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PLAYA VISTA, Calif. -- The Los Angeles Clippers have made some high-profile additions this offseason, but most of the players and coaches on the team believe that the biggest reason they will be a championship team rather than a one-and-done team in the postseason is the two longest-tenured players on the roster.

As Doc Rivers sat before the media and talked about championship expectations on Monday, he singled out Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, the only two players on the team who remember when the Clippers were the doormats, instead of the darlings, of the league.

“One guy that has stood out to me is Blake,” Rivers said. “Just sitting in my office up there and looking down on him and watching him work. I knew he was a worker. I didn’t know he was the worker to the extent that he’s worked this summer. He’s put in a lot of time. I’ve been impressed with his scheduling. He does a lot of stuff, and nothing gets in the way of his basketball, and that shows me a great sign of maturity.”

Griffin is just 24 years old and has been named an All-Star in each of his first three seasons in the league, but there’s a feeling that his growth must take another step for the Clippers to get past the second round of the playoffs and advance to their first-ever Western Conference finals -- and beyond.

Chris Paul mentioned that earlier this year in an interview with ESPNLosAngeles.com.

“Blake is one of those guys where his age has nothing to do with anything,” Paul said. “People may say he's a young guy, but he's been special in this league. He's been an All-Star. His voice carries a lot of weight, and I think our team will definitely go as Blake goes. He's our guy, and he's good enough to do so.”

Griffin agreed with those comments when he spoke at the Clippers’ media day on Monday.

“I think this is a big year, and I really need to need to step up and be one of those guys we can count on at the end of games," Griffin said. "I think we put a lot on C.P. [Paul] at the end of games to go make plays for us, and this is a year that -- I feel for us to take that next step and get to where we want to get to -- I need to take a step with us and make sure I’m a guy that we can always count on. Not just scoring-wise but defensively. Just making plays and making things happen.”

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The Clippers signed free agent forward Lou Amundson, the team announced Monday.

Terms of the deal were not announced but ESPN.com’s Marc Stein reported last week that Amundson had agreed to a non-guaranteed contract, allowing the Clippers to bring him to training camp to give him a chance to make the team.

Amundson, 30, has appeared in 327 career games for the Philadelphia 76ers, Utah Jazz, Phoenix Suns, Golden State Warriors, Indiana Pacers, Minnesota Timberwolves, Chicago Bulls and New Orleans Hornets.

The 6-foot-9, 225-pound forward finished last season with the Hornets, averaging 2.4 points and 3.2 rebounds in 18 games. He has been playing in pickup games at the Clippers' facility recently after stints with three teams last season: New Orleans, Chicago and Minnesota.

An undrafted forward out of UNLV, Amundson was named the 2006-07 NBA D-League Rookie of the Year after averaging 11.1 points, 7.6 rebounds and 2.48 blocks in 25 games. In college, he averaged 7.2 points, 5.6 rebounds and 1.0 blocks in 120 career games.

The Clippers also signed Mustapha Farrakhan and JaMychal Green to non-guaranteed contracts to complete their training camp roster.
Farrakhan has spent the last two seasons in the NBA D-League with the Bakersfield Jam, Idaho Stampede, Sioux Falls Sky Force and Iowa Energy. In 72 career games he has averaged 8.0 points, 2.5 assists and 1.9 rebounds in 18.3 minutes. The 6-foot-4, 175-pound guard started the 2012-13 season with the Milwaukee Bucks, appearing in three preseason games for the Bucks before being released prior to the start of the regular season.

Green was a member of the Clippers’ Summer League team in Las Vegas this year. In four games he averaged 7.0 points and 5.3 rebounds in 21.3 minutes of action. The 6-foot-8, 240-pound forward participated in training camp with the San Antonio Spurs prior to last season.

The Clippers’ training camp roster currently stands at 18 players and the team will begin camp on Tuesday in San Diego.

It was industrious, not glamorous. The kind of story you hear in Hollywood, about a studio head who started out in the mailroom and worked his way up, but rarely in the NBA where most coaches and front office executives begin by playing the game, then maneuvering their way up the food chain by any means necessary.

Guys who run teams with aspirations of winning an NBA title like the Los Angeles Clippers don’t start off as baseball players who get their first break in basketball by answering an ad for a marketing job in the newspaper.

And they certainly don’t work two decades all with the same team, focused on what’s in front of them, and not the backs they should be slapping elsewhere.

