Soul Train line dancing brings camaraderie to the Clippers

Cole Aldrich

J.J. Redick says Cole Aldrich   (pictured) is the worst dancer on the team/Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Clippers

 

The L.A. Clippers are having fun these days. They will take a six-game winning streak into Wednesday night’s game at Portland, which means that after each one of those victories the last player in the clubhouse has had to dance in front of the rest of the team.

Those players who love to dance can thank Paul Pierce. Those who don’t, can blame him.

“Man, I’ve had a lot of like weird teammates in my career and some guys just do the most random stuff,” guard J.J. Redick said Tuesday at practice. “And Paul Pierce is a random guy and he just randomly … I think the thought just kind of came into his head one day, ‘We should do the Soul Train line,’ and he just started clapping. There you have it. That’s why we do the dance.”

Redick was asked to list the best and worst performers. He said he would not name himself as either, but he did say Cole Aldrich has easily been the worst and that Jamal Crawford has been the best.

But Redick intimated an asterisk should be put by Crawford’s funky moves.

“I’ve gotta say the best was Jamal, but I’m questioning whether or not he practiced that with his wife in front of a mirror,” Redick said. “It was too orchestrated. It was not something he did on a whim. It was well thought-out.”

Center DeAndre Jordan has not yet had to dance. He agreed Crawford has so far been superior, but like Redick he said he believes Crawford “had his routine planned.”

“I think the person who has had to dance the most is CP (Chris Paul),” Jordan said. “He’s danced a lot. And so has Austin (Rivers). Austin was pretty bad, too, but Cole was probably, definitely the worst.”

Jordan said he isn’t sure what dance he’ll do when it’s his turn, but he loves the whole idea.

“It’s cool because we all talk about it and we try to set people up to be the last one,” he said. “Like the other night, Cole had a realy good game and we tried to set it up to where he was the last one. But it’s cool, it’s fun.”

Coach Doc Rivers likes the camaraderie the dancing provides his Clippers (22-13).

“It’s nice when guys do all kinds of quirky things like that,” he said. “They have fun with it. I mean, we had to legislate it a little bit because nobody wanted to do the post-game interviews.”

In Detoit on Dec. 14, both Redick and Crawford left on-court post-game interviews early so as not to be the last one in the locker room.

“So we kind of got reprimanded,” Rivers said. “Finally, we do something fun and we still get in trouble. It’s just who we are. The league calls and says they’re going to fine guys if they don’t stop (leaving interviews early).

“J.J. was the culprit in the Detroit game when he abruptly ran off the floor. And I don’t blame him because from what everybody says with his dancing, he probably shouldn’t complete the interview.”