In a very real sense, the Los Angeles Clippers and DeAndre Jordan are playing with less pressure in the final games of their Western Conference first-round series against the Portland Trail Blazers.
The Clippers are no longer an NBA title contender after very briefly seeing a sliver of daylight following the MRI result for Stephen Curry’s knee. It’s the latest gut punch for the NBA’s most luckless franchise, but it does have the effect of dramatically lowering expectations for what this team can achieve. Title aspirations are no longer legitimate, so in a narrow context, the pressure’s off the Clippers.
That’s not what athletes want, of course. The Clipper organization — in the CP3-Blake-Doc Rivers era — has been built in the attempt to win a title. Pressure is supposed to accompany the postseason. The combined weight of history and opportunity is something the Clippers have always failed to carry, but that doesn’t mean this team didn’t want to try any longer.
In fact, if you want to find a moment within the past 12 months which showed just how much the Clippers craved the chance to make things right, consider how they tried to win back DeAndre Jordan’s allegiance and trust in the summer of 2015:
Don't agree with the furniture layout but I'm not an interior designer. pic.twitter.com/23PNgQB88z
— Blake Griffin (@blakegriffin23) July 9, 2015
Yahoo Source: Clippers, DeAndre Jordan meeting was short. It was clear he was returning to them. Then they started to play cards.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 9, 2015
We laughed and laughed and laughed at the soap-operatic absurdity of it all, but amidst the hilarity, DeAndre Jordan did return to the Clippers after initially thinking he was better off in Dallas with the Mavericks. For all the strain in his relationships with Chris Paul and Doc Rivers, Jordan realized he needed to be with the Clippers. He realized this is where he belonged.
The Clippers have large flaws, and the Blake Griffin incident with a team staff member in Toronto during the winter reinforced how volatile this team sometimes is. However, the summer of 2015 showed that while the Clippers might fight more than other teams, there is a fraternal quality to that infighting.
Some human beings need to smooth the path at all times, to be as cordial and accommodating as possible with siblings or work colleagues. Others fight — not out of hatred or contempt, but because that’s how they relate. Their egos are huge, and they need to clash against each other to create an environment in which every day is a new challenge, a chance to prove oneself. This is the alpha-dog world of the Clippers. It’s imperfect, and it hasn’t provided the level of maturity needed to win championships… or even make the first Western Conference Finals in franchise history.
However, it’s the Clippers, for better and for worse.
Nov 11, 2015; Dallas, TX, USA; A Dallas Mavericks fan holds up a sign for Los Angeles Clippers center DeAndre Jordan (not pictured) before the game at American Airlines Center. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports
You can (and should) blame DeAndre Jordan for the messy way in which he handled July of 2015, and for refusing to shoot his damn free throws underhanded. His stubbornness can be a stumbling block. Jordan cost his team Game 3 of this Portland series at the foul line; the Clippers sure could have used that win in light of where this series stands right now.
However, with CP3 and Blake both out for the rest of the playoffs, we come full circle. We arrive at the realization that DeAndre Jordan’s stubbornness is in position to become a virtue.
The same man whose departure to the Mavericks would have turned the Clippers into a team destined for a first-round playoff exit is now confronted with that all-too-real possibility. Many pundits — maybe a majority, but certainly a large minority at the very least — are proclaiming that Portland is going to win this series now that Paul and Griffin are done.
Forget the Warriors in round two; a lot of people think the Clippers can’t even get out of round one.
It’s a challenge to Doc Rivers, yes, but it’s most centrally a challenge to DeAndre Jordan, the man who left the Clippers behind for a few days before changing his mind. Now, Jordan isn’t the man leaving his team behind. He’s the man left behind while his teammates must suffer and watch from the bench in dress clothes, unable to carry playoff pressure in uniform.
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Many are saying that this accumulation of injuries represents a final and telling sign that the Clippers need to blow up this core and imagine something fresh. Regardless of where you fall on that particular topic, the Clippers could definitely prove something if they can win the Portland series, now a best-of-three with home-court advantage still in L.A.’s favor. If this team — for all of its failures and shortcomings, and in the face of the likelihood that its inability to make the West Finals will continue into 2017 — can fight through this series, it will win back a measure of respect after last season’s gack attack against the Houston Rockets.
No player can author such a redemptive moment more than DeAndre Jordan.
He needs help, sure, but after the summer of 2015 and the night when he started to play cards, he has a chance to show that he has CP3’s back, and that he can pick up an injured Blake Griffin.
Yes, the pressure’s off the Clippers, but these final games against Portland represent a moment of opportunity, a moment to show that this luckless franchise can excel even when outsiders turn into skeptics. If the Clippers pull through this series, the idea that the whole roster has to be dramatically revised might not retain legitimacy.
More than that, the teammate who thought — for a brief moment — that he needed to abandon Chris Paul and Blake Griffin could prove his value to the Los Angeles Clippers in a way no one could have anticipated.