But that really is Clippers executive vice president of player personnel Gary Sacks’ story. The guy new coach and senior VP of player personnel Doc Rivers is leaning on to do the heavy lifting in the front office, the guy who very quietly finished second in the NBA’s executive of the year voting last season, really did start out working in a glorified closet at the Sports Arena, doing whatever he could to gain a foothold and stick around a while.

“From Day 1, I realized how fortunate I was to work for the Clippers and I didn’t want to lose it,” Sacks said over a long dinner this summer. “So I was going to do whatever it took to show everyone that I’m loyal, and that I would earn my keep.”

At the time Sacks was hired, the NBA was just starting to use computers. Sacks was no expert, but he’d learned a little about computers at UCLA, and was smart enough to teach himself the rest. So he took one of them home, fiddled around with it instead of sleeping, and created a database for their scouting, a Compuserve email account all the scouts could use to send in their reports after games, and flat out blew people away.

“Gary was like our original IT guy,” said Toronto Raptors executive Jeff Weltman, who was the Clippers director of player personnel at the time. “He was just so helpful with us automating everything, getting our scouting reports online and in a database. He was beyond helpful. He was the reason we were able to do it.”

At nights he’d stay at the office until all hours, watching tape and waiting for the scouts to file their reports, assembling them into a readable, usable form for the coaching and front office staffs to process in the morning. Bobby Oceipka, an assistant coach and advanced scout liked his work ethic and started teaching him what to look for on all the tape he was watching.

Weltman started to trust his opinions enough to send him out to scout on his own. Elgin Baylor, the team’s general manager at the time, always had an open door and advice to give. Bill Fitch, the Clippers coach, loved the clean, comprehensive scouting reports he always filed and officially gave him a full-time job.

“Whenever I talk about Gary, and there are a few other guys in this industry, without naming names, who’ve kind of carved their own niche in this business but by conventional standards have like no means to have done so,” Weltman said. “But they’ve carved themselves a really important niche in this league where people rely on them and care what they think, and they’ve done it because they have supreme intelligence and supreme passion for the game. That’s Gary. He’d loved the game and been a fan and all of a sudden lucked out with this internship and finds himself with his foot in the door.

“I loved having him around because he was such a sponge. He was so smart and insightful. He just had so much potential and ability and he worked his butt off.”

Weltman eventually moved on from the Clippers to work with the Nuggets, Pistons, Bucks and Raptors. Sacks stayed with the Clippers and continued his steady climb in the front office, serving as director of player personnel for many years, before landing the big job when Neil Olshey left after the 2012 season to become the Portland Trail Blazers general manager.

The Clippers conducted a search to replace Olshey, but Sacks was always the front-runner because of his reputation within the organization and strong relationships with players like Blake Griffin and Chris Paul.

“You become more of a decision maker,” Sacks said of his promotion last summer. “There’s more responsibility with that. But I felt like I was ready, and that [responsibility] was something I knew I had to embrace.

“The most difficult part was wanting to continue to build what we’d already gotten to and not wanting to take a step backwards. That fear really motivated me to work as hard as I could with [former coach] Vinny [Del Negro] and [team president] Andy [Roeser] and on my own to do everything I could to keep the momentum going.”

Together, Sacks, Roeser and Del Negro put together a team that won a franchise-record 56 games in the regular season. But when the Clippers lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Memphis Grizzlies, it was obvious they were missing something.

Hence the bold push for Rivers, associate head coach Alvin Gentry, the impact trade for J.J. Redick and Jared Dudley, and by-any-means-necessary effort to re-sign Paul to a five-year extension.

In order to land Rivers, Sacks had to swallow his ego and give Rivers the title of senior vice president of player personnel, one rung up the ladder from Sacks’ title.

“My thing is, if we win, and it helps us win, I’m all for it,” Sacks said. “There’s always going to be a thought of what it’s going to be like, but it’s been great because Doc’s made it easy. He’s great to work with. I’m not just saying that. He’s been very, very, very supportive of me. Willing to listen and work with me. What more can I ask for? The guy’s been there, he knows how to win. For me, it’s like I’m getting the benefit of getting his expertise. Why wouldn’t I embrace that?”

I know, I know. Your earnestness-meter is going haywire. A guy who has risen to a position with as much power as Sacks has with the Clippers couldn’t possibly be this sincere, right?

There are 30 of these jobs in the world and 3,000 basketball men who think they deserve them.

