California schools continue to struggle with test scores in reading and math

• February 4, 2025

When Gov. Gavin Newsom issues one of his periodic boasts about California’s superiority vis-a-vis other states — particularly those with conservative politics such as Texas and Florida — he conveniently omits aspects that are less than admirable. The exclusions include California’s levels of poverty, homelessness, unemployment, utility bills and housing coststhat are the nation’s highest, or close to it.

One of California’s starkest — and most important — letdowns is the consistent failure to help elementary and middle school students achieve higher national test scores in basic educational skills, such as reading and math.

Simply put, California’s education system is not only behind most other states, but even trails those that Newsom and other Californians consider to be culturally backward. Moreover, California schools have not yet recovered from the educational losses suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This harsh reality is revealed in the latest round of academic testing by the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress. The data are voluminous and difficult to parse, but EdSource, a nonprofit news outlet devoted to charting California education trends, has thankfully done it for the rest of us.

“The latest scores show mostly no progress,” EdSource reported last week. “Scores in fourth and eighth grade reading fell again, leaving California 9 points and the nation 8 points below 2017. Math was mixed — up in fourth grade, but not enough to catch 2019, with eighth grade taking another dip.”

EdSource further found that average scores “mask widening disparities between the highest and lowest-performing students. On fourth grade reading, student scores at the 90th achievement percentile fell 1 point between 2019 and 2024, and scores at the 75th percentile fell 3 points. However, scores for students in the 10th percentile fell 10 points, and for students in the 25th percentile, they fell 8 points.”

Stubbornly low levels of reading and mathematics skills among elementary and middle school students are particularly worrisome because they are tools that must be mastered to successfully navigate high school and post-graduation college classes or job training. The lapses not only affect the students’ chances to become successful adults but the state’s needs for an educated workforce and voting public.

Current data underscore that negative effect. While California has a huge homeless population and more than a million members of its labor force are jobless, employers are also finding it very difficult to fill job vacancies with workers who are either skilled or can be trained.

This isn’t a new issue. California has been lagging behind other states for decades and has a chronic “achievement gap” between poor or English-learner students and those from more privileged circumstances.

More than a decade ago, then-Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature overhauled school finance to provide additional funds to schools with large numbers of students at risk of failure. While countless billions of dollars have been rerouted, the outcomes have improved only fractionally at best.

Money is certainly a factor in the quality of instruction. The state has sharply boosted spending on schools in recent years and they would have nearly $25,000 per student in Newsom’s proposed 2025-26 budget. Newsom has fostered additional state aid for kindergarten and pre-kindergarten, the state is now providing universally free lunches, and has implemented early screening to detect reading deficiencies.

Those are potentially positive steps to close achievement gaps, but money is not the only factor. EdSource notes that “some states whose scores exceeded California’s on fourth-grade reading, including Mississippi, Connecticut and Colorado, adopted comprehensive reading plans grounded in the science of reading.”

That’s the current term for phonics, which California’s education establishment has often resisted despite ample evidence that it improves kids’ ability to read.

Dan Walters is a columnist for CalMatters.

​ Orange County Register 

Crestview League boys basketball race comes down to a wild finish

• February 4, 2025

The Crestview League this season has been as crazy as an Orange County boys basketball league can be.

It is a five-team league. All five teams are among the top 11 in the county rankings: Crean Lutheran at No. 5, followed by No. 6 Canyon, No. 9 Cypress, No. 10 Foothill and No. 11 La Habra.

Canyon and Cypress split their two league games. La Habra beat and lost to Canyon, Crean Lutheran, Cypress and Foothill … i.e. everybody in the league. Many of the Crestview League games have had wild and dramatic endings, too.

La Habra has completed its league schedule. Crean Lutheran has already clinched the league title.

The league finishes Tuesday night with two games: Crean Lutheran at Canyon and Cypress at Foothill.

But, wait! There could be more on Wednesday.

The standings as of Tuesday morning (league records): 1. Crean Lutheran (6-1); 2. Canyon (4-3); 3. La Habra (4-4); 4. Cypress (3-4); 5. Foothill (1-6).

The top three finishers in a five-team league like the Crestview League are automatic qualifiers for the CIF Southern Section playoffs that begin Feb. 12. The playoff brackets will be released Saturday at noon.

So, the league’s No. 4 and No. 5 teams must hope that an at-large berth will be available in whichever playoff divisions they are placed. All five Crestview teams have the .500-or-better overall record required for at-large berth consideration.

