (with Tom McMillen!) to the Knicks for a single-digit scoring center in John Gianelli and cash considerations, McAdoo averaged 28.2 points, 12.7 rebounds, and 2.4 blocks per game for the Braves. He won the 1974-75 MVP. The chaos surrounding him, as it was for various to-be Clippers, was never his fault.

F: Elton Brand. Gave the franchise a stabilizing force after years in the wilderness, at a time when the franchise was pinning its hopes on Darius Miles and Michael Olowokandi (to an often-times entertaining degree). Turned in an MVP-level season in 2005-06 (nearly 25 and 10 and 2.5 blocks per game alongside just 2.2 turnovers a game), and averaged 20.3 points per game, 10.7 rebounds and 2.3 blocks per contest in 459 games as a Clipper.

F: Blake Griffin. Somehow, for all his nationally televised pitchman ubiquity, remains underrated. Griffin overcame an injured whiff of what would have been his rookie year (with the whole of the NBA holding its breath in the wake of Greg Oden’s troubles) to grow into not only one of the league’s most entertaining players, but also its most productive, versatile, and reliable (he’s played in 375 out of a potential 394 games in the five years since). His career averages are at 21.5 points and 9.7 rebounds alongside 4.0 assists, and at age 26 he’s just about to enter his prime. Also, not unlike Dick Cavett, Blake possesses a rather dry sense of humor.

G: Randy Smith. An inexhaustible iron man, Smith set the record for most consecutive NBA games played at 906 contests (since broke, by A.C. Green). A two-time All-Star at off guard, Smith averaged over 17 points per game with a series of lacking Buffalo Braves and San Diego Clippers clubs.

G: Chris Paul. The greatest point guard of his generation lent credibility to the Clippers towards the tail end of the disastrous Donald Sterling era. Paul’s slow-down game will never produce majorly eye-popping stats in the Magic Johnson realm, but he’s the best point guard Los Angeles has seen since Magic played with the Lakers, and perhaps the best point guard the NBA has had since Johnson’s championship runs. As was exactly the case in his first six seasons with the then-Hornets, he’s averaged 18.7 points and 9.9 assists per game with the Clippers while shooting 47 percent from the floor with both clubs. He steal averages, however, have dipped down from 2.4 steals per contest to 2.3 a game.

It truly is hard to overstate just how much of an odd duck the 2005-06 Clippers were. Not only did they come out of nowhere to act as a championship contender, incredibly strange for players wearing that uniform, but their style of play (corner threes, sound and efficient choices with midrange jumpers, good looks close at the basket) was ahead of its time. Sam Cassell, acquired along with two first-round picks for Marko Jaric the summer before, should always be beloved amongst those who suffered through the Sterling years.

Beyond that and the team’s recent drive to championship contention, the Clips have precious little to show. The team reeled in ungodly amounts of high end draft picks that they routinely blew on players that just didn’t cut it for whatever reason, and even though the team’s 2000-01 squad was as entertaining as anything Lob City has ever produced, its core failed to make hay in the charts. This is still a franchise whose all-time leaders in blocks and three-pointers are Benoit Benjamin and Eric Piatkowski.

This franchise has been around for 45 years, and yet it has 11 total All-Stars to its credit – and that’s dating back to when All-Star teams had to be comprised of collections culled from just 17 NBA teams. Five members of Clipper teams from 1995 through 1997 have passed away.

Loy Vaught was pretty good and he merited consideration.

That’s our five. Who would you take?

Previous entries: Golden State. Boston. New York. Detroit. Sacramento. Los Angeles Lakers. Atlanta. Philadelphia. Washington. Chicago. Houston. Seattle/Oklahoma City. Phoenix. Milwaukee.