Future Hall of Famer Chris Paul, three-time Sixth Man of the Year Jamal Crawford and others now have left for points elsewhere, but whatever might have cursed their former Los Angeles Clippers team apparently continues.
The Timberwolves' opponent twice in four nights this week, the Clippers already were reeling after a 4-0 season start Monday when they lost star Blake Griffin for perhaps the next two months because of a knee ligament sprain.
Los Angeles (8-12) was the fourth seed in the Western Conference last season, and a team the Wolves might have to leapfrog this season to get into the playoffs.
Now 18 seasons in the league, Crawford doesn't believe in hocus-pocus. But he played five seasons there for a franchise he called "family," long enough to see enough strange things.
"It was just sometimes bad timing," he said. "I remember, just bad timing."
He remembers an April 2016 playoff series against Portland that the Clippers led 2-0. In Game 4, Paul broke his hand in one moment and Griffin aggravated a troublesome quad injury the next and suddenly both were gone for the rest of the playoffs.
With both players gone, the rest of the playoffs lasted just two more games.
"This is no lie," said Crawford, who signed with the Wolves last summer after the Clippers traded him to Atlanta in a summer makeover and the Hawks bought out his contract. "Within a five-minute stretch, you lose your two best players. Like, in the playoffs. It doesn't happen in October and they have time to come back in January or February. Within a five-minute stretch, we lost our two best players. Things like that, they were just fluke things."
