THEIR TIME IS NOW OR NEVER
Clippers reject idea team will be broken up if they don’t win it all
The Clippers’ window for winning a title with their core players, including Blake Griffin, is closing fast.
BY BRODERICK TURNER >>> Over the last three seasons, when the Clippers had genuine aspirations of winning the NBA championship, their dreams were dashed every year because of their own failures and untimely injuries. ¶ Now with the Clippers about to start the 2016-17 season, they have the same lofty ambitions. ¶ This time, however, the team’s core of key players may face a time limit on their future together if they are unsuccessful in their pursuit of a league title. ¶ Chris Paul and Blake Griffin can be free agents after the season if they opt out of their contracts, and J.J. Redick is in the final year of his contract.
The popular argument is that if the nucleus of Paul, Griffin, DeAndre Jordan, Redick and Jamal Crawford — who have never gotten past the second round of the playoffs — disappoint again, then the Clippers roster will go through a shake-up.
During training camp, the Clippers brushed aside any idea of a last hurrah for the group if they don’t win the franchise’s first championship.
For the “past two or three years,” Paul said, he has heard the same critics say the squad may have to be broken up.
Redick also dismissed the premise that the roster must be disbanded if the Clippers don’t reach the finish line.
“If you’re one of the two best teams, three best teams, why would you take a step back? You’re right there,” the 32year-old shooting guard said. “The thing that’s specific to our team is like, what’s the alternative?
“In terms of our [salary] cap situation, I think for us to get cap space, Blake and CP would have to leave. So it’s like are you really going to let two of the top 10 players in the league go? And replace them with what?”
Redick, an 11-year NBA veteran, added: “So I don’t buy the whole, ‘We have to do it this year or we’re going to break up.’ Listen, man, I’ve been in this game long enough to know that things can change in a week. Things can change in a year. Things can change in five. So you never know.”
Griffin was unwilling to say much about which direction the Clippers could be forced to go. “It’s not up to me, really,” he said.
Even when pressed, Griffin offered little when asked if the Clippers have a championship mandate.
“It takes execution,” he said. “We’ve got to be good whether we’re playing a good team or a team that isn’t a playoff team. We have to be good on both sides of the ball and it takes a little bit of luck.”
When Doc Rivers arrived as coach of the Clippers in 2013, the assumption was that they were on a championship trajectory. The opportunity to advance further than ever before always seemed to be in front of them.
In the 2014 Western Conference semifinals against Oklahoma City, the Clippers had a meltdown. They blew a 13-point lead in the final 31⁄2 minutes of Game 5 and missed five of their last six shots. Paul inexplicably fouled Russell Westbrook on a three-point shot as the game was nearing its conclusion, and then turned the ball over twice in the final seconds, including on the last possession. Then the Clippers lost Game 6, and with it the series.
In the 2015 conference semifinals against Houston, the Clippers collapsed again. They squandered a three-games-to-one lead and lost the series, including blowing a 19-point second-half lead in Game 6.
In a first-round series last season against Portland, Paul (broken right hand) and Griffin (left quadriceps tendon) never returned after suffering their injuries in Game 4. The Clippers lost that series in six games and once again lamented about what might have been.
So, yes, the Clippers have had their share of pain — much of it self-inflicted and some of it out of their control.
“I think you get to a point where you have to let it go,” Paul, 31, said. “At the same time, you think about who you are as a person and the different things that have molded you into who you are and what you are. I think all experiences do one thing: They mold or they break you.
“So it’s not that you dwell on it or be like, ‘We’re going to get there because we’ve been through this.’ That’s no guarantee.”
The Clippers know Golden State and Cleveland are picked to be in the NBA Finals again, for the third straight year.
The Clippers also know they are in the conversation as title contenders, but are among a group of “other” teams.
To complement Paul, Jordan, Griffin, Redick and Crawford, the Clippers re-signed Austin Rivers and brought in veteran reinforcements in Alan Anderson, Brandon Bass, Raymond Felton and Marreese Speights.
So as the pressure continues to mount on them to win a ring this season, the Clippers will push forward.
“We’re still really young in a lot of ways, so our championship window is wide open,” Doc Rivers said. “But that doesn’t stop the noise.”
When Jordan was asked about possibly breaking up the Clippers, the center started swearing, growling and swearing some more.
“We’re not going to worry about what . . . people from the outside are saying,” Jordan said. “When we start worrying about that, then we’re going to crumble. So I’m not worried about that. Whoever those [people] are.”