From the moment that David Stern spoke the words “With the number one pick, the Los Angeles Clippers select…” back at this year’s draft, the spotlight began to shine on the newest member of the team, Blake Griffin. In a questionably thin draft, he was the unanimous top pick. For a questionably talented team, he was said to be the missing piece. He was the bright spot that pundits looked on as the person who could change the fortunes for the much maligned Clippers. Now, opening day is upon us, and the word from practically every sports news outlet is reporting that Griffin will be sidelined for at least 6 weeks, with the possibility that it may take him longer to recover. Considering this is happening to him as a Clipper, this news is of course coupled unanimously with talk of curses, franchise ineptitude, and every sports writer’s favorite cop-out phrase, “It’s the Clippers.”
Thinking of all this talk about the history of Clipper misfortune makes me think of the film Paranormal Activity. Scariest movie in years, some say. Well, the makers of this film obviously weren’t Clipper fans, so they have no understanding of what scary truly is. They haven’t had to watch as the team has gone from a Shaun Livingston knee-buckle and a backstab by a former Sportsman of the Year award winner in Elton Brand, all the way up until this latest news of our current man of the hour facing an injury at on the eve of the upcoming NBA season. You know what’s the funny thing about scares, though? It’s that they are created in our own minds; these are ideas and concepts that we create and spread based on our own inability to find a logical explanation to a cause. Think about that the next time someone with $11,000 and a shaky camera decides to throw a blanket in your face.
So the question now is: how can a team be so bad, so maligned and so unlucky for such a long period of time? It has to be a curse, right? It can’t be the decades of ambivalence from the notoriously stingy owner, could it? There’s no way it could be all the so-called team saviors that were traded for past their prime, you say? It can’t possibly be the lack of a legitimate training facility for its players to condition themselves, which was only remedied at the start of this offseason? That can’t be it. It would be too… logical. It has to be a curse! I mean, “it’s the Clippers,” and therefore before this season has even began, it’s time for that ridiculous clown to come out and sweep them off the stage like this is the Apollo.
Not so fast. You see, what Blake Griffin has brought to the Clippers extends far past his ability to play a great game of basketball. As soon as he put on that Clippers cap on draft night, he didn’t just bring his talent, but he brought his work ethic and dedication to the game – two qualities which have quickly become infectious amongst the rest of the team. This is evident in the chemistry of the team and how often the players spend time together on and off the court, which becomes as clear as day to any person following a Clipper player on Twitter. This is evident in the rapid development of Eric Gordon and DeAndre Jordan, two tremendously promising athletes that every sports writer forgot to mention when they started to put together their articles on curses and myths earlier this morning. This is even evident in third year player Al Thornton, the Clipper swingman who hardly played a lick of defense up until this offseason.
Beyond the change in player’s attitudes is a change in the makeup of the organization itself. Let’s not forget that at the end of last season, this was a 19 – 63 team that was riddled with bad contracts and even worse prospects for the future. Today, even with the absence of Blake Superior, the team has one of the deepest benches in the league. Did Blake trigger this as well? The simple answer is yes. At #1, Blake was a unanimous pick, even for a team that had too many big men to handle. By taking him, it forced Mike Dunleavy Sr.’s hand and put a massive exclamation point right over the need to trade one of the Clipper big men. If not for this, how was the team able to spin Zach Randolph into Sebastian Telfair and Craig Smith? If not for the team being so locked into its choice to draft a big man, how else was the team unable to draft a wing player in a draft filled with them? How else did the team end up with Rasual Butler if they had no choice but to trade or sign for a swingman? Yes, much of the credit falls on Dunleavy’s terrific job as a General Manager this offseason, but it’s clear that Griffin was the one that started this domino effect.
For the next six-plus weeks, Clipper fans will be riddled with thoughts of what the start of the season might have been like if not for this injury, while others will be quick to ridicule the Clipper faithful for sticking with the team. What we end up with are a set of possibilities that we don’t have the answers to, simply based on the fact that people will know as much about how the Clippers would have started this season if they had Blake Griffin as the Dodgers would have if Manny Ramirez had not been suspended for 50 games. And just like the Dodgers, if the Clips overachieve without one of their key players in the roster, how much better will that make the rest of the team upon his return?
It can be said in one sentence: this is not the end of the season for the Los Angeles Clippers. It really never was. If anything, this is more like a game of Texas Hold ‘Em. The Clippers may have started the season with a good hand, but they’ve been dealt a less-than-stellar flop. There’s still the turn and the river, and this hand is far from finished.
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