Clippers guard Lou Williams has cleared quarantine and will be available to play on Tuesday against the Suns, agent Wallace Prather tells Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
Williams, who left the NBA’s Walt Disney World campus last month to attend a funeral, was photographed at popular Atlanta strip club Magic City during his absence. Although Williams said he was only there for the food – Magic City’s lemon pepper BBQ wings are named after him – he had to undergo a 10-day quarantine upon returning to Orlando.
Players who leave the NBA’s campus with permission can quarantine for as few as four days when they return, but any potential violations of the league’s protocols can instead result in a 10-to-14-day quarantine period, as was the case for Williams.
The extended quarantine period sidelined Williams for the Clippers’ first two seeding games, but it sounds like he’ll be ready to resume his sixth-man role on Tuesday vs. Phoenix. His return figures to result in a reduction in minutes for the likes of Reggie Jackson and Landry Shamet.
With Williams back, the Clippers are nearing full strength. However, L.A. is still missing Montrezl Harrell, who is taking some time away from the team to deal with his grief following the death of his grandmother.
The Clippers are slowly getting their full roster together in Orlando, but they may have to wait a while for Montrezl Harrell, writes Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN.
The backup big man received permission to leave the Walt Disney World campus two weeks ago because of the death of his grandmother. He doesn’t appear ready to focus on basketball yet, posting on Instagram last night that he doesn’t know when he “will stop crying.”
“I don’t know how to feel right now,” Harrell wrote. “I feel lost empty you are my queen, my best friend, my light in all darkness. I never had you leaving my side. I don’t know how I’m do it but I got to find some way but losing you today isn’t going to make any day I wake up easy.”
Coach Doc Rivers told reporters today that the team will give Harrell as much time as he needs to deal with his grief. He said the league needs to recognize the importance of mental health and treat those situations as seriously as it does physical injuries.
“I’ve talked to him … From others I get asked from inside like, ‘When is Trez coming back’ and my answer’s been the same — when he’s ready,” Rivers said. “When he’s ready, he’ll come back. You can’t play if you’re not right mentally and because of the emotional part of it. His grandmother is very tight with him, so all I told him is ‘I love you and take your time. We’ll be ready with open arms when you come.'” (Twitter link from Andrew Greif of The Los Angeles Times)
Harrell, Lou Williams and Patrick Beverley all left the Clippers for personal reasons over the past two weeks. Williams and Beverley have both returned, but Williams is on an extended quarantine, while Beverley is playing under a minutes restriction.
Following Thursday’s game at the NBA campus in Orlando, the Lakers and Clippers have now faced each other four times this season, with each team winning a pair of those games.
Los Angeles’ teams are widely viewed as the top two contenders to make it out of the Western Conference and compete in the NBA Finals this fall. While a challenger like the Nuggets, Jazz, or Rockets could break up the all-L.A. party, the Lakers and Clippers are on track to play on opposite sides of the West bracket in the postseason, putting them on a collision course to meet in the Western Finals.
Assuming the two L.A. teams do meet again in the playoffs and we haven’t seen the last of the LeBron James/Anthony Davis vs. Kawhi Leonard/Paul George showdowns of the 2019/20 season, we want to know what you expect to happen in a best-of-seven series between the Lakers and Clippers.
The Lakers had the last word on Thursday night, as a last-minute LeBron put-back proved to be the game-winner in a 103-101 victory. But the Clippers were missing key players like Lou Williams and Montrezl Harrell. The Clips were +16 in minutes that Leonard played, and having second-unit standouts like Williams and Harrell available could have made those non-Kawhi minutes more manageable.
On the other hand, it’s not like we saw the Lakers at their best either. James and Davis combined to go 14-of-38 from the field, showing some rust after not playing real games in over four-and-a-half months. The club is also still experimenting with its summer rotation and will likely continue to do so until everyone – including the players who arrived in Orlando late – is up to full speed.
Another point worth considering: The Lakers have all but clinched the No. 1 seed, but their lack of home court advantage over the Clippers at Walt Disney World may be even more meaningful in an all-L.A. series than it would be in other series — if every game were played at Staples Center, the Lakers might end up with a de facto home court advantage for the entire series, as their fans often show up en masse at Clippers “home” games. That won’t happen on a neutral court in Orlando.
What do you think? After watching the Lakers and Clippers face each other four times this season, which team would you pick to win a seven-game postseason series? Do you fully expect the two L.A. teams to meet again in the playoffs, or will one of them falter before the Western Finals?
Vote in our poll, then head to the comment section below to share your thoughts!
Lou Williams‘ violation of the NBA’s protocols means he’s serving a 10-day quarantine and missing at least two seeding games, but his Clippers teammates and head coach Doc Rivers have Williams’ back, as Mark Medina of USA Today writes. “Lou’s one of the most-liked guys in the whole organization and is always trying to get everyone together on the road,” center Ivica Zubac said. “Lou is a true leader. The fact that everyone is coming to the defense of him speaks everything about him.”
With Williams in quarantine for 10 days, the Clippers are hoping Beverley, who just returned to the NBA’s Walt Disney Campus after being away for a personal matter, can step in.