Which teams finish 2-4 might come down to the league’s tiebreaker criteria.

Here are the tiebreaker scenarios, with a look at Tuesday’s possible results …

– If Canyon beats Crean Lutheran and Cypress beats Foothill, Canyon is the second-place team. Cypress and La Habra would play Wednesday at 6 p.m. at Sunny Hills High to determine the third-place team.

– If Canyon beats Crean Lutheran and Foothill beats Cypress, Canyon is second place and La Habra is third place.

– If Canyon loses to Crean Lutheran and Cypress beats Foothill, it would be a three-way tie for second place among Canyon, Cypress and La Habra. Coin flips done in advance have La Habra as the second-place team. To determine third place, it would be Canyon vs. Cypress on Wednesday at 6 p.m. at Sunny Hills High.

– If Canyon loses to Crean Lutheran and Foothill beats Cypress, Canyon and La Habra finish in a second-place tie and both would be automatic qualifiers.

Crazy? That’s the way it’s been all season in the Crestview League.

​ Orange County Register 

Albano’s Fab 5: Orange County girls basketball standouts last week, Feb. 4

• February 4, 2025

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Dan Albano’s Fab 5 outstanding girls basketball players last week, Feb. 4:

Ellie Anderson, San Clemente, Jr., G

The point guard sank a game-winning 3-pointer with 13 seconds left in the fourth quarter in a 54-51 victory against San Juan Hills for the outright South Coast League title. Anderson went 5 for 7 from beyond the arc and finished with 15 points.

Camaila Carigma, Savanna, Jr., G

The left-handed slasher scored a game-high 15 points and added 11 rebounds as the Rebels claimed their first league title since 2017 with a 42-24 win against Anaheim in the Coast League.

Kayly Honig, Corona del Mar, Sr., F/C

Honig, who is committed to NAIA Park University in Arizona, scored a game-high 13 points and added eight rebounds in a 35-29 win at Los Alamitos that kept the Sea Kings in contention for a share of the Sunset League title.

Charlotte Muller, Esperanza, Jr., G/F

Muller scored a team-high 15 points, including three 3-pointers, and added six rebounds and three assists in a 58-46 win against first-place Crean Lutheran in the Crestview League.

Kayla Watanabe, Orange Lutheran, Fr., G

Watanabe scored 18 points, including three 3-pointers, and added six rebounds and three assists in a 59-45 victory against Santa Margarita in the Trinity League. It was the Lancers’ first league win and helped them tie the Eagles for third place.

Please send nominees for Albano’s Fab 5 to dalbano@scng.com or @ocvarsityguy on X or Instagram

​ Orange County Register 

Kings looking forward to six consecutive home games after tough road trip

• February 4, 2025

There’s been no place like home for the Kings since Jim Hiller took the helm, and now they’ll host their final three games before the Four Nations Face-Off break, starting with a throwdown against the Montreal Canadiens on Wednesday.

The Kings’ .811 points percentage on home ice since Hiller’s in-season promotion one year ago is the best in the league, some 55 ticks above that of the next best home team, the Carolina Hurricanes, over that same span.

After achieving two undesired feats –– they lost both ends of a back-to-back set in regulation and dropped four straight decisions, both for the first time in 2024-25 –– their latest bounceback in this springy season saw them double their goal total for their five-game road trip from four to eight in a 4-2 win over those same Hurricanes on Saturday.

That relative outburst was accounted for entirely by middle-six forwards that the Kings desperately needed to microwave up some offense. Kevin Fiala had two goals off what Hiller described as “two incredible solo efforts,” both of which were assisted by Quinton Byfield, while Phillip Danault scored one goal and set up another by Trevor Moore. After a road trip in which they’d collected one of a possible eight points and scored just a goal per game to that point, Fiala offered that the Kings were in “desperation mode.”

“It was just emotional on the bench. They were happy, we were happy. We were so pumped, and I think it got us a lot of energy,” Fiala told reporters. “All of our goals, we were so pumped up, and we got a boost, for sure, after every goal.”

Perhaps the next King to get rolling will be captain Anže Kopitar, who was joined in Los Angeles this week by another Slovenian luminary, new Laker Luka Doncic. In the Kings’ final game of 2024, Kopitar had his second two-goal game in 10 days, but he hasn’t scored since. In 14 games this calendar year, he’s compiled just four assists during a challenging stretch for the whole team.

