LOS ANGELES – Doc Rivers is sitting on the veranda overlooking the first tee of the Bel-Air Country Club course, awaiting a Sunday morning round of 18 holes, grateful for the mulligan of his basketball life. When the Los Angeles Clippers lost DeAndre Jordan – and found him again – they found the truth about the fragility of the championship chase. Here today, gone tomorrow.

View photos Doc Rivers and the Clippers thought they had lost DeAndre Jordan to the Mavericks. (Getty Images) More

"Losing him would've always gnawed at me," Rivers told Yahoo Sports. "But it wouldn't have stopped me. I would've said, 'F--- that, we're going to figure out a way to get this right.' But it also triggered something else for me. It might have been my front-office wake-up call. I was not a pleasant guy to me, or my staff, after I thought we lost him – and even after we got him back. We had a lot of 'come-to-Jesus' meetings.

"I told them, and told myself: 'We've got to get f------ better. I don't care if we don't like how this was done, or we thought there was some injustice. We didn't get him. We've got to be f------ better.'

"And we rolled up our sleeves, and we got better. Listen, maybe it's because when we got here, the team was pretty good and we didn't think we had to get that much better. I don't know why. At end of the day, even the way D.J. did it, it turned out to be a blessing for our franchise. For me, it made me understand fully, 'We've got to do this f------ right, and build this team. It's our responsibility.'

"For our team, it probably fast-forwarded something that would've had to start to happen next week in training camp. … The communication."

The communication. This is where Rivers believes he holds so much of the culpability, and where he's most grateful that Jordan returns to these Clippers and everyone gets a second chance together. Here comes Paul Pierce and Josh Smith and Lance Stephenson onto the Clippers, a deeper, better bench and a fuller understanding of how precious of an opportunity this franchise has for itself.

In other words, the Clippers have learned: Don't screw this thing up.

When they beat the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs, there was a sense of breakthrough for the Clippers' starry core of Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and Jordan. When they imploded with a 3-1 series lead on the Houston Rockets in the conference semifinals, everything seemed to wash away and all the issues that haunted those three resurfaced again. They left for the summer with Jordan a free agent and the issues unresolved – which included, league sources said, Jordan's belief that Paul would look him off on offense.

At different times together, it's been Paul and Griffin at odds. And then, Paul and Jordan. In this league, this market, there's ego and pride and profile. Every day is a struggle to hold a team together. These Clippers have a chance to chase everything, and Rivers, the president and coach, understands the burden has never fallen so fully onto him.

View photos Communication between Chris Paul and Jordan was lacking at times last season. (Getty Images) More

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