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Blake Griffin didn’t need long to realize this NBA season promises to be unlike any other for the Los Angeles Clippers. Two days after the Clippers acquired Chris Paul, Griffin walked into a downtown restaurant for dinner with the All-Star point guard and teammates DeAndre Jordan and Ryan Gomes. As the players took their seats, the other patrons gawked at them and started chattering.

Even in L.A. where celebrity sightings are all too common and the locals usually reserve their love for Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers, Griffin’s Clippers are suddenly worth talking about.

“It was crazy,” Griffin told Yahoo! Sports of his dinner with Paul. “It was different. This is just the beginning. Before we walked in, there was just this buzz. You could feel it a little bit.

“But … we haven’t done anything yet. That’s the biggest thing. We haven’t done anything, and we got a lot of work to do before we get to the level that we should be at.”

Blake Griffin: Clips can be 'much better'

"It's encouraging," Griffin said of the Clippers preseason wins. "But we can be much, much better. Defensively with our rotations, offensively not wasting possessions. We have the potential to do much, much better."

Butler signed with the Clippers at the beginning of training camp for the chance to play with Griffin and then-starting point guard Mo Williams. As fate would have it, he got quite a bit more than he expected when the team acquired Billups and Paul.

Or did he?

"After talking to management about the direction they were trying to go, I knew something was going to get done," Butler said. "I didn't know if it was going to be Dwight Howard or Chris Paul, but I knew someone else was coming and I knew I wanted to be a part of that transition."

"There's been a lot of stuff going on the last two weeks. A lot of stuff," Butler said. "But we're clicking on the court and off the court.

"We're spending a lot of time before basketball games, after basketball games. It's a good vibe here. It reminds me of Dallas last year. We were always together. If somebody's down, we pick 'em up. After games, we'd go out. The camaraderie was always really tight and I feel the same thing here.

Ramona Shelburne, ESPN Los Angeles