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“I think so. But you know I think that that’s a testament to the will that they have to win. Ultimately, being All-Stars and winning MVPs and All-Star MVPS, that’s great. Obviously, the more that happens, the better for our guys because they deserve that kind of success. But, I think if you had to ask them, and I think everybody in this organization would say the same thing right now. All our players, our coaches, our owner, everything, I think they would trade a lot of that for being able to compete for a championship. That’s really the ultimate goal, but it is nice to have players that believe so much in winning and don’t really worry so much about their individual accolades.”

“Myself and Vinny, when we were interested in bringing Jamal in, I think it was that mindset. You know, we had talked to Chris a little bit about it, and Blake, and said, what would help us get a little bit better and we were on the same page. It was that kind of scoring ability in the fourth quarter to take the pressure off of both Chris and Blake to have to score. We all know how great of a facilitator Chris is, but so is Blake, being able to have them work with Jamal in the fourth quarter had been a huge bonus for us in terms of teams not being able to key in our two all-star players. So that’s made us such a better team. As I said, in the playoffs, that’s the time when we really want this to manifest itself.”

“One thing with DeAndre is he’s had, especially lately, so many great games in terms of playing, defensive rebounding, running the floor. On this team, we have so many weapons offensively that he’s probably not scoring as many points as he’s capable of. But I think that the other areas that he’s been contributing in have been huge for us lately. I think that that’s a testament to being himself, being mentally prepared and understanding what his role is on this team. He’s he’s a very good low post player and I think that sometimes gets lost in his role. But I have to say with some of the teams that we’re playing and some of the match ups he’s a vital and integral part of what we’re doing.”

Eric Patten, Clippers.com

mkwest wrote:Blake was supposed to train with Olajuwon last summer until he got injured. Hopefully he and DJ both pay the dream a visit in addition to putting in a lot of work with Thate.