But maybe everybody doesn’t have to be a shark. Maybe the best organizations, like the best teams, work because they’ve got guys who don’t care how many shots they get or minutes they play.

Sacks didn’t just accept the situation with Rivers, he worked day and night for weeks to make it happen.

“I like the direction we’re going. I like what we’ve done. I like our team,” Sacks said. “Doc and I have seen eye to eye on this. But we can’t get complacent with what we’ve done, because we haven’t done much yet. The only thing that’s going to count is if we win in the regular season and the playoffs.”

If they do, it’ll likely be Rivers taking the public bows. He’ll be hailed as the difference-maker. The missing piece who got through to Griffin and Paul and got the entire organization over the hump.

Sacks will be in the background smiling, though. All these years later, having finally earned his keep.

On Friday, Los Angeles Clippers point guard Chris Paul chatted with SportsNation about how he's prepared for the upcoming season, his charitable work and the greatest part of being involved with fans.

Check out his answers here on SportsNation.

LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Clippers enjoyed the greatest season in team history last season. They won a franchise-best 56 games, won their first division title and 17 straight games along the way.

They celebrated this milestone by firing their head coach and revamping their roster.

Perhaps nothing speaks to the new expectations of the Clippers more than their approach to this offseason. It’s no longer enough to re-write their own record books, they want to win an NBA championship.

They took a big step in that direction when they acquired Doc Rivers from the Boston Celtics and made him their head coach and senior vice president of basketball operations. Combine that with locking up Chris Paul and Blake Griffin for the next five years and for the first time in team history the Clippers have a solid foundation for continued success.

With Clippers training camp starting next week, let’s take a look at the top 10 questions heading into the 2013-14 season.

1. What will Doc Rivers’ impact be?

No matter what you think of Vinny Del Negro and the job he did with the Clippers over the last two seasons, it was clear he had lost the team by the end of their fourth consecutive loss to the Memphis Grizzlies in the first road of last season’s playoffs.

Rivers is universally respected by players and his peers and is the perfect face of a franchise trying to establish itself as a contender. He not only comes in with the cache of having won a championship recently but he also comes into the organization with more authority in the front office than just about anyone not named Donald Sterling. He won’t be thought of as a figure head.

The Clippers became relevant when they got Griffin, they became a playoff team when they got Paul and they feel they now have become a championship-caliber team with Rivers.

2. How long will it take this year’s team build chemistry?

One of the main reasons Rivers has decided to take his team down to San Diego for the first week of training camp is to build team chemistry. He doesn’t want players coming to practice in the morning and driving home in different directions in the afternoon. He wants them to go golfing together at Torrey Pines, walk the La Jolla shores and maybe even go to Sea World.

Teams like Oklahoma City and San Antonio will open the season miles ahead of the Clippers in the chemistry department because their coaching staff and core group of players are the same. The Clippers need to find a way to fast-forward that learning process and Rivers believes getting away from home for a week and spending time together will accomplish that goal.

3. What will the depth chart look like?

The Clippers will likely add a few camp bodies but if they decide to keep 15 players on their opening night roster the only real battle may be between Brandon Davis and Lou Amundson for a reserve role in the front court. Most of the other positions are pretty much set. If the Clippers go with Davies and keep 15, here’s how the depth chart would look:

PG: Chris Paul -- Darren Collison -- Maalik Wayns

SG: J.J. Redick -- Jamal Crawford -- Willie Green

SF: Jared Dudley -- Matt Barnes -- Reggie Bullock

PF: Blake Griffin -- Antawn Jamison -- Brandon Davies

C: DeAndre Jordan -- Byron Mullens -- Ryan Hollins

The Clippers are clearly stacked in the backcourt where Paul and Redick are not only a formidable duo but you’re not going to do much better than Collison and Crawford when it comes to backups in the backcourt. Where the Clippers are thin is in their front court depth. Griffin, Jordan and Dudley are solid starters but can the Clippers depend on Jamison, Mullens or Hollins if Griffin or Jordan go down or get in foul trouble?

