LOS ANGELES – This is the fifth day, the halfway point, and while Dahntay Jones says he isn’t keeping track and that every day is a new day and all the other cliches you say when you’re on a 10-day contract, the truth is that 10 years in the NBA, like Jones has, aren’t enough to make those 10 days feel any longer – or any less nerve-wracking.

Jones is 34, a journeyman with time spent in Memphis, Boston, Sacramento, Denver, Indiana, Dallas, Atlanta, and now, finally, the Clippers. But this is Jones’ first go-round with an official deadline, and by Saturday, there’s a decision to be made to sign him to another 10-day contract or let him go.

In all likelihood, this stint with the Clippers will be Jones’ final audition.

But if that pressure is getting to him, if he’s having those thoughts after toiling for more than a year in the D-League, Jones sure seems to hide it well. He calls it “losing himself in the process.” He swears it’s the only way he’ll make it. But right now, making it isn’t the pertinent question.

Instead, it’s this: How in five days and fewer than 16 minutes of playing time could a journeyman veteran play a part in altering the chemistry of a bench that, just a week ago, seemed like it might ultimately sink one of the NBA’s most talented teams?

That, of course, is the hope of any 10-day contract – that maybe, just maybe a single, mostly inconsequential signing could help set off a chain reaction. But to take a D-League flier on a veteran such as Jones is unusual. Of the 13 players signed to 10-day contracts since the window opened Jan. 5, only three are over 30 years old and only one is older than Jones – 37-year-old Kenyon Martin, who’s on his second 10-day contract with the Milwaukee Bucks. Martin, though, never had to play in Fort Wayne.

Last season, not a single player over 30 years old was called up from the D-League to the NBA. But the Clippers opted to sign Jones anyway over other younger, higher-upside options, asking primarily for defensive help, and in three games, he has contributed something more important to the Clippers’ well-being than a couple lockdown defensive stands.

On Saturday, in a win over the Kings, Jones’ spirited cheering from the bench prompted multiple warnings for the Clippers’ once-uninvolved reserves to sit down and keep calm. On Monday, against the Boston Celtics, it was only a few minutes before Jones popped up again, clapping vigorously. At the Clippers’ first timeout, he burst from the bench and was suddenly at halfcourt, high-fiving teammates.

“He’s selfless,” Chris Paul said. “He does whatever the team needs you to do, and he’s one of those guys that actually gets excited about it.”

Chemistry is almost impossible to quantify. Front offices spend years, tinkering with it, sometimes to no avail. But in Jones, a player who might not even last here through the week, the enthusiasm has already proven contagious.

“He’s been unbelievable on the sideline,” Clippers coach Doc Rivers said.

That vigor may very well be what turns Jones’ 10-day contract into another and then, possibly, a deal through the end of the season. But for a player navigating the fringes of the NBA for the past two years, keeping that attitude is as much about staying sane as it is sticking with a roster.

Jones could’ve hung it up last season, when he was relegated to making pennies as a Mad Ant, practicing in a gym that, one day this winter, was so cold the team had to cancel practice. But Jones kept his head down and worked anyway, doing his best not to think about whether a call-up may ever come.

“I couldn’t go down there and play and think about the NBA,” Jones said. “I had to lose myself in the Mad Ants and what they were trying to accomplish there. If I lost myself, we could be successful, I could be successful, and that final goal could come through.”

And it did – smack dab in the middle of a Mad Ants’ game last week. Jones left in the middle of a timeout, jumpstarting a hectic 24 hours in which he traveled from Fort Wayne to Indianapolis to Los Angeles to the visitor’s bench in Portland, where he sat with barely a wink of sleep, and his presence was still felt.

He’s trying to keep the same attitude for the remainder of his short contract. But there’s still anxiety; for one, he won’t let his wife come see him in Los Angeles – not before he’s on more solid ground.

But the Clippers’ flier is paying off in an unexpected way so far and on Monday, entering his third game early in the fourth quarter against the Celtics, Jones finally flashed something other than bench candor, as he bolted down the baseline toward the hoop, where Spencer Hawes found him in stride for his first bucket as a Clipper.

“You want good basketball,” Rivers said. “That’s going to be the difference.”

Ultimately, zeal will only take a player so far. But there’s something to be said for the kind of intangibles that a selfless veteran such as Jones brings.

And as his fourth-quarter layup rolled in, it was obvious enough on the Clippers bench, which burst into a joyous round of applause.

Contact the writer: rkartje@ocregister.com