2016-09-29

PLAYA VISTA, Calif. — There’s something different about the Los Angeles Clippers this season.

Is it a slimmer, trimmer Chris Paul? No, he didn’t lose any weight, he insisted during the team’s media day. But he appreciates the thought.

Is it Austin Rivers’ new hairdo? Not quite.

Is it the eight new faces in training camp? Technically, yes, but the core of this year’s squad (i.e. Paul, Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan, J.J. Redick, Jamal Crawford and Rivers) is identical to last year’s.

What is it, then, that separates this team—with its sights once again set on the Larry O’Brien Trophy, after yet another disappointing playoff exit, with the roster as loaded as ever—from its predecessors?

“There's no more like win-or-bust or all these things. We’re not having any of these sayings,” the younger Rivers said at Clippers media day. “We're just going to go hoop and try to get it done.”

L.A.’s aim has been lofty for the last half-decade, ever since Paul joined Griffin and Jordan in L.A. by way of “basketball reasons.” Doc Rivers has kept the Clippers among the league’s elite, averaging better than 55 regular-season wins during his three years as head coach.

“Now we have to back that up in the playoffs,” the elder Rivers said.



The Clippers have come close to breaking through during each of their franchise-record five straight playoff appearances, especially since Doc arrived.

They had the upper hand on the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2014, only to fumble away the end of Game 5 and crumble further during Game 6. In 2015, they ceded a 3-1 second-round series lead—and a 19-point third-quarter lead during Game 6—to the Houston Rockets.

Last year, they destroyed the Portland Trail Blazers in Games 1 and 2 of the opening round, then stumbled in Game 3 and lost control entirely in Game 4 when Paul and Griffin succumbed to injury.

“It always takes a little bit of luck,” Paul said. “We're going to do our part, push our guys, and we're going to give it our best shot.”

This may be the Clippers’ last, best chance at a ticker-tape parade down Figueroa Street.

For now, their team is loaded with talent like few in the NBA today: Griffin has been among the upper crust of power forwards since his debut in 2010 and was on yet another rise prior to a quad injury last season. Paul remains among the pre-eminent point guards in the game. Jordan’s a two-time All-NBA center—third team in 2015, first team last season—with Olympic gold to boot.

There’s also J.J. Redick, the reigning three-point percentage champion, and Jamal Crawford, the NBA’s first three-time Sixth Man of the Year. And now there's a bench loaded with battle-tested veterans.

“I think we have a superteam here,” Paul Pierce said.

“I know history very well in this league, and there's been a lot of superteams put together,” Rivers said.



Eight years ago, Pierce won a title with another superteam: the Boston Celtics, with Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo. Rivers coached that club to 66 wins during the regular season and 16 more in the playoffs. He’s yet to recapture that magic with the Clippers and might not have much longer to do so.

Next summer, Redick will be a free agent. Paul and Griffin can both opt out of their current contracts and figure to do so, with the cap expected to spike to $102 million.

Keeping all three will be tricky as it is, even if they decide to stay. L.A. can exceed the salary cap to retain them but would once again be left to fill out its roster with minimum contracts.

Convincing them to stick around after another early playoff ouster could be downright herculean. Paul will be 32, staring down his potential twilight without having yet sniffed the conference finals, let alone a title. Could he look longingly toward an on-court reunion with any of his banana boat buddies, be it Carmelo Anthony in New York, LeBron James in Cleveland or Dwyane Wade in Chicago?

“Unfortunately for me, I've had 11 summers of going into the summer knowing what it's like not to win a championship,” Paul reminded.

Griffin will be courted by, among others, his hometown Oklahoma City Thunder. They hope to pair him with a point guard, Russell Westbrook, who’s much closer to him in age and playing style.

If Doc the Coach can’t coax the Clippers past the second round of the playoffs, and if Doc the Executive can’t put together a team capable of doing so, who’s to say either (or both) of Rivers’ hats won’t be ripped right off his head, either?

The Clippers insist that these are concerns for another day, that this trio of ticking time bombs won’t change their ultimate goal or how they plan to achieve it. For them, high stakes are the norm.

