LOS ANGELES -- A couple weeks ago, Tobias Harris, the tough, versatile 26-year-old forward for the Los Angeles Clippers, was stung by a bee, on his finger. It was the first time he'd ever been stung by a bee. It hurt. But he did not cry.

"It's a feeling I don't want to feel again," Harris told me the other day, after a Clippers preseason game.

Here's another feeling Harris doesn't want to feel again as he prepares for his eighth NBA season: The feeling of a basketball season that ended a month earlier than he'd like. While Harris' career has progressed better than anyone could have predicted -- the former mid-first-round pick has morphed from a bit player who logged 11 minutes a game early in his career into an efficiency beast who, after being traded to the Clippers mid-season, averaged a career-high 19.3 points and 6.0 rebounds while shooting 41.4 percent from three -- he's still yet to taste playoff success. Harris has only made the playoffs once, when the Detroit Pistons were an 8-seed in 2016. (They were swept by LeBron's Cleveland Cavaliers.)

Harris is heading into a contract season. He's in the final year of a four-year, $64 million contract after turning down an $80 million extension in the offseason. As an unrestricted free agent he'll be eligible for a five-year, $188 million deal from the Clippers or a four-year, $145.5 million offer elsewhere. While he's never made an All-Star team, it certainly seems he could be on the cusp of doing so soon. That's what Clippers head coach Doc Rivers believes; he has predicted this to be Harris' "breakout season." Last season, there were seven NBA players who averaged more than 18 points per game and shot higher than 40 percent from three. Six of them were All-Stars. The seventh was Harris.

Yet being recognized as an All-Star -- or a bona fide NBA star, or this team's alpha dog -- isn't what Harris is focused on as the Clippers tip off their season by hosting the Denver Nuggets Wednesday night.

"Getting to the playoffs and just being able to help this team go as far as we can -- that's my only mindset, my only goal," Harris told me. "If we get there it opens up a whole bunch of things that can happen for our team. The big focus is just playoffs."

Think that's crazy? Well, the experts don't quite know what to think about this Clippers team. BetOnline opened the over-under for this Clippers team at 42.5 wins, but that has sunk to 35.5 wins -- the highest dip from open to now of any team not named the New York Knicks. In the East, the Clippers would be predicted a playoff team. But they play in the stacked West, where all the spots already seem spoken for (and then some).

Yet are we so sure that the Clippers, with perhaps the NBA's deepest roster, aren't primed to surprise the basketball world and make the playoffs? Consider: Two potential Western Conference playoff teams, the Minnesota Timberwolves and the San Antonio Spurs, have been rocked by bad news during this preseason, with the Jimmy Butler trade request in Minnesota and the Dejounte Murray ACL injury in San Antonio. A handful of teams feel like sure things: the Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets and Utah Jazz, certainly. The Los Angeles Lakers ought to be close to sure things -- you really think LeBron will miss the playoffs? -- while the Oklahoma City Thunder, New Orleans Pelicans and Denver Nuggets all feel like good bets, if not quite guarantees.

That's seven teams. After that? The Clippers could be right in that mix for the final Western Conference playoff spot, along with the Portland Trail Blazers, the Spurs and the Timberwolves. And this team's depth means the Clippers can weather injuries better than many of those other possible-but-not-certain playoff teams in the West. One big injury for those other fringe-y playoff teams could change the calculus.

One other reason for optimism for the Team Formerly Known As Lob City? Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the long, lean lottery pick point guard out of Kentucky. A team source recently raved to me about Gilgeous-Alexander's pace, and the way he seems beyond his years in how he can control the tempo of a game. He's learning point guard intricacies from a guy who would know: Clippers assistant coach Sam Cassell, the former All-Star and three-time NBA champion who played 16 seasons in the NBA. Harris echoed the Clippers' executive's optimism for the rookie: "He's a great young player, a young worker," Harris said. "He listens. He has a great understanding for the game and a great pace for the game."

One unique thing about the NBA is how, even before the 2018-19 season gets going, a main point of conversation is where certain star players will end up in 2019 free agency. Will Kevin Durant leave the Warriors? Where will Kawhi Leonard decide on? Jimmy Butler? Kemba Walker? Khris Middleton? Tobias Harris? The Clippers will be certain to be a focal point of many of those conversations, as they have the third-highest projected cap space in the league for the 2019 offseason, and Leonard has expressed interest to return to his hometown

But it would be silly to overlook the entire 2018-19 Clippers season just in the hope they can land one great player (or more than one great player) in next year's free agency. This team may not have that single traditional alpha dog superstar -- Patrick Beverley is this team's most vocal leader and sets the tone on defense, but it's Harris and Lou Williams who are this team's most productive offensive players -- but the Clippers have both depth and youth.

I asked Harris if this Clippers team was flying under the radar. He smiled and nodded. Maybe that smile meant that he fully expected his Clippers to have one of those out-of-nowhere success stories like the Utah Jazz or Indiana Pacers did a year ago. Or maybe he was just smiling about the incoming Boban Marjanovic, whose body descended like an eclipse as he stepped between Harris and me and gave his teammate a big hug.

"Oh yeah -- oh yeah," Harris said after Boban walked off. "For us, we're flying under the radar this year as a team. But we'll shock a lot of people. That's what we'll work hard for every day."