4. How will this year’s version of “A Tribe Called Bench” look?

Last year’s second unit was so good that they had a nickname, T-shirts and a music video that played in the second half of games they closed out. This year’s unit will look slightly different with Eric Bledsoe, Lamar Odom, Ronny Turiaf and Grant Hill gone. While the loss of Bledsoe will certainly hurt the Clippers’ ability to change the pace of the game, Collison is a solid replacement and the Clippers figure to be much more proficient offensively when they go to the bench with Jamison and Mullens. The problem will be on the defensive end where neither figures to be much of a factor. The Clippers are still one of the deepest teams in the league but they are still thin in the frontcourt, which didn't hurt them much in the regular season but was a huge factor when they were outmuscled in the playoffs.

5. Is this the season DeAndre Jordan lives up to his contract and potential?

It seems like this has become an annual question for the Clippers since Jordan signed a four-year, $43 million contract in 2011. The answers going into this season are very much like they have been in the past. Jordan has been a gym rat in the offseason. He is working on his free throw shooting and his offensive game and figures to have a career season. That’s what the message was before last season where he shot 38.6 percent from the free throw line during the season and 22.2 percent from the line in the playoffs. He was constantly upset with Del Negro for sitting him at the end of games but that won’t change with Rivers unless Jordan can improve his free throw percentage significantly. Rivers has told Jordan that he can be an all defensive player and an all star if he wants it bad enough. We’ll see this season how badly Jordan wants it.

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The Los Angeles Clippers have signed veteran big man Lou Amundson to a non-guaranteed contract, according to sources with knowledge of the move.

The deal allows the Clippers to bring Amundson to training camp to give him a chance to make the team.

The Clippers have 14 players under contract, leaving open the possibility they'll sign one more player before opening night to carry the league maximum 15.

Amundson, 30, has been playing in pickup games at the Clippers' facility recently after stints with three teams last season: New Orleans, Chicago and Minnesota.

The Clippers jumped four spots into the top 10, the biggest upward move of any team in the top half of the rankings. That reflects two developments in particular -- the Clippers bringing back Chris Paul as an unrestricted free agent and replacing Vinny Del Negro as head coach with Doc Rivers.

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Three teams last year finished in the top-10 in offensive and defensive efficiency. The title-winning Miami Heat was one of those teams. The runner-up San Antonio Spurs was another. The third team? The Los Angeles Clippers.

The Heat and Spurs will be remembered as two of the great teams of this era, but the Clippers, great as they were over 82 games, will be remembered for weaving a cautionary tale. This was a team of generalists in the heyday of specialists; a team that showed that simply being great isn’t always good enough.

Hunt for the scapegoat all you’d like, but the Clippers’ fatal flaw last year had to do more with what was missing rather than who was present on the court or sidelines. This was a great team, but it was a team without an identity or defined style of play. The Clippers often happily agreed to play the game exactly the way their opponents wanted to, sometimes to a baffling degree. Still, relying on being better from a talent perspective -- regardless of the terms of engagement – worked just fine most nights.

But in hindsight, the Clippers’ regular season success may have perpetuated the problem. When you win nearly 70 percent of your games, it can be awfully hard to see the flaws in your approach.

It took a playoff ouster to a very particular kind of opponent to make the problems more clear. The Memphis Grizzlies came in with an established, painfully slow style of play, backed by hundreds and thousands of hours of repetition in that particular setting. But instead of speeding the league’s slowest team up and knocking the train off the tracks, the Clippers allowed the Grizzlies to slow the game down to a crawl in a six game series that turned very ugly, very quickly.

The Grizzlies may have been a subpar offensive team in the regular season, but they lit up the Clippers defense to the tune of 109.7 points per 100 possessions compared to the 101 number the Clippers gave up on average during the season.

After putting that rough series behind them, the Clippers have made changes that should result in a more defined style of play this offseason. Doc Rivers and his staff fathered a defensive scheme in Boston that changed the NBA, and conscious decisions like completely abandoning the offensive glass for transition defensive purposes separated his teams from the pack.

For many years, the Celtics had a great team with a niche and identity that was a vision of their coaching staff, but it also mirrored the qualities of Kevin Garnett. Despite success and sustained growth during the last two years, the Clippers wholly failed to be a representation of their centerpiece, Chris Paul, as the laissez-faire approach of the previous regime only seemed to contrast with Paul’s control-freak nature.

As soon as Paul stepped off the court last year, the Clippers morphed into a completely different team. To that point, the Clippers two most used units were an all-starter and all-bench lineup. The Clippers first string played at a pace of 91.86, but the second unit sped things way up to 96.24. Both units were incredibly successful, but that two different lineups on the same team could be so drastically different on both ends of the court was telling.

