DeAndre Jordan Return Could End Up Crushing LA Clippers

Despite making his best effort to come back and crusade for the Clippers, DeAndre Jordan could end up ultimately destroying Lob City’s dream of an NBA championship.

From what we’ve seen of the LA Clippers in recent memory, there’s little doubt that they have the potential — key word there is potential — to hang with or defeat any of the Western Conference juggernauts.

Especially the Golden State Warriors.

The only team to really stop the Warriors from making a run at the title two years ago just so happened to be the LA Clippers.

Yeah, sure, that series took seven games, but did we say that when the Clippers went on to beat the San Antonio Spurs as an encore the next year?

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No. And we shouldn’t start now.

While the Clippers do have the potential to do the rest of the league some serious damage, whether or not they will ever actually reach the top of the mountain we may never know.

Doc Rivers at the helm has had on and off years ever since taking the Boston Celtics to a title.

He went above and beyond — desperation, you could say — to drag DeAndre Jordan back to Los Angeles and prevent him from going to Dallas via a reported trade.

Jordan’s defensive presence is usually felt in all Clippers’ games, but you have to beg this important question heading into 2015-16.

Does this put the expectations way to high for a team still trying to figure out their overall chemistry?

The blunt answer to that is, unfortunately, yes.

Think about it for a second, though.

Golden State will be more than ready to take to anyone challenging the throne, and now that they have championship experience they will be a tougher go around for the rival Clippers any day of the week.

Then you have the fact that all the San Antonio Spurs did is reload instead of try to rebuild.

And despite the fact that Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobli, and Tony Parker will, as expected, be more of the facilitators than the doers, the Spurs got a lot of strong talent left in the tank.

Kawhi Leonard, who already has a Finals MVP to his credit although he has no All-Star appearances, is now in his prime.

Mix that with former Portland Trail Blazers star LaMarcus Aldridge coming to town and you’ve got a big problem.

The biggest fox hole that LA finds themselves is pretty much that a lot of the top contenders either added or changed things in big ways.

LA? They stayed pretty much the same, and would’ve been even less if Jordan had gone to the Mavs as planned.

Bottom Line: DeAndre Jordan is the ultimate x-factor.

This doesn’t come out of spite for the Clippers, but rather as an honest way to look at the competition.

It’s great to be a fan of the game, but sometimes reality hits us a little too hard.

Let’s hope the Clippers come ready to play and prove us all wrong.