“I feel there's been a sense of urgency since I got here, and I feel like there's been expectations and pressure, whether internal or external, to win a championship,” Redick said. “I think with our group, we've always had sort of a great focus and a great perspective on the present and on embracing sort of the moment that is now, and I wouldn't expect that to be any different this year.”

The biggest difference has little to do with the Clippers themselves. Their competition has at once been pared down and beefed up since the end of last season.

The Thunder and Houston Rockets are down one superstar apiece. The San Antonio Spurs replaced a pair of aging bigs (Tim Duncan and David West) with another (Pau Gasol and David Lee), and may soon have to do the same with Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili. On paper, that turnover could clear the Clippers’ path to the franchise’s first Western Conference Finals.

Once there, though, they’d have to face down their archrivals, the Golden State Warriors, who look like an all-time juggernaut after adding Kevin Durant to a core that won 73 games last season and a championship the year before that.

And that’s before facing down the East’s finest—most likely the defending champion Cleveland Cavaliers—in the Finals.

“I like our team,” Rivers said. “I think we can play with anybody, and we don’t feel like there’s a gap.”

If there is, these Clippers could have the depth and versatility to close it. They can go small, with three-guard groupings comprised of veterans like Paul, Redick, Crawford, Raymond Felton or the 24-year-old Rivers sidling up next to Pierce at power forward. They can go big, slotting the sweet-shooting Marreese Speights alongside Griffin and Jordan.

And, of course, they can go back to the well, with Paul, Griffin, Redick and Jordan joined by just about anyone else on the roster. According to NBA.com, that quartet outscored opponents by 16.3 points per 100 possessions last season.

“We've been together long enough through the ups and downs and stuff like that,” Paul said. “ For us, it's just about putting it all together, staying healthy, enjoying the process.”

What’s different about these Clippers, then, might not be clear until May and June, assuming they make it that far. If they don’t, the difference between next season’s Clippers and this year’s group could be the most glaring to date.

Farewell to The Truth

On the morning of media day, Paul Pierce announced that this season, his 19th in the NBA, would be his last.

“Just like any difficult decision, I think you’ve got to be at peace with yourself,” Pierce wrote in The Players’ Tribune. “I’m at peace with retiring, but I’ve got one more ride left. One more season. One more opportunity.”

Pierce spent much of the summer contemplating whether he wanted to give it another go. After setting career lows nearly across the board last season (6.1 points, 2.1 rebounds, 1.0 assists, 0.5 steals in 18.1 minutes per game), he grappled with getting back into the offseason grind of on-court workouts and gym sessions.

But then, “as the summer progressed and I thought about the year and I thought about the players, and I was like, last season kind of left a bad taste in my mouth with how it ended, how I played,” Pierce said. “So I just wanted to kind of go out on my own terms and have one more opportunity to win a championship with this group.”

Doc Rivers, who previously coached Pierce in Boston, said he anticipates using the Celtics legend more at the 4 than the 3 this season. Wherever Pierce plays, Rivers would encourage youngsters to pay close attention to the endless bag of tricks that’s made him a future Hall of Famer.

"I think more kids should actually watch Paul Pierce play than some of the other players because of the way he plays," he said. "Paul is not going to be in a lot of highlights, but when you watch how he played, and fundamentally how well he played, I think that's actually what kids should really watch is how he did it without using his athleticism that he actually has."

Perhaps these Clippers could learn a thing or two from Pierce before he puts away his sneakers for good. After 31 years of playing basketball in some form or fashion, he has plenty to offer his peers, not unlike a certain hip-hop impresario from Long Beach.

“He's Snoop Dogg. He's the OG,” Jamal Crawford said. “He's seen it all, done it all, has all the experience, has all the knowledge. He's here to help lead us.”

Clippers Get Political?

Like so many pro sports teams today, the Clippers are weighing whether and how to join the discussion about tension and police violence in America touched off by San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

“Whatever we do, I think we all agreed we’re going to do it together,” Griffin said. “It’s not going to be one or two guys or an individual thing.”

The Clippers are no strangers to symbolic statements. Two-and-a-half years ago, when audio of then-owner Donald Sterling berating African Americans hit the airwaves, the team considered boycotting its playoff game against the Golden State Warriors. The game proceeded, though the players opted to wear their warmup gear inside-out.

