If you ask Doc Rivers, the Los Angeles Clippers aren’t far from title contention. So would he blow up a core of Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and DeAndre Jordan this summer if the team gets bumped in the first or second round of the Western Conference playoffs?
Doc Rivers invokes Karl Malone and John Stockton when defending the Clippers’ future
Rivers cited those old Jazz teams as an example for why he shouldn’t break up the Clippers if they fall short again this year.
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That appears to be a negative.
Instead, Rivers sounds like he wants to his team together as long as he can, according to USA Today’s Sam Amick. Rivers cited the mold of the dominant ’90s Utah Jazz teams that didn’t make their Finals appearances until 10 years in.
Instead, they built around their core of Karl Malone and John Stockton and made back-to-back Finals appearances in the 1996-97 and 1997-98 seasons. The Jazz never won a championship, falling to Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. But Utah remained patient with the hopes their time would eventually come.
Rivers is practicing a similar resolve.
“I always use Utah as a great (example). Thank God Karl Malone and (John) Stockton didn’t listen to people, you know what I mean? They fell (in the playoffs), and kept trying and kept trying,” Rivers said. “And finally, late in their careers, they finally broke through to the Finals. They didn’t win it (all).
“But you know, that’s the pursuit. I just think it’s so easy to (say), ‘Hey, they should break up,’ from the outside. And I think that’s such an easy opinion.”
During the Stockton and Malone era, the Jazz made the playoffs every season from 1984 to 2003, marking the second-longest run of consecutive playoff appearances in NBA history to only the San Antonio Spurs, whose fixture as a present-day postseason goliath began in 1998. But Utah never made it to even the conference finals until the 1991-92 season despite being a perennial 50-win team. They then returned to the conference finals in 1993-94 and 1995-96 before finally breaking through the next year.
Paul and Griffin are likely to become free agents this summer when they exercise the player options in their contracts. J.J. Redick will also enter unrestricted free agency this offseason. They can each re-sign with Los Angeles for more money than any other team can offer.
When asked about the Clippers’ future, Rivers asked his own question. If the Clippers indeed fall short this season, as they’ve done each of the past five, do they scrap a 50-win team a few wins shy of its first conference finals appearance in franchise history, or do they continue building (and tinkering) around that core?
In invoking those Utah Jazz teams, it seems Rivers has given his answer.
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