Los Angeles Clippers: Despite A Successful Offseason, A Dark Cloud Remains

After a successful offseason, which almost turned horrible, a dark cloud remains hovering over the Los Angeles Clippers

The Los Angeles Clippers and their fan base are looking for a space to hold the celebration after they stole DeAndre Jordan away from the Dallas Mavericks. But wait — what’s the reason for the joyous occasion? This is still the Clippers we are talking about. The Chicago Cubs of the NBA.

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Are they just destined to be cursed forever? What the Clippers teammates did in bringing Jordan back was noble, but what about the ramifications that is sure to come.

It’s called karma…

Jordan had his chance to escape it, but now he may have added more darkness to the black cloud that hovers over the team.

I mean think about it for a moment. The curse was supposedly lifted with the drafting of Blake Griffin, but he manged to miss his rookie year with knee problems. He came back strong the next year and the curse was a thing of the past (allegedly), they finally made it through the darkness (they thought), but the dark cloud was still lingering around.

In came Chris Paul after his trade to their rival, and arena-sharing, Los Angeles Lakers was blocked by the NBA and the Clippers were now the talk of the NBA. With Paul on board, the Los Angeles Clippers had two legit superstars to lead a supporting cast that featured Jordan, Mo Williams, Chauncey Billiups, Eric Bledsoe and Nick Young, but as usual they were not good enough to make it past the first round.

Playoff failures has been the Clippers calling card ever since Griffin, Jordan and Paul have been together — so it wasn’t a surprise when Jordan decided he wanted out, for less money at that. There were rumors of players not getting along, but that tends to happen when you don’t or can’t win. This group has history together, they know each other well so chemistry is not the problem. One of the best PGs and PFs in the game and, now, in the last year or two, one of the top centers in the league. Oh man, let’s not forget the championship-winning defensive coach in Doc Rivers. So why would Jordan want out of that?

He wanted to be the man.

But therein lies the problem with his demands. He wasn’t even close to being the man in L.A. This was still Paul’s and Blake’s team, and he would occasionally fill in when one of the main two took a break. But can you seriously sit here and say you would trust your franchise in the hands of a player that has to be taken out of the game in the closing seconds due to terrible foul shooting?

And I don’t mean terrible — I mean 3-year-old kid bad. But, yet, teams were lined up for his services, ready to pay him like he could actually carry a team on his back. Come on, he played for the Clippers.

Mark Cuban wanted him and he got him, sort of.

We all know how this played out. Jordan signed, Paul went on vacation with his super friends, Griffin was in a closet crying that his best friend left and Cuban was jumping for joy.

But…

After John Lucas had Jordan shooting 1,000 fee throws in practice it began to sink in.

To be the man you have to work at it.

Jordan hit the send button on his phone, Griffin called the vacationing Paul and begged him to come home to try to talk some sense into Jordan.

Meanwhile…

Cuban got the news — it was about to go down and grabbed his phone to call Jordan. Straight to voicemail. Oops. It was a done deal from there.

While I get why Cuban is mad, he should really think twice about what happened. He just dodged a huge bullet here. As good as Jordan is, he still has baggage. He is still carrying around the frustration of a underachieving team on his mind and in his heart. Cuban and the Mavs didn’t want or need that cloud hovering over them. The Clippers fought to keep their team intact. They won the battle, but in the end there was only one true winner.

The Dark Cloud…

The Clippers won’t win a championship with their current roster and might not ever win one. This team is destined to fall flat on their face every year and it’s not for a lack of effort. They share a building where they have to look up and see championship banners from their roommates (both basketball and hockey), they were once spurned by the best player in the league (Kobe Bryant) during free agency. Some teams go through growing pains but for some reason it seems this organization is cursed. Jordan left that mess but somehow was dragged right back into it.

The Los Angeles Clippers have made a some good offseason moves, but so did a few other teams in he Western Conference. The Clips are still an injury away from Lottey land. They had their chance to put their mark on a great season in the playoffs after knocking out the aging Spurs and then being up 3-1 on the Rockets, but they wilted under pressure and then came the soap opera of the summer.

What has changed? Nothing. They signed Paul Pierce and Lance Stephenson, two players with their own demons. Are they enough to help lift the cloud?

The talent is there but so is the cloud.

Next: Re-Ranking the Western Conference after Free Agency