Rivers wants Clippers' core to stay together regardless of playoff result

The Los Angeles Clippers will have to empty the coffers to bring back their key players this summer, with Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and J.J. Redick all headed for unrestricted free agency, and with Paul and Griffin likely to command max or near-max contracts. The Clippers will be deep in the luxury tax if they bring back even two of those guys, so it's become popular to suggest that doing so might not be worth it if the team loses in the first or second round of the playoffs for the sixth straight year.

Clippers president and head coach Doc Rivers may believe teams can get stale and stop winning after a while, but he doesn't think it's time to give up on these Clippers yet, regardless of what happens this postseason.

"Here's my argument to (the question of whether all that luxury tax is worth it)," Rivers told USA Today's Sam Amick. "Let's say we don't win this year - which I think we will, (but) let's say we don't. Do you give up on a 50-win team that has proven that they're really close (to winning it all), or do you hang in there and keep trying to maybe make changes around (the core)?"

The Clippers currently find themselves in a 1-0 hole in their first-round series against the Utah Jazz, and the Golden State Warriors (against whom they've lost 10 straight games) likely await in the second round if Los Angeles manages to bounce back and advance. In other words, it's overwhelmingly likely that they'll fall short of the conference finals once again. But Rivers used the great Jazz teams of the 90s as an argument for staying the course.

“I always use Utah as a great (example)," he said. "Thank God Karl Malone and (John) Stockton didn't listen to people, you know what I mean? They fell (in the playoffs), and kept trying and kept trying. And finally, late in their careers, they finally broke through to the Finals. They didn't win it (all). But you know, that's the pursuit. I just think it's so easy to (say), 'Hey, they should break up,' from the outside. And I think that's such an easy opinion."