“I guess dry January is a thing,” Kopitar joked to reporters at practice on Tuesday.

On the back end, Brandt Clarke returned to the lineup (+1 rating) but to neither power-play unit, with Drew Doughty and Jordan Spence manning each group’s respective point position. He drew back in out of necessity, it appeared, as Mikey Anderson’s apparent hand/finger injury kept him out of the contest.

Kings media personality Zach Dooley reported that Anderson skated alone in a red jersey before practice on Monday and Tuesday, indicating a lack of availability for Wednesday, at a minimum.

“Whatever he’s got, it’s going to have to heal through treatments and relatively naturally, which is a positive,” Hiller told reporters on Tuesday.

The upcoming pause for the first ever Four Nations Face-Off will afford every King except Adrian Kempe 13 days of rest and recuperation.

A grueling road trip with three games in four nights against three of the East’s top teams after losses to two of the conference’s hottest clubs offered a light at the end of the tunnel in more ways than one. In addition to the victory, the Kings now have their next six games at Crypto.com Arena, three on each side of the break, and 22 of their final 32 matches at home.

That’ll begin with the Canadiens, who went from being soaring to boring in short order. In the five weeks between Dec. 15 and Jan. 22, Montreal was the NHL’s best team by both record and points percentage, amassing a 13-3-1 mark and a .794 clip that was 100 points better than the next most successful team.

Yet for captain Nick Suzuki, sniper Cole Caufield, former No. 1 overall pick Juraj Slafkovský and Calder Trophy candidate Lane Hutson, losses in five straight games have relegated them to the wrong side of the playoff bubble. Most recently, they blew a two-goal lead in Sunday’s 3-2 loss to the Ducks.

CANADIENS AT KINGS

When: Wednesday, 7:30 p.m.

Where: Crypto.com Arena

How to watch: FDSNW

​ Orange County Register 

The Aga Khan, spiritual leader of the world’s Ismaili Muslims and philanthropist, has died at 88

• February 4, 2025

PARIS (AP) — The Aga Khan, who became the spiritual leader of the world’s millions of Ismaili Muslims at age 20 as a Harvard undergraduate and poured a material empire built on billions of dollars in tithes into building homes, hospitals and schools in developing countries, has died. He was 88.

His Aga Khan Development Network and the Ismaili religious community announced that His Highness Prince Karim Al-Hussaini, the Aga Khan IV and 49th hereditary imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims, died Tuesday in Portugal surrounded by his family.

His successor was designated in his will, which will be read out in the presence of his family and senior religious leaders in Lisbon before the name is made public. A date has not been announced. The successor is chosen from among his male progeny or other relatives, according to the Ismaili community’s website.

Considered by his followers to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan IV was a student when his grandfather passed over his playboy father as his successor to lead the diaspora of Shia Ismaili Muslims, saying his followers should be led by a young man “who has been brought up in the midst of the new age.”

Over decades, the Aga Khan evolved into a business magnate and a philanthropist, moving between the spiritual and the worldly and mixing them with ease.

Treated as a head of state, the Aga Khan was given the title of “His Highness” by Queen Elizabeth in July 1957, two weeks after his grandfather the Aga Khan III unexpectedly made him heir to the family’s 1,300-year dynasty as leader of the Ismaili Muslim sect.

He became the Aga Khan IV on Oct. 19, 1957, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on the spot where his grandfather once had his weight equaled in diamonds in gifts from his followers.

He had left Harvard to be at his ailing grandfather’s side, and returned to school 18 months later with an entourage and a deep sense of responsibility.

“I was an undergraduate who knew what his work for the rest of his life was going to be,” he said in a 2012 interview with Vanity Fair magazine. “I don’t think anyone in my situation would have been prepared.”

A defender of Islamic culture and values, he was widely regarded as a builder of bridges between Muslim societies and the West despite — or perhaps because of — his reticence to become involved in politics.

The Aga Khan Development Network, his main philanthropic organization, deals mainly with issues of health care, housing, education and rural economic development. It says it works in over 30 countries and has an annual budget of about $1 billion for nonprofit development activities.

A network of hospitals bearing his name are scattered in places where health care had lacked for the poorest, including Bangladesh, Tajikistan and Afghanistan, where he spent tens of millions of dollars for development of local economies.

His eye for building and design led him to establish an architecture prize, and programs for Islamic Architecture at MIT and Harvard. He restored ancient Islamic structures throughout the world.

