Do the Clippers Have a Better Future Than They're Given Credit for?

Being ranked 23rd out of 30 usually means a team is bad, and that is exactly what makes the Los Angeles Clippers ' spot in ESPN's new future power rankings so strange, because nobody involved seems to think the actual basketball team is bad at all.

The Clippers sat fifth in this same exercise a year ago.

Twelve months and one league investigation later, they have fallen 18 spots, and the reason has almost nothing to do with the players.

"The Clippers ranked a half-dozen spots higher before the NBA handed down a draconian punishment for cap circumvention," Zach Kram wrote in the three-year outlook published this week .

Kram added that the roster is more talented than many of the teams ranked around it, and that the management, draft and market scores are what took the hit.

The league stripped five first-round picks, fined the team $30 million and suspended owner Steve Ballmer for a year, with Bobby Marks noting that Lawrence Frank's six-month suspension carries past the February trade deadline and that a team with no picks to trade could sit in a holding position until next summer.

The projected group of point guard Darius Garland, guard Kris Dunn, forward Brandon Ingram, forward Rui Hachimura and center Brook Lopez, with guard Bradley Beal behind them, is a real rotation, and there are honest arguments this team stays competitive right now.

ESPN notes the franchise has put together 15 straight winning seasons, the longest active run in the league, and a group this deep could outplay outside expectations again this year.

Toronto's 2031 and 2033 first-round picks and a 2027 swap right came back in the trade that sent forward Kawhi Leonard north, so the cupboard is not completely empty either, and that is not nothing for a franchise that was supposed to be starting from zero.

The answer to the headline question is yes for this season and probably no for the two after it.

A future power ranking is not a prediction of this year's standings, and judged strictly on the next 12 months, 23rd is silly for a team with this much usable talent.

Judged on three years, the ranking is doing its job, because the missing drafts are real, the front office is hamstrung, and one of ESPN's writers even predicts the long winning-season streak finally breaks before the window closes.

The fair read is that the Clippers are underrated for this season and rated about right on the long view, since the question of whether the championship window shut was answered the day the picks left.

Winning now was never optional in Los Angeles anyway, because a team with no picks cannot even run a proper rebuild, and every competitive season from here makes the eventual reset shallower.

Rankings measure risk, and the risk is real, but the games still get played by the players, and the players here are good.

Good team, cloudy future, and both things are true at once.