The Los Angeles Clippers are supposedly a team riddled with personality issues. Chris Paul is apparently a jerk. Austin Rivers is daddy’s little boy. Blake Griffin hates Chris Paul because Chris Paul is a jerk. Fun stuff like that. Los Angeles struggling in the first few games of its series against the San Antonio Spurs didn’t help matters, either; nor did a few late-season highlights which showed Paul going bonkers on Griffin.
Then the Clippers beat San Antonio on Sunday, 114-105. Now the series is all tied up, with each team securing two victories. Since that’s the case, coupled with hindsight being our best friend, maybe we overreacted to the Griffin and Paul relationship — and by “we” I completely mean people who love drama or need to inject relatively unimportant narratives into an otherwise dynamic playoff series.
To be fair, it was a slew of easy straws to grasp. Two stars, on a good team, sometimes in-fight. Couple that with the idea that Chris Paul can’t take teams deep in the NBA playoffs, plus the reality that the Clippers have underachieved over the last few seasons. It makes for a great story — and an even better headline.
Almost all over those notions are false.
While you can certainly argue how well Los Angeles has done in the playoffs in comparison to expectations, it has been rather silly to put failures solely on Chris Paul. Without even questioning whether or not you “actually watch him play,” take a look at Paul’s postseason box-score numbers. Yes, the Clippers have underachieved, but not Paul. A fairer argument would be if the Clippers have choked on him, not the other way around.
But that’s not fun.
People who are not fans of L.A. would much rather embrace the perception of Chris Paul not being all that and a bag of NBA playoff potato chips. It is easier that way than it is to attribute the Clippers’ shortcomings to multiple role players, past coaches, and that the Western Conference is as tough as…
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Moreover, many view Blake Griffin as being softer than Glass Joe. That might be for good reason too, as few NBA players talk as good a trash game while backpedaling faster than Griffin, which continues to give people reasons to dislike everything about the Clippers.
Who did he beat for the one victory, though?! That’s a 30 for 30 worth making, Simmons.
Maybe that’s what fuels the idea that the relationship between Paul and Blake is important. It could be as simple as a thing as people not liking them for a bevy of reasons, so let’s continue to look for ways to poke and prod everything they are.
Trust me, I get it. Paul sometimes comes off as a jerk, due to the exaggerated flopping we saw in Game 4 on Sunday in San Antonio. Griffin’s tough guy routine, while never backing it up, has worn thinner than Billy Halleck, and Doc Rivers giving his son meaningful minutes seems like nepotism at its worst (but #TheAustinRiversGame!). However, that doesn’t mean we need to continue to look for flaws in a team because we need even more insults to hurl at the organization if it fails in the playoffs again.
Just the idea that the relationship between the two has soured to the point that it is hurting the team is silly. There are many players in the NBA, on many different teams, all coming from various backgrounds and having different views on all sorts of topics. To expect them all to get along is like assuming Maverick and Goose never once talked nonsense about the other behind their back.
It is life. People are like that. Not everyone can be the best of friends. You can multiply that by a billion when it comes to professional athletes. Regardless, it isn’t truly going to determine whether the team they play on will or won’t succeed during a postseason run. Nothing is happening on the court which points to any disharmony. When Rick Carlisle and Rajon Rondo go at each other, sure, THAT is a relationship which detracts from a team’s well-being. This? Are we trying to insist that CP3 and Blake hated each other just below the line that hurt their regular season success, but just above some marker that correlates to playoff failure? It’s absurd.
Most of the “Chris Paul, Blake Griffin relationship is killing the Clips” talk is coming from fans (and First Take). Normal members of the media, and even lowly bloggers like myself, have considered this topic to have as much relevance to the playoffs as the number of postseason games the New Orleans Pelicans, Toronto Raptors, and Boston Celtics won this spring.
Narratives and stories are fun, specifically when they are directed toward a team people don’t seem to like for a variety of reasons. I suppose many prefer using these kinds of talking points when the alternative is just to surrender to the idea that sometimes good teams with good players, can sometimes simply just lose, and there are no weird, Days of Our Lives-like reasons why it all came crashing down.