Accounts differ as to the date and place of Prince Karim Aga Khan’s birth. According to “Who’s Who in France,” he was born on Dec. 13, 1936, in Creux-de-Genthod, near Geneva, Switzerland, the son of Joan Yarde-Buller and Aly Khan.

The extent of the Aga Khan’s financial empire is hard to measure. Some reports estimated his personal wealth to be in the billions.

The Ismailis — a sect originally centered in India but which expanded to large communities in east Africa, Central and South Asia and the Middle East — consider it a duty to tithe up to 10% of their income to him as steward.

“We have no notion of the accumulation of wealth being evil,” he told Vanity Fair in 2012. “The Islamic ethic is that if God has given you the capacity or good fortune to be a privileged individual in society, you have a moral responsibility to society.”

He is survived by three sons and a daughter.

The Aga Khan will be buried in Lisbon. The date was not released.

​ Orange County Register 

Democrats confront limits of their power in bid to stop Trump and Musk

• February 4, 2025

By STEVE PEOPLES and NICHOLAS RICCARDI

WASHINGTON (AP) — Outraged Democrats are testing the limits of their diminished power as they try to stop the stunning power grabs of President Donald Trump and his chief lieutenant, Elon Musk.

Musk’s maneuvers, which include the hostile seizure of taxpayer data and the apparent closure of the government’s leading international humanitarian aid agency, have energized many Democrats, who have been mired in a post-election funk and struggled to identify a cohesive strategy in the earliest days of Trump’s presidency.

Democratic members of Congress threatened to try to bring Trump’s agenda, including his Cabinet nominations, to a grinding halt. Operatives assembled a new war room in their party headquarters. And average Americans, backed by a sudden influx of elected officials, warned of a looming constitutional crisis at ballooning protests across the nation’s capital.

“With one voice, we can push back and resist the excesses and extremes of the Trump administration,” newly elected Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said in an interview. “Only two weeks in, Elon Musk is already our worst president ever.”

It’s unclear, however, if such attempts at obstruction would realistically stop Trump and Musk.

Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress, while the Supreme Court is led by a 6-3 conservative majority. And Republicans who control Congress, so far at least, have cheered Trump and Musk’s provocative moves.

Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday shared one of the billionaire’s social media posts in which he claimed to have discovered roughly $700 billion in government fraud.

“When Elon and the team started I was very supportive but thought the waste and fraud would top out at $250 billion,” Vance wrote. “The real number will end up much higher.”

Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, oversees a team of people at the Department of Government Efficiency in Washington. With Trump’s blessing, the billionaire CEO is moving to fire or sideline career government officials, gain access to sensitive databases and dismantle agencies he disfavors.

On Monday, some of Musk’s agents were spotted at the Department of Education, which Trump has vowed to abolish. And on Tuesday, Musk called for National Public Radio to be stripped of federal funding.

None of it is happening with congressional approval, inviting a constitutional clash over the limits of presidential authority.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, a rising star in her party, said no elected Democrat should help Republicans govern in the GOP-controlled House, even if that leads to a government shutdown.

“I don’t know that there’s anything in modern day history that comes close to the moment we’re in,” Crockett said. “As we typically say in the Black community, the hoods are off.”

In the Senate, some Democrats said they would break personal tradition and oppose all of Trump’s remaining Cabinet nominees.

“I plan to oppose every cabinet level nominee that is considered on the Senate floor going forward,” said Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del. “The administration has carried out unlawful budget freezes, massive civil servant layoffs and unconstitutional firings, directed federal funding specifically to places with ‘higher birthrates,’ allowed an unelected and unchecked billionaire to determine what our tax dollars are worthy of funding, and more.”

“This is unacceptable and dangerous,” Blunt Rochester added.

The growing outcry from Democrats extends well beyond Washington, where some rank-and-file Democrats are upset that their representatives in Congress are not doing enough.

Ezra Levin, who leads the Democratic activist group Indivisible, said that 50,000 people joined a call on Sunday to pressure senators to take a tougher stand against Musk. He was pleased that Democrats in Washington seem to have rallied since last week’s unilateral grant freeze, but he contends that the party can take more steps, especially in the Senate.

“We don’t even have them issuing ongoing opposition to Trump’s nominees while a coup is happening,” Levin said on Tuesday, noting 22 Senate Democrats voted to confirm Trump’s nominee for secretary of veterans affairs, Doug Collins. “This isn’t about any individual program, this is about whether we have a constitution.”

