Doc Rivers cites chemistry for Clippers' roster shake-up

It's been a tumultuous couple of weeks for the Los Angeles Clippers as president Doc Rivers looks to find the right pieces for head coach Doc Rivers to mold the team into a title contender.

That juggling of both jobs can be difficult, and it's led to some curious moves. Since the turn of the calendar, the Clippers have sent out Jared Cunningham, Reggie Bullock, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Jordan Farmar and a second-round pick and brought in Austin Rivers and Dahntay Jones.

This follows a controversial offseason that saw the Clippers make some curious moves at the margins, enough to correctly draw the ire of intelligent analysts.

To hear Doc Rivers tell it, the moves have to be looked at with a lens focused on team chemistry and the synergy of the pieces, not just the individual players. As the coach recently explained when asked about altering team chemistry:

It's huge and you got to keep redoing it. You can't be scared to undo it if you think it's not right. I think that's part of our jobs, the coaches and the front office. You're always in search of the perfect locker room. You'll probably never have the perfect one but you can get close to it. You just have got to keep working for it. That's important.
...
I didn't think it was anything that would blow our locker room up, but I thought we could get better for sure. And that's what we're doing.

Our sideline and our bench over the last two games has been hilarious, they've been active and very loud. I think three or four times in the Sacramento game the referees asked them to sit down. Dahntay has been a leader in that.

Toying with the chemistry of a 28-14 team seems a risky proposition, but Doc Rivers has an NBA Championship that was predicated largely on Ubuntu and he surely knows his locker room better than anyone else. The early returns are encouraging, with the Clippers winning three of their last four.