L.A. hasn’t yet determined a course of action, and the NBA has rules in place about how to observe the national anthem before games. In 1996, the league suspended Denver Nuggets guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf without pay for refusing to come out for the national anthem.

“I think the thing that our league wants to do is make sure each player has the freedom to express themselves however that may be,” said Paul, the current president of the National Basketball Players’ Association.

Either way, don’t expect the Clippers to “shut up and stick to sports” if they feel compelled to chime in on the national discussion.

“I think the more active that athletes are, the better it is for everyone,” said Redick, who’s talked about athlete activism on his podcast, “because I know when I was a kid, I looked up to athletes, so if an athlete spoke out on an important issue, then I was probably more likely to hear that opinion and to see that stance and recognize the importance of that.”

Small Forward Shuffle

The Clippers’ revolving door at small forward is still spinning furiously.

Last season, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, Wesley Johnson, Lance Stephenson, Austin Rivers and Jeff Green all got their cracks at it. This time around, Mbah a Moute, Johnson and Rivers will be joined in that free-for-all by Alan Anderson, who signed for the veteran’s minimum.

“I think that job is wide-open,” Doc Rivers said after the first day of training camp.

There may not be a clear choice by the start of the regular season. Who starts and finishes games could depend as much on matchups as on what each brings to the table skill-wise.

Rivers sees Mbah a Moute as a top-notch cutter and Johnson and Anderson as superior shooters, though Anderson’s lingering ankle problems could limit him early on. The Clippers could also look to start three guards against certain opponents.

“We may do that, because it makes us a more dangerous team,” Rivers said.

The Clippers won’t need anything fancy out of their wings, not with Paul, Griffin, Jordan and Redick around to do the heavy lifting. Solid defense, with the occasional jumper or opportunistic shot at the rim, should suffice at that spot.

All of L.A.’s options will get their cracks at the starting job in camp and could continue to rotate through that role during the regular season.

“We’re going to compete and get after each other and get the best out of each other,” Anderson said at media day. “Whichever man is the best for the job, that’s Doc’s decision to decide. But right now, we’re going to compete and try to get the best three or whatever positions we’re going to play out of that to start. Whoever gets it, next man, be ready.”

Support at PG for CP3

Since Jordan Farmar’s dismissal during the 2014-15 season, the Clippers have essentially operated without a true backup for Chris Paul. Austin Rivers and Jamal Crawford have handled some distribution duties with the second unit, and Pablo Prigioni chipped in some last season. But by and large, it’s been CP3-or-bust at the point in L.A.

That could change this season with Raymond Felton in the fold.

“He’s been great,” Rivers said. “It’s just good having another ball-handler.”

Felton should give the Clippers more flexibility with their backcourt rotation. Where once Rivers was hesitant to play his son with the starters and slide Redick next to Crawford on the second unit, he now has Felton, a 12th-year veteran out of North Carolina, to make sure the ball doesn’t stick while spelling the 31-year-old Paul.

Rivers Likes His Rookies

Rivers has never been one to play rookies, let alone rely on them to any great degree. Just ask C.J. Wilcox and Reggie Bullock, both of whom languished on L.A.’s bench over the last three seasons.

With the clock potentially ticking on the Clippers’ ability to contend for a championship, Rivers figures to employ his debutants largely in garbage time.

That doesn’t mean, though, that Rivers will neglect L.A.’s need for an infusion of youth in 2016-17.

“My No. 1 priority is winning the title. After that, I don’t really have a list, but they’re on it,” the head coach said after the second day of training camp in Irvine. “We have two bigs that will be NBA players, and good NBA players.”

Diamond Stone, an undrafted free agent out of Maryland, may have the wider shooting range between the two. But Brice Johnson, a first-round pick from North Carolina, is no slouch himself. Between the two, Johnson looks to have the upper hand on account of his superior speed and athleticism.

Rivers may not be inclined to ask much of either, but he won’t turn them away if he thinks they can help.

“I’ve not met a coach yet that won’t play the players that are going to help them win,” he said. “So if one of those two can break through, I’m all for it. I’m not going to hold them back.”

All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

Josh Martin covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. 

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