Democrats have few options.

Philip Joyce, a public policy professor at the University of Maryland, noted that the Trump administration has been more than willing to work around Congress during its latest round of executive actions.

“Since the administration doesn’t seem concerned with doing things that have been viewed as illegal or unconstitutional in the past, I can’t see any other option other than taking the administration to court,” Joyce said.

Indeed, Democrats at this point hope the courts will provide the checks and balances that Trump’s Republican allies in Washington will not.

Democratic state attorneys general and nonprofit groups successfully filed lawsuits last week that led to separate court orders halting Trump-ordered funding freezes that triggered panic among nonprofit organizations, including hospitals and social welfare groups. On Monday, federal worker unions sued to block Musk and his staff from accessing the Treasury payments system. Multiple groups have also sued to prevent Trump from stripping civil service protections from a swathe of federal workers.

At the same time, Democrats and their allies are increasingly concerned that Trump may ignore court orders altogether. Already, the term-limited president is bypassing laws that establish federal funding levels and worker protections.

Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, told the AP that his union is already preparing for Trump to ignore a court order.

“We won’t give up. We’ll keep fighting until justice prevails,” he said.

In one apparent silver lining, Kelly noted that Trump has been good for union participation in recent weeks. The American Federation of Government Employees expanded its ranks by 8,693 members in January and another 3,000 people have joined so far in January, he said.

Government workers were among the hundreds who protested outside federal offices on Tuesday. And more than a dozen members of Congress were on the speaking program of a late-afternoon rally outside the Treasury building, where Musk’s team last week gained access to the U.S. Treasury payment system.

The system is responsible for 1 billion payments per year totaling $5 trillion and includes sensitive information involving bank accounts and Social Security payments.

Protesters outside the Office of Personnel Management on Tuesday targeted Musk almost more than Trump.

“Elon, Elon, stop the coup! Nobody elected you!” they chanted, as some waved signs that read, “Musk must go. Get out! Now.”

“It’s one thing to downsize the government. It’s one thing to try to obliterate it,” said Dan Smith, a Maryland resident whose father was a farmer, a USDA research scientist, and “one of the hardest working federal employees I knew.”

He called the Trump administration’s moves “frightening and disgusting.”

“My only hope is that they’re going to push too far, and there’s going to be a response and a retaliation — and we’re going to come out this thing with more and stronger belief in democracy,” Smith said.

Peoples reported from New York. AP writer Chris Megerian contributed.

​ Orange County Register 

Families and doctors sue over Trump’s order to halt funding for gender-affirming care

• February 4, 2025

By GEOFF MULVIHILL

Seven families with transgender or nonbinary children filed a lawsuit Tuesday over President Donald Trump’s executive orders to narrowly define the sexes and halt federal support for gender-affirming health care for transgender people under age 19.

PFLAG, a national group for family of LGBTQ+ people; and GLMA, a doctors organization, are also plaintiffs in the court challenge in a Baltimore federal court.

It comes one week after Trump signed an order calling for the federal government to stop funding the medical care through federal government-run health insurance programs including Medicaid and TRICARE.

Kristen Chapman, the mother of one of the plaintiffs in the case, said her family moved to Richmond, Virginia, from Tennessee in 2023 because of a ban on gender-affirming care in their home state. Her 17-year-old daughter, Willow, had an initial appointment scheduled for last week with a new provider who would accept Medicaid. But Trump signed his order the day before and the hospital said it could not provide care.

“I thought Virginia would be a safe place for me and my daughter,” Kristen Chapman said in a statement. “Instead, I am heartbroken, tired, and scared.”

She’s not the only one, Brian Bond, the CEO of PFLAG, said on a conference call with reporters. “We are receiving a drumbeat of calls from parents whose kids’ care is being canceled.”

The ACLU and Lambda Legal, who are representing the plaintiffs, want a judge to put the order on hold. In a court filing Tuesday, they said Trump’s executive orders are “unlawful and unconstitutional” because they seek to withhold federal funds previously authorized by Congress and because they violate antidiscrimination laws. The challenge also says that the order infringes on the rights of parents.

Like legal challenges to state bans on gender-affirming care, they also argue that the policy discriminates because it does not prohibit federal funds for the same treatments when they’re not used for gender transition.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Some health providers immediately paused providing the coverage while they assess how the order affects them. New York Attorney General Letitia James, who has repeatedly battled Trump in court, told hospitals in her state Monday that it would violate the law to stop offering gender-affirming care to people under 19.

