The Clippers entered the 2015-16 season in much the same way they entered the previous campaign, with an ideal that sustains as unnervingly familiar. The team did not want to waste yet another year of Chris Paul's brilliance, working alongside Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan in their respective primes, as its series of aging helpers moved closer and closer to 40. Los Angeles bleated its way toward 53 wins in a Western Conference that saw Golden State and San Antonio combine for 140 victories, before bowing out in the first round against an upstart Portland Trail Blazers squad.