Rivers: Keeping Big 3 together is best for Clippers
Bad news for all the teams gazing longingly at the Los Angeles Clippers' roster, perhaps dreaming of prying Blake Griffin loose this summer: Clippers coach and president Doc Rivers has every intention of keeping together the team's Big Three of Griffin, Chris Paul, and DeAndre Jordan.
"I'm always gonna do what's good for the team," Rivers told ESPN's Zach Lowe in an interview published Monday. "You don't ever do anything but that. But I feel like the best thing for the team right now is to keep them together."
It was a tumultuous season in Clipperland, one that saw Griffin break a hand punching team equipment manager Matias Testi, and ultimately got cut short due to playoff-ending injuries to Paul and Griffin in the first round.
Related: Is this the end of the line for the current Clippers core?
Rivers insists that while the ugly incident with Testi came as a surprise, it in no way alienated Griffin from the rest of the team.
"It was a shock, because Blake's not that guy," Rivers said. "Matias is not that guy. It just made no sense. As far as team-building and stuff, it was only that - shock. Once guys got by the shock and realized Blake wasn't coming back anytime soon, that had the bigger impact."
Rivers made ripples last summer when he suggested to Lowe that the Clippers' core might be in need of a shakeup in the event of another disappointing season.
"We're right on the borderline," he said. "I have no problem saying that. I'm a believer that teams can get stale. After a while, you don't win. It just doesn't work. We're right at the edge. We just have to accept it."
He appears to be walking that back now, despite the Clippers' season going about as poorly as one could've anticipated. But with Griffin and Paul set for free agency a year from now, he's also not closing the door entirely.
"Can that change? Of course it can change," he said of his desire to keep the team's nucleus intact. "But I don't think it will."