Now, with Paul and Rivers both locked in long-term alongside Blake Griffin, the Clippers have an opportunity to develop a style of play through design on the sideline and through personnel development and acquisitions, all accomplished through the same lens.

Instead of providing an exhibition for the benefits of having really good players for 82 games, the Clippers can actually forge a team-wide identity and experiment to find what style best suits the roster this year. If the offseason acquisitions of J.J. Redick and Jared Dudley are any indicator of what that style will be, halfcourt basketball seems to be on the horizon -- and that’s just how Paul likes it. While Redick and Dudley are both deadly spot-up shooters and floor spacers, they might not combine for double-digit dunks on the season.

Of course, the Clippers front office knows that, and there’s probably a reason why Paul has always played on slow teams and been flanked by a very specific type of player throughout his entire career. In Redick and Dudley, Paul might have the most talent on the wing next to him he’s ever had. Perhaps more importantly, Redick and Dudley fit right in with Paul’s mistake-free, possession optimizing style better than anyone else has as well. These are limited players athletically who will struggle without structure, but Redick and Dudley both know who they are and what they do best. That kind of self-awareness is required in places like Miami and San Antonio, and there’s a reason for that.

Maybe there was a time when just being better was perfectly acceptable for the Clippers as a team and organization, but now the goals have advanced. It’s going to take time for the new-look roster and staff to forge an identity, but at least now the Clippers know that the playoffs can be a dangerous place without one.

Stats from NBA.com, ESPN.com and Basketball-Reference.com were used in this article.

Over the summer, Los Angeles Clippers head coach Doc Rivers was asked if he felt his team had enough depth behind Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan.

Though the Clippers had yet to fill out their frontcourt at that time, Rivers admitted that frontcourt depth might be a weakness this season. Instead of dwelling on the issue, though, he proposed a solution.

“I think what we have to do is create two teams,” Rivers said. “We have to create a big team, which we have, and I think our big team is as good as any big team in the league. And then we also have to create a small lineup that is effective and that you can use every night as well.

“So that’s what I’m looking for more than adding extra bigs.”

Since the time of Rivers’ comments, the Clippers have re-signed Ryan Hollins and added Antawn Jamison and Byron Mullens. All three big men will factor into the rotation in some fashion, but none provide the necessary two-way production to log considerable backup minutes on a championship contender.

While Rivers’ strategy isn’t exactly groundbreaking, it opens up new territory in the Chris Paul era.

The Clippers have rarely played small ball over the last two seasons -- of their 20 most-used lineups last season, only two featured a wing player; Matt Barnes, shifting over to power forward alongside a traditional big man (Griffin in one lineup, and Lamar Odom in the other). They tinkered with Paul and Eric Bledsoe together, and occasionally used Jamal Crawford at small forward, but former head coach Vinny Del Negro’s clear preference was conventional lineups with one point guard, two wings and two big men.

Rivers has a different approach. The NBA landscape is dramatically shifting towards better spacing and 3-point shooting, and small ball is an attractive option for teams that value those principles but lack ideal frontcourt depth.

Here is a breakdown of the Clippers’ small-ball options:

The “power” forward

There is no strict blueprint for small ball, but the recent phenomenon that has swept the league generally features long wing players sliding over to power forward.

Matt Barnes and Jared Dudley both fit the bill, as each has played significant minutes at the four with previous teams -- Barnes with Golden State, Phoenix and Orlando, and Dudley with Charlotte and Phoenix.

Barnes is the better rebounder and finisher, and plays more physically on defense, but the two lineups that frequently used him at power forward last season struggled to score, averaging just 89 and 87 points per 100 possessions, respectively. The lineup, with Griffin at center, was also a disaster defensively, allowing 113 points per 100 possessions.

Dudley is an intriguing option; he enjoyed his two best shooting seasons while playing in small-ball lineups next to Steve Nash, and was highly effective as a power forward in 2010-11 (20.6 PER). His style of play isn’t conducive to banging inside, but his 3-point shooting gives the Clippers an element of spacing they’ve lacked in the frontcourt.

These two are arguably the most important pieces in making the Clippers’ small-ball lineup work, as they’ll have to consistently display the ability to defend bigger players and elite scorers.

The backcourt

Despite the loss of Bledsoe, whose unorthodox game is tailor-made for small ball, Rivers has a slew of options to experiment with in his new backcourt.

