Clippers Acquire Lance Stephenson for Spencer Hawes and Matt Barnes

Forte IV · Post #181 » by **Forte IV** » Sun Aug 2, 2015 6:33 pm

Hawes was garbage with a long deal. At the very least we can decline Lance's option next year and have an extra 9 mil when the cap raises. I wish we didn't have to trade Matt, but he is 35 now.

Ranma · Post #182 » by **Ranma** » Sun Aug 2, 2015 8:17 pm

In addition to Doc, CP3, and The Truth, another significant influence could be Sam Cassell given their shared penchant for on-court histrionics. Maybe Cassell is wiser in his years to help in directing Stephenson's showmanship into a more productive manner as well as warning of the pratfalls of overdoing it.

Zach Lowe, Grantland.com (7/30/15)

How often do you think about Sam Cassell’s injury in the 2004 playoffs — a hip thing, I think, right before the conference finals against the Lakers?

All the time. It was his hip. He made a shot out of the corner against Sacramento in Game 7 [of the conference semifinals], and he did his little Big Balls dance, and from that, he created a little avulsion fracture in his hip. No question, I think about that dance all the time. But that’s the NBA. I went to four straight conference finals in Minnesota and Detroit, and we had injury issues in each one. The team that wins the title is usually the healthiest team.

Q&A: Flip Saunders on Building the Baby T-Wolves, Luck, and Mountain Dew

Ranma · Post #183 » by **Ranma** » Mon Aug 3, 2015 7:21 am

SLAM Staff, SlAMonline.com (8/2/15)

According to Lance, via Instagram, and others in attendance, Born Ready was taking in the action from the sidelines when someone from UTL called him out. So Lance suited up and promptly scored 25 points in 12 minutes (at least one witness claims it was 26 points, actually) and led Gersh to the victory.

Lance Stephenson Scores 25 Points in 12 Minutes at Gersh Park (VIDEO)

[instagram]https://instagram.com/p/53flUBpGFb/[/instagram]
[instagram]https://instagram.com/p/542DOPrU-f/[/instagram]
[instagram]https://instagram.com/p/53irStyKa3/[/instagram]

Post #184 » by **mkwest** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 9:40 pm

Just how ready is 'Born Ready' Lance Stephenson for his 1st season with the Clippers?

He has spent the summer laboring through three-a-day workouts in Las Vegas totaling four to 4 1/2 hours, each drop of sweat cleansing him from his time with the Charlotte Hornets last season, when his production dropped precipitously from his previous season with the Indiana Pacers, when he was a borderline All-Star and one of the game's top perimeter defenders.

Stephenson said he can play alongside Crawford, further evidence of Stephenson's politicking to put his bad-teammate reputation to rest. He compared his leadership style to that of Clippers point guard Chris Paul and said observers often confuse his fiery demeanor with something more sinister.

"People that are just watching the game will be like, 'Oh, he's a bad guy because he's yelling at his teammates,'" Stephenson said. "But me and my teammates understand where I'm coming from."

"I'm on a mission to win a chip. I'm on a mission to do great this year. I'm on a mission to prove everybody wrong," said Stephenson. "I mean, a lot of people are doubting me and saying I'm a bad locker-room guy and all of those rumors, but there's no facts that I'm a bad locker-room guy, so I'm going to just show everybody and just go hard this year."

Ben Bolch, LA Times

mttwlsn16 · Post #185 » by **mttwlsn16** » Tue Aug 25, 2015 12:54 am

I'm excited we traded for him. He has the potential to really help this team.

mattd13 · Post #186 » by **mattd13** » Tue Aug 25, 2015 1:05 pm

I hope you are right however I will have to see how is doing after 20 or 30 games. he has been talking a good deal now lets see if he can back it up over the long hall. I have been around longer than most of you guys and people usually do not change that much. we now have at least 3 head cases. doc will have his hands full with this team. I wish him well.

madmaxmedia · Post #187 » by **madmaxmedia** » Tue Aug 25, 2015 6:10 pm

I think he is gonna more or less wind back the clock to 2013/2014. Up until last year, he had steadily improved year over year. I think he lacks the maturity to be able to lead a weaker team, but on a quality team with structure, he'll be fine. Unlike Crawford, he'll actually create for teammates too (5 triple doubles during last season in Indiana.) I think he will be worth picking up his option 2 seasons from now.

If you hypothetically pretend last season never happened for him, he is exactly the type of wing player I have been waiting for the Clippers to acquire- a wing who can create on his own and make our half-court offense more dynamic. I know there are questions with him, but I am really looking forward to watching him on the Clips.

madmaxmedia · Post #188 » by **madmaxmedia** » Fri Oct 9, 2015 3:22 pm

Clipsnation.com has done a pretty exhaustive breakdown of Lance's first 2 preseason games-

http://www.clipsnation.com/2015/10/7/9466349/film-room-the-lance-stephenson-exemplum-part-1
http://www.clipsnation.com/2015/10/8/9474317/film-room-the-lance-stephenson-exemplum-part-2

I think they show pretty well his significant strengths, and significant weaknesses.

nickhx2 · Post #189 » by **nickhx2** » Fri Oct 9, 2015 4:27 pm

i've been following these film room posts since the playoffs. these ones in particular for the players have been really informative.

i'm still a little (ok, a lot) afraid of what lance we'll get. i'm not so concerned about his shot because he has been doing a few things pretty well. it's just his random off-ball defensive awareness that'll hurt. that said, he's infinitely better than jamal crawford and you can tell that he FIGHTS. not sure we've really had a guy off the bench in a long while who seems to care that much.

one thing that i like a lot so far is his p/r skill, especially with josh smith. i think they're gonna do well in that regard. and while lance is gonna be able to do that stuff with blake/dj/smith, i think adding another athletic p/r big for the bench would be incredible for us. doc needs to make that a priority.

one thing that is a very common theme though has been smith's defense and screening even though he hasn't been of primary focus in these pieces. i was really not wanting him here when i first heard about the signing but i am more than sold now. he is going to be great for us. i just hope that doc starts fixing bad lance because josh smith is going to be a very sad guy trying to carry the bench himself.

madmaxmedia · Post #190 » by **madmaxmedia** » Fri Oct 9, 2015 4:48 pm

Yeah, I admit that I am really enthralled with what he can do well (overall on-ball skills, defense when he is actually dialed in, etc.) to the point of overlooking the negatives. I think if he truly wants to win enough, he'll learn to keep his focus and play within the team concept, and the goods will significantly outweigh the bads. If he doesn't though, he'll only ever scratch the surface of his potential.

Does he want to be a true impact player, or is happy being a Youtube highlight video guy? He's innately skilled enough to always be the latter, but we really need the former (actually, that would mean being both.)

nickhx2 · Post #191 » by **nickhx2** » Fri Oct 9, 2015 6:14 pm

yeah, he clearly has no issues passing the ball in p/r situations, and he doesn't seem to be a gunner in the mold of jamal crawford. but more than a few possessions he starts going into his crazy