Josh Block, an ACLU lawyer on the case, said that medical providers should continue gender-affirming care for people under 19. “It should not take either a protest, a letter from the attorney general or a TRO,” or temporary restraining order from the court for them to do so.

Trump’s approach on transgender policy represents an abrupt change from the Biden administration, which sought to explicitly extend civil rights protections to transgender people.

Trump has used strong language, asserting in the order on gender-affirming care that “medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex.”

Alex Sheldon, executive director of GLMA, the doctors group in the legal challenge, said there are established medical standards for caring for transgender youth. “Now, an extreme political agenda is trying to overrule that expertise, putting young people and their providers in danger,” Sheldon said in a statement. “We are confident that the law, science, and history are on our side.”

In addition to the orders on health care access and defining the sexes as unchangeable, Trump has also signed orders that open the door to banning transgender people from military service and set up new rules about how schools can teach about gender.

Legal challenges have already been filed on the military order and a plan to move transgender women in federal prisons to men’s facilities. Others are expected to be filed, just as there have been challenges to a variety of Trump’s policies.

Researchers have found that fewer than 1 in 1,000 adolescents receive the care, which includes treatments such as puberty blockers, hormone treatments and surgeries — though surgery is rare for children.

As transgender people have gained visibility and acceptance in some ways, there’s been vehement pushback. At least 26 states have passed laws to restrict or ban the care for minors. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments last year but has not yet ruled on whether Tennessee’s ban on the care is constitutional.

​ Orange County Register 

Clippers welcome new additions Patty Mills and Drew Eubanks

• February 4, 2025

When newly acquired Patty Mills walked into the Clippers’ practice Tuesday the place felt strangely familiar. Not the building but the surroundings in a way.

There was Clippers star Kawhi Leonard, who he won an NBA championship with in San Antonio.

“Just a couple of young bucks back in the day,” Mills said.

And Nicolas Batum, a former teammate in Portland and James Harden. Mills and Harden teamed up in Brooklyn for a season.

“I felt like we had a cohesive little stint there in Brooklyn,” the 6-foot-2 point guard said.

“So, there’s a lot of familiar faces around this team and locker room and staff that I think will give me the confidence to be the veteran leader that I am and be vocal in that standpoint as well,” Mills added. “But as I said, once I get a feel for how things work and how I can make an impact, that will be it.”

Mills was part of Saturday’s trade that sent Mo Bamba and P.J. Tucker to Utah and brought him and center Drew Eubanks to the Clippers. And now, the two veterans are looking to do more than renew old friendships.

Mills and Eubanks are hoping to contribute to the Clippers’ playoff push, bringing a wealth of experience to the bench.

Mills, a 16-year veteran, said at his introductory meeting with the media that his role with his new team is yet undefined.

“I have a role here and it’s about doing whatever it is the best that I can,” Mills said. “I’ve experienced this with many winning teams before in the NBA and on the (Australian) national team and succeeded and seen what it’s meant to look like. So, I think I’ll be able to slide in here quite well.”

Mills, who is playing for his sixth team, is expected to provide more outside scoring in addition to ball handling. He is a career 38.5% 3-point shooter and was averaging 4.4 points and 2.2 assists for the Jazz.

Eubanks will play a pivotal role as Ivica Zubac’s backup after the Clippers traded Bamba. The 6-10 power forward brings a sizable measure of athleticism, someone who can run the floor and protect the rim.

With the Jazz, he was averaging 5.8 points, 4.5 rebounds and nearly one blocked shot per game.

“(I can) get guys like James and Kawhi and Norm (Powell) open for 3’s or get going downhill, finish around the rim, be a physical presence for them,” Eubanks said. “I know Zu plays a lot of minutes, so just fill in the gaps when he is not out there.”

Eubanks said the Clippers present a challenge to opponents, a fact he experienced in two games earlier this season. The Clippers beat Utah by an average of 24 points in those two games.

“I think the sheer talent, two-way guys, athleticism up and down, their IQ is another big one,” Eubanks said. “Obviously, when the ball is in certain guys’ hands, it’s the creative basketball IQ that separates a lot of them from other guys in the league.

“And you go down the line and you see who’s coming off the bench and how much professionalism and veteran players there are to continue to match the energy type of deal. So, being my second day here and getting to know everything, as I said, it’s very familiar to what I like and what I’m used to here.”

​ Orange County Register