Clippers head coach Doc Rivers spoke at length about how deep his team’s roster is despite missing multiple players, writes Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN. “Well, a deep roster is built for that,” Rivers said. “And we’ve done that. Now, when you have five and six guys out at one time, that’s asking too much on any roster. By the time the [seeding] games start, we won’t have that many out, but we’ll have maybe two to three key guys out, and that’s asking a lot.” As previously noted, Los Angeles will be without Williams and Harrell on Thursday night. But Kawhi Leonard echoes the same sentiment of his head coach about the depth of the roster.“I knew that we had a pretty deep squad,” he said. “I knew how talented we could be. It’s about executing now.”
Center Ivica Zubac, who has recovered from COVID-19, played 13 minutes in the Clippers’ third Orlando scrimmage on Monday and appears ready for the league restart, Andrew Greif of the Los Angeles Times writes. Zubac, who signed a four-year, $28.5MM contract last summer, contributed two points and six rebounds during his short stint.
“I don’t care how much you work out, a basketball game, an NBA basketball game is different and so you get winded,” Clippers head coach Doc Rivers said. “But I thought he did what Zub does, he clogged up the paint, he rolled for us, he did a lot of good things.”
Another Clippers player has returned to the NBA’s Walt Disney World campus, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, who reports (via Twitter) that veteran guard Patrick Beverley is back in Orlando after leaving for an emergency personal matter on Tuesday.
As of Friday, Beverley, Lou Williams, and Montrezl Harrell were all away the Disney campus for personal matters, while Ivica Zubac and Landry Shamet still hadn’t reported. However, Zubac and Shamet were said to be arriving this weekend, and Williams returned on Saturday as well. Once Harrell gets back to Disney and everyone clears quarantine, the Clippers should be at full strength.
Williams will be subject to a 10-day quarantine period after the NBA reviewed his activities while away from the campus. However, there’s no indication at this point that Beverley will have to remain quarantined for longer than the four-day minimum required for any player who leaves Orlando. We’ll provide an update if that changes.
It remains to be seen whether Beverley will be available for the Clippers’ first seeding game on Thursday night against the Lakers. Even if he clears quarantine before that game tips off, it will be well over a week since he has practiced, so the club may play it safe with one of its key backcourt contributors.
More details have emerged about Williams’ trip to Magic City in Atlanta during an excused absence to attend a funeral. Sources tell the authors that Williams was part of a group, including rapper Jack Harlow, that went to the club for dinner Thursday after the funeral viewing. They didn’t stay long, sources add, and were there mainly for the food.
“Ask any of my teammates what’s my favorite restaurant in Atlanta,” Williams tweeted Saturday night. “Ain’t nobody partying. Chill out lol #Maskon #inandout.” He later added, “Magic City is my favorite restaurant in the world.”
The funeral for Williams’ friend took place Friday and he returned to the WDW campus Saturday.
Williams’ situation is one of many for the short-handed Clippers, who are just four days away from their opening game. Ivica Zubac is in quarantine after joining the team Friday, and Landry Shamet is reportedly headed to Orlando after testing positive for COVID-19 earlier this month. Patrick Beverley and Montrezl Harrell are both away from the team on excused absences.
Asked Saturday about whether he expected a full roster for Thursday’s game, coach Doc Rivers responded, “My guess is I would doubt it.”
The NBA is investigating what Clippers guard Lou Williams did during his absence from Orlando to determine how long he will be required to quarantine, tweets Shams Charania of The Athletic.
ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne tweets that pictures emerged of Williams at an Atlanta gentleman’s club Thursday night alongside rapper Jack Harlow, who later deleted the post from Instagram. Harlow claimed Friday that Williams wasn’t at the club, tweeting, “That was an old pic of me and Lou. I was just reminiscing cuz I miss him.”
Sources tell Shelburne that NBA security interviewed Williams, who admitted briefly being at the Magic City gentleman’s club on Thursday (Twitter link).
Williams received permission to leave Walt Disney World this week, making him the third Clipper in the past few days to exit the campus environment to attend to personal matters. Coach Doc Rivers confirmed that Williams returned today, according to Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN (Twitter link).
Williams will be required to quarantine for four days if he maintained negative test results over each of the past seven days. However, a longer quarantine could be imposed, depending on the results of the league investigation. The Clippers will begin their seeding games Thursday against the Lakers.
“I can’t share much with his journey (since leaving Orlando), I wasn’t on that journey with him,” Rivers told reporters (Twitter link). “But he’s back here, I can tell you that much. Those (pictures) got out and that’s something that we obviously didn’t enjoy seeing or like.”
If Williams’ quarantine is extended to 10 days, he will miss two seeding games and would forfeit up to $150K in salary, notes Bobby Marks of ESPN (Twitter link).
Anthony Davis is considered day-to-day after being poked in the right eye during today’s scrimmage, Lakers coach Frank Vogel tells Dave McMenamin of ESPN (Twitter link). L.A. has one more scrimmage Monday before starting its seeding games Thursday against the Clippers.
Clippers center Ivica Zubac reported to Orlando Friday night and is being quarantined for two days, tweets Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports.