Colin Cowherd: Clippers Built to 'Humiliate' Lakers

The Los Angeles Clippers came away from the deadline (and the weeks following) as the winners of the Western Conference arms race, adding Marcus Morris and Reggie Jackson over the course of February.

The Los Angeles Lakers, who struggle to create offensively when LeBron James hits the bench, added nobody to a relatively weak bench.

The transactions over the last month led to Colin Cowherd declaring the Clippers are building a team specifically created to humiliate their cross-town rivals.

"There's two things happening in Los Angeles. The Clippers want to meet the Lakers in the playoffs," said Cowherd. "They are building a team to throw four guys at LeBron and three good guards off the bench. They want to beat the Lakers. This is symbolic.

"They are building a team to beat one team. They want to play the Lakers and they want to beat them and they want to sweep them. They're building a roster that I think, frankly, I don't think LeBron can overcome this roster right now. I don't. They have too many guys they can throw at him... The Clippers have built a team to specifically humiliate the Lakers."

The humiliation in question seems to be in the form of a sweep in the playoffs. A team featuring LeBron James hasn't been swept since the 2007 Cavaliers prior to 2018, so to say it's a rare circumstance would be underselling the point.

While "humiliate" is strong verbiage, Cowherd's overall point actually holds water. The Clippers don't have a single guy who can go up one-on-one against Anthony Davis, but they don't care about that. They need as many big, quick wing defenders as possible so LeBron can't force a switch and attack whoever he wants. Eventually, he'll tire down from the physical task of battling Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, Marcus Morris, and JaMychael Green. Or so the common thinking goes. LeBron is an alien, after all.

A sweep of the Lakers while fully healthy by their cross-town rivals would qualify as a humiliation, I guess. But a hard-fought battle across six or seven games in the second or third round that results in a loss for the purple and gold? Disappointing, but not humiliating. That seems to be the most likely outcome if the Lakers' ouster does come at the hands of the Clippers.