DeAndre Jordan's Departure Shows Clips Still Chris Paul's Team, for Good and Bad

LOS ANGELES — For his entire NBA career, Blake Griffin has been tighter than tight with DeAndre Jordan, the two at times commiserating over how much Los Angeles Clippers business in the past and future revolves around Chris Paul.

So now that Jordan has bolted via free agency for the Dallas Mavericks and left Griffin behind, it's logical to wonder how the Griffin-Paul dynamic will change…or might implode.

It would be premature, though, to sound what would be the loudest alarm.

Griffin has, according to one league source, "learned to deal with" Paul.

Jordan's disdain for the Clippers All-Star point guard on a personal level, however, is far greater than anything Griffin feels.

The Griffin-Paul relationship isn't what is becoming a stereotypical Hollywood tale of woe about the personal rift between hard-driving guard and gifted big man lacking comparable work ethic. That has already played out, with Paul cast in the role of Kobe Bryant. And driven away this time is Jordan, not Shaquille O’Neal or Dwight Howard.

Griffin and Paul are basically fine, and maybe things between them will grow with the team clearly now a two-man star show. Griffin has no easy out anyway, as he is under contract for two more years before a player option allows him an exit in 2017—same as Paul.

The primary question is how much Jordan's departure will now push Griffin's game in directions he'd rather it not have to go—and build resentment with the knowledge that Paul was the one who drove Jordan away.

Griffin sees himself as far more of a small forward than a center, capable of handling and distributing the ball more than Paul's dominance permits. But small ball with Griffin in the middle might be the Clippers' best-case scenario without Jordan.

That could be Griffin's worst-case scenario: carrying his offensive load and fighting foul trouble and fatigue while defending the post more and having to protect the rim, all despite a wingspan not nearly as expansive as Jordan's.

Disagreements about simple team X's and O's can become personal when analyzed deeper.

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But disrespect most definitely breeds when one can't understand how the other doesn't share the same priorities.

It's not difficult to imagine Paul feeling in some way validated by Jordan's decision to leave now.

The giant athletic freak who wanted to live life lightly and failed to take winning seriously chose to give up a realistic chance at a championship upon being inundated by individual attention and promised he'd be given more.

(Here's a suggestion for the ultimate Players' Tribune article: the coming-to-grips, sour-grapes, gripes-all-night text session that fiery competitors Chris and Kobe surely had after Jordan made like Howard and ran away from the challenge of Paul pushing Jordan for more. Awfully similar, right down to both Jordan and Howard captivated by the allure of chillin' with Chandler "Sunshine" Parsons in Texas!)

One place where Griffin and Paul can see eye-to-eye is on the subject of work ethic. They are both tremendously diligent about refining their crafts, so the aforementioned disconnect that so often occurs between ambitious sharpshooting perimeter player and a fun-loving, free-throw-clanking big man hasn't happened. (Griffin shot 52 percent on free throws his second season; he improved to 72 percent last season.)

Griffin and Paul have also established their own high profiles, so it's different than what just went down the drain in Portland. Big man LaMarcus Aldridge grew tired of the focus and attention on guard Damian Lillard (and before him, Brandon Roy)—even though Lillard has earned so much of that focus and attention.

Paul had no way to get to the NBA, much less NBA stardom, without working his tail off. He's 6'0". He plays with fire in sports' best sense.

It can still be a little much, and it can feel a lot like a lack of appreciation to a teammate such as Jordan. Disingenuous, too. The contrast of Paul's sweetheart commercials with his sharp edge in private only adds to the unease around him.

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Few remember that two days before the club's 2011 trade for Paul, the Clippers matched Golden State's $43 million offer sheet to restricted-free-agent Jordan. That massive financial investment in Jordan meant the only way Paul was ever going to succeed with the Clippers was if Jordan made whopping improvements to his game…which he did.

It still wasn't enough.

The Clippers' Game 6 second-round collapse against the Houston Rockets this year left a sour aftertaste and served as encouragement for Jordan to venture out on his own.

Paul, 30, isn't really that much older than Jordan, who is two weeks away from turning 27, but it sure feels like it. And given the injury issues Paul is always dealing with and how healthy Jordan has been—plus Jordan's closeness with Griffin—it would've been a worthwhile discussion for the Clippers to explore trading Paul.

Awfully bold, but logical. The mix wasn't quite right anyway. A move to make the Clippers unmistakably Blake's team while getting younger and deeper would have preempted Jordan's possible free-agent departure by showing DJ he is the guy the Clippers want even more than CP3.

Except it never would have happened. It's not even close to true that the Clippers care more about Jordan than Paul, so it was never a consideration in the Clippers offices.

For all his grandstanding for Jordan to win defensive awards, Doc Rivers is Paul's guy, through and through. And that's another reason to wonder whether Griffin, 26, can maximize his immense talents with Paul and Rivers in the coming two years.

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For now, all we know is that Jordan wasn't comfortable with what he was getting.

Paul is not in a minority of Clippers folks skeptical of the grandeur Jordan has been promised by the Mavericks. Rick Carlisle is an outstanding coach, but Mark Cuban touting Jordan for a 20-point average next season? Even Griffin was only at 21.9 points per game and Paul at 19.1 last season.

Jordan wants to try, though. That's his prerogative.

And that speaks to the state of the Paul-Jordan dynamic:

Jordan is convinced he can score much more without Paul around to pass to him.

For better or worse, Jordan had simply had enough of Paul's help.

Kevin Ding covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @KevinDing.