Los Angeles Clippers: Examining The Chris Paul-DeAndre Jordan ‘Rift’
By Phil Watson
One of the stories that emerged in the fallout from the Los Angeles Clippers’ historic collapse in the Western Conference semifinals was that there was a rift between star point guard Chris Paul and free-agent-to-be center DeAndre Jordan.
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The Clippers, of course, became just the ninth team—and the first in almost a decade—to lose a series after taking a 3-1 lead when the Houston Rockets roared back to win the final three games.
Bill Reiter of FOX Sports reported last month that Paul and Jordan were at odds as the season progressed, with Paul’s competitive drive wearing on Jordan’s nerves and Paul’s belief that Jordan lacked the necessary commitment to work on his free-throw shooting woes.
Reiter reported that a source “familiar with the inner workings of the Clippers organization said, “Things aren’t good there. … (Jordan) might leave. He really might.”
Jordan will be an unrestricted free agent July 1.
But TMZ (insert joke here) later reported that the rift wasn’t real.
"“Guys fight and argue on the court, but that’s just the emotion of the game,” teammate Dahntay Jones told TMZ. “But people want to blow things out of proportion.“Those guys are brothers, man. They sit with each other on the plane, on the bus. If you don’t like a guy you stay away from him.”"
Coach Doc Rivers addressed the issue last week, telling The Beast 980 (via ESPN Los Angeles):
"“I can put this to rest: They get along great. Clearly, like everybody, they don’t get along all the time and they don’t get along with me all the time either, by the way. I don’t see that as an issue.“I think all three, and I’m including (Blake Griffin) in this as well, understand how important the other guy is to them. Meaning, they all three need each other to win and I think all three get that and all three know that and all three want to do it together. To me, that’s the most important thing.”"
Paul, who turned 30 last month, knows the clock is ticking on a career filled with individual accomplishment but devoid of meaningful team success.
With Paul at the point, both the then-New Orleans Hornets and the Clippers have achieved regular-season success at previously unknown levels.
But he’s also never been on a team that advanced even to the conference finals, let alone the NBA Finals, and has been on teams that have twice lost Game 7s in the conference semifinals.
Besides the 113-100 loss at Houston on May 17, Paul’s Pelicans fell to the San Antonio Spurs 91-82—at home—in the seventh game of their semifinal series in 2008.
Jordan, meanwhile, put up one of the worst free-throw shooting seasons in NBA history in 2014-15, hitting a woeful 39.7 percent of 471 attempts, even as he led the NBA with a 71 percent field-goal shooting mark and 15 rebounds per game.
The seventh-year big man out of Texas A&M is a career 41.7 percent foul shooter and has topped 50 percent just once in his career, hitting 52.5 percent in 2011-12.
The issue became a huge one in the playoffs, when first the Spurs and then the Rockets were putting Jordan at the free-throw line at almost every opportunity.
The Clippers managed to survive San Antonio, winning Games 6 and 7 to bounce back from a 3-2 deficit, despite Jordan going 28-for-73 from the line in the series, just 38.4 percent.
Against the Rockets, Jordan was 39-for-84, a better—but still ghastly—46.4 percent success rate.
Of players to average at least 10 free-throw attempts and play in 10 playoff games in a single year, Jordan’s 42.7 percent free-throw shooting was the fourth-worst all-time.
Only Wilt Chamberlain three times (60-for-158, 38 percent, in 13 games in 1968; 62-for-160, 38.8 percent, in 15 games in 1967; 82-for-202, 40.6 percent, in 18 games in 1970) was worse.
Let’s put it this way—when NBA officials are seriously considering changing the rules because of how bad you shoot free throws, you’re historically bad at it.
Rivers, who also makes the personnel decisions for the Clippers, has already said he will offer Jordan a max deal of five years and $108.7 million, more than any other team can offer because of the Bird rights rule.
The best Jordan could do elsewhere, without a sign-and-trade, is four years and $80.7 million.
Rivers also pointed out that Griffin and Jordan are 26 years old. By comparison, neither Michael Jordan nor LeBron James were on championship-winning clubs until they were 27.
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There have been rumblings that Jordan might want to sign with the Dallas Mavericks—he is, after all, a native Texan.
Tim MacMahon of ESPN Dallas reported, citing multiple sources, after the Mavericks were eliminated from the playoffs—by Houston, coincidentally—that Jordan had made it clear “through back channels” that he is interested in going to the Big D.
Dwight Howard left a max deal on the table two summers ago to leave Los Angeles for Houston. Could another L.A. center be headed east on the I-10 this summer?
I believe when the dust settles, Jordan stays. Chances of winning a title with a 30-year-old Paul and a still young Griffin have to be better than going to Dallas with an aging Dirk Nowitzki and no point guard to speak of.
Rift or no rift.
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