A Paul-Redick pairing is ideal, as it presents the optimal blend of shooting, passing and defense that a smaller lineup needs, especially since Redick moves so well without the ball.

However, given the Clippers’ perimeter depth, Rivers may prefer his small-ball lineup to be comprised of more bench pieces. Crawford could easily be inserted for Redick, giving the lineup a little more offensive punch (surprisingly, the tandem of Crawford and Paul was the Clippers’ second-best duo among those that played 600 minutes last season).

Another option Rivers likely will explore is a three-guard lineup with Redick at small forward -- a role he played in spurts in Orlando and Milwaukee -- alongside Crawford and Paul. Although the lineup is a major liability defensively, it would provide Paul with two competent ball-handlers to play off of, freeing him up to roam off the ball and spot up as a decoy.

Rivers frequently used two-point guard lineups in Boston, and could do so again with Paul and backup Darren Collison. The two played together in New Orleans, and would give smaller, less-athletic backcourts fits if they can recreate their synergy.

The lone big man

Perhaps the biggest unknown in the Clippers’ small-ball equation is the sole big man who will be left to protect the rim and clean the glass. Griffin will get the nod if Rivers can help develop him into a better backline defender, but Jordan possesses the most potential.

According to 82games.com, Griffin’s PER at center has been nearly identical to his PER at power forward over the course of his career (For example: Griffin registered a 22.2 PER at center last season, and a 24.1 PER at power forward). His effective field goal percentage remains virtually unchanged at both positions, and he actually gets to the free throw line more and grabs more rebounds as a center.

Griffin’s defensive awareness has improved each season so far, and there is reason to believe that trend would continue under the tutelage of Rivers.

Jordan would provide much needed length and rim protection, but his notorious free-throw shooting woes and limited shooting range could hinder the offense’s flow and spacing. With Griffin on the bench, however, Jordan’s rebounding percentage increases from 17.7 to 21.1 percent, and the Clippers’ defensive rating improves from 104.2 to 102.9, meaning there’s a glimmer of hope if he can take the requisite development steps.

Mullens is also a wildcard option if he can keep his shot selection in check (i.e. no more fadeaway 20-foot jumpers), grasp Rivers’ defensive system and slightly bump up his below-average rebounding numbers.

The ideal lineup

Looking back at last season’s lineup data, one unit stands out as a potential foundation for Rivers’ small-ball lineup this season: Griffin-Barnes-Crawford-Bledsoe-Paul.

The lineup, which only registered 22 minutes together, averaged 135 points per 100 possessions, but also gave up 119 points per 100 possessions -- ridiculously high numbers on both ends of the floor, and a hint of the highs and lows a Paul-and-Griffin-led small-ball lineup.

It’s difficult to glean much, if anything, from such a small a sample size, but three or four of the players -- depending on Crawford’s role -- will be heavily used in this season’s small-ball attack, so the exercise isn’t for naught.

In theory, the most balanced and talented lineup possible is Griffin-Dudley-Barnes-Redick-Paul.

The unit merges the Clippers’ three best wing defenders (Barnes, Dudley and Redick), as well as their two best spot-up shooters (Redick and Dudley), with the team’s offensive centerpieces (Paul and Griffin). The combination of multiple high-level shooters, ball-handlers and playmakers would make the lineup one of the toughest covers in the league.

The only fundamental risk is trusting Griffin to quarterback the lineup’s defense, which is one of the recurring themes of the season. Even if he shows significant improvement, Rivers might have to make the offense-for-defense tradeoff and experiment with Jordan in Griffin’s place.

Stats used in this piece are from NBA.com/Stats, 82games.com and HoopData.com.

When you move to a new city, a little familiarity is always appreciated.

After spending nine years coaching the Celtics, Doc Rivers had to leave certain Boston institutions such as Kevin Garnett and Dunkin' Donuts back on the East Coast to coach the Los Angeles Clippers. And while Blake Griffin, the Krispy Kreme of this hunger-fueled analogy, isn't a bad consolation prize by any means, he's just not the same.

When you win a championship and have the level of success Rivers had, it would make sense to acquire players who replicate the style, skills and production levels of those you've had success with in the past. Maybe that's why in one of his first acts as head coach and senior vice president of basketball operations for the Clippers, Rivers traded for J.J. Redick, his new Ray Allen.

Does it feel blasphemous to compare Redick to Jesus Shuttlesworth? It probably shouldn't.

