SHELBURNE: Will Griffin lift the curse off the Clippers?

He's new in town, which means everyone has forgiven the (Lakers-colored) purple shirt he wore on the night the Clippers made him the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA draft back in June.

But now he's not that new in town, which means that, yes, Blake Griffin has been educated in the way things in this town generally tend to shake out on the basketball court.

The sun shines and the circus music blares on the Lakers side of town, while the Santa Ana winds make every day in Clipper-land feel like a fire could break out.

We speak of course, about the Clipper Curse. Whether it's real, imagined, or legend, whether it will at some point strike the brawny forward from Oklahoma.

Or, as Clipper Nation holds its collective breath, whether Griffin represents some cosmic, karmic retribution for all things previously afflicted by the Curse.

"I'm not superstitious," Griffin said Monday at the team's media day at Staples Center. "I really didn't pay much attention to (the curse) until I got drafted and then everybody kept asking me about it and I kind of had to look into it.

"I did some research on my own and there's not enough evidence for me to believe."

But just in case, he joked, "I have a ritual that I do every morning when I wake up."

So far, so good. At least on the injury front. Already, he's made it through two mild scares that could have felled a lesser - or maybe just less cursed - player.

In summer league Griffin slightly injured his shoulder after getting tangled up with Memphis center Hasheem Thabeet. After Griffin played three more games with the injury - and was still good enough to win the Summer League MVP award - something didn't feel right.

But a month or so later, he felt fine. Crisis averted, curse dismissed.

Then there was a recent knee-knock with new teammate Craig Smith during a pick-up game that caused Griffin to get an MRI. But again, no major damage.

Which means that some of his teammates, even the beleaguered ones who suffered through last season's nightmarish 19-win season, are starting to believe that Griffin might indeed by a Curse crusher instead of its next victim.

"Oh man, he's the real deal," Clippers forward Marcus Camby said. "Last year was tough. I'm not going to lie, it was really tough. I mean, I couldn't go to any Rockets games (Camby lives in Houston in the offseason) because I didn't want to be seen.

"But I was telling everyone we were going to get the No. 1 pick and no one would believe me. I was like, `Man, something good has to come from this season. Something good.' And it did. We got the best player in the draft.

"Once we got BG in the draft, I started to look forward to what was possible here on this side of town. Just seeing him in the pick-up games we've been having, just seeing how explosive he is. He's going to make his mark."

Center Chris Kaman, who shockingly is now the longest-tenured current Clipper with six seasons under his belt, is holding off just a bit.

Kaman wants mostly to give Griffin time to adjust to the NBA life and schedule before anointing him as the franchise's Curse-killer, but also because he's seen way too many things go askew in his time with the club.

"I don't know if it's real," Kaman said. "I'm not into all that stuff, but it's like, what else can it be?

"In the offseason we seem to do all right, but then as the season goes on ... it's like some kind of curse."

Among the lightning bolts to jolt the club since Kaman joined the team in 2003: Shaun Livingston suffers a career-threatening knee injury; Elton Brand ruptures his Achilles' tendon during an offseason workout; Kaman misses 51 games with a foot injury last season; and the most comic and confounding of all: Baron Davis literally trips over nothing during a scrimmage, ruptures a tendon in his finger, essentially ruining the start to his season.

Davis kept playing, but shortly afterwards, he landed awkwardly on his tailbone, suffering a deep bruise, which caused him to miss even more time.

Over the summer, Davis referred to his inaugural season with the team as "a bad dream that you wake up from and you can't really remember, but you're like, `Damn, I hope that never happens to me again."'

Thus far in training camp, he's choosing positivity to counteract whatever corrosive karma the team might or might not have.

"I'd rather you not even talk about it," Davis joked. "Seriously, we aren't even going to talk about (curses) this year. No negativity. We're not talking about it. It's not real.

"This guy (Blake Griffin) is real. He's exactly what you think he is. Exactly. What you see is what you get with him."

Of course that's up for debate, depending on how superstitious you are.