3 things to consider about Chris Paul's latest absence

For the second time in nine months, Chris Paul's magical hands have been put on ice.

During the Los Angeles Clippers' first-round playoff series in Portland, the All-NBA point guard broke his right hand when he tangled it in Gerald Henderson's jersey. On Monday, he tore a ligament in his left thumb after jamming it against Russell Westbrook's body.

It's an unfortunate spate of bad luck for Paul and the Clippers, who will have plenty of questions to answer over the next six to eight weeks.

Short-term pain

First and foremost, the Clippers are in trouble. Paul, the NBA leader in Real Plus-Minus, has been as dominant a two-way player this season as he's ever been, and it's reflected in his team's performance when he's on the court. No one's replacing that Point God-level impact.

The Clips have won seven in a row to give themselves a comfortable cushion as Paul begins his recovery, but they've been a mostly average team for the majority of the last two months, posting a 15-12 record since opening the season 14-2.

Yes, they'll get Blake Griffin back soon enough, who played some of the best ball of his career as a point-forward without Paul a couple seasons ago. Between Griffin, DeAndre Jordan, and improved depth this season, the Clippers will string together some wins. But Griffin isn't back yet, and the schedule is daunting, as of 11 of L.A.'s 15 games over the next six weeks are on the road, while 16 of the team's 24 games over the next eight weeks are against teams currently in playoff positions.

Good luck navigating that stretch with Austin Rivers, Jamal Crawford, and Raymond Felton as your primary ball handlers.

Long-term questions

The most obvious question looming over the Clippers now asks, is this the end of the Paul-Griffin-Jordan-Rivers era in L.A.?

Paul and Griffin have early termination options they'll almost surely exercise this summer to cash in on new deals, and the assumption has always been that the Clippers have to at least progress to the franchise's first conference finals this season for Steve Ballmer and Doc Rivers to maintain the status quo.

If Paul's injury further derails the Clippers' season, the vultures will circle.

The potential silver lining

Had Paul never injured his thumb and Griffin returned within the next couple weeks, it's fair to assume the Clippers would have settled into the West's No. 4 seed.

They're only 2.5 games behind the third-place Rockets, but given Houston's played at a 60-win pace through the season's first half and boast this year's likely MVP, there's a greater chance L.A. would've solidified their hold on fourth than there is they would've gained the necessary ground on third. Remember, too, that in the NBA's fixed postseason bracket, the winner of the 4 vs. 5 matchup plays the winner of 1 vs. 8, which means a second-round matchup with the Warriors.

The potential silver lining of Paul's absence, if you squint hard enough while desperately searching for one, could be that the Clippers fall to seventh rather than finishing fourth, thereby avoiding the Warriors until the West final, and get Paul and Griffin back to full strength by the time the playoffs roll around.

They're too far ahead of eighth-place Denver (10.5 games) for that kind of drop to be a concern, but the four-game gap between the Clippers and seventh-place Oklahoma City seems erodible, and might actually be this team's best path to a long-awaited deep playoff run at this point.