In fact, it's a little alarming how similar Redick and Allen are statistically. The shooting guards share the same career true shooting percentage at 58 percent, and per 36 minutes, both players have made (2.3) and attempted (5.8) the same amount of 3-pointers. If Redick got the minutes and opportunities Allen did in his first seven seasons (18.8 percent career usage rate compared to Allen's 24.1 percent), we might view him in a different light. (Usage percentage is an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while he was on the floor.)

Redick offered a glimpse of what he could do as a primary offensive option in big minutes last season. Just look at his numbers with Orlando last year compared to Allen’s championship season with Rivers:

• Redick '12-13: 17.3 points per 36, 59.2 TS%, 21.5 USG, 16.1 PER

• Allen '07-08: 17.5 points per 36, 58.4 TS%, 21.6 USG, 16.4 PER

Although the statistical profiles are eerily similar, the process might matter to Rivers more than the raw results.

Synergy Sports has tracked shot types since the 2009-10 season, giving us two seasons of Ray Allen's shot-type data in Boston. In those seasons, Allen had roughly 33 percent of his attempts coming off screens and 19 percent coming on spot-up opportunities.

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LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Clippers have signed forward Brandon Davies, the team announced Thursday.

"We really liked Brandon in summer league," Clippers coach Doc Rivers said in a statement. "We like his ability to play multiple positions and he fits with our team. He understands team basketball and has been in here all summer working on his game."

Davies was a member of the Clippers' summer league team in Las Vegas, averaging 5.8 points and 4.0 rebounds in 15.8 minutes over five games. He was undrafted out of BYU in the 2013 NBA draft.

The forward averaged 12.4 points, 6.2 rebounds and 1.6 assists in 24.1 minutes in his four-year collegiate career for the Cougars.

Though last week's signing of Antawn Jamison didn't move the needle in comparison with their other summer transactions, the addition signified the culmination of the Los Angeles Clippers' offseason.

With training camp only a few weeks away and 14 players now under contract -- one fewer than the league's maximum -- the current Clippers' roster is probably the one that will open the season on Oct. 29 against the Los Angeles Lakers.

Despite Jamison's coming off of an underwhelming season with the Lakers last season in which his role fluctuated, his signing by the Clippers makes sense.

The Clippers needed another big man to solidify their frontcourt rotation, and Jamison was arguably the most talented player available. Also, Chris Paul has yet to play with an offense-minded big man aside from Blake Griffin throughout his tenure with the Clippers, and Jamison's floor-spacing abilities should provide Paul with a handful of new offensive wrinkles.

But the significance of the signing isn't Jamison's potential fit so much as that the move indicates an ideological shift in the design of the Clippers' bench from last season to this season.

Last season, the Clippers' primary bench lineup -- Eric Bledsoe, Jamal Crawford, Matt Barnes, Lamar Odom and Ronny Turiaf -- was one of the best defensive units in the NBA, giving up only 89.8 points per 100 possessions -- a figure that would lead the league by over six points per possession if maintained over the course of the season.

The group lacked offensive creativity, though, as Crawford, and occasionally Bledsoe, were the only players who could consistently create their own shots. As a result, the lineup had difficulty scoring, averaging just 100.8 points per 100 possessions, an output that tied the Cleveland Cavaliers for 23rd-best in the league.

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Antawn Jamison, who played for the Lakers last season and signed with the Clippers in the offseason, joined Ben Lyons and Ramona Shelburne on the "Max & Marcellus" show on ESPNLA710 on Friday. Among the topics discussed: Jamison's excitement to have a chance at winning a championship, the role Clippers coach Doc Rivers has planned for him, his relationship with Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni and whether Kobe Bryant has a chance to win another ring.

Click here to listen to the full interview

Antawn Jamison has never been to the conference finals. He’s been open about his desire to get there. In the last two offseasons, Jamison has signed a pair of relatively cheap contracts in hopes of advancing deep into the NBA playoffs. Last season he went to the Lakers, and that didn’t work out. This season he moves across the hall to the Clippers. If it’s true that Jamison just wants to end his career playing for a competitor, this move could easily be read as the latest sign of an ongoing power shift within Staples Center.

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After winning two straight titles, do the Miami Heat still have the championship charm?

According to the ESPN Forecast panel, that answer is a resounding yes.

But with the West loaded with contenders and a few East teams beefing up their front lines, the Heat could face the biggest challenge to their crown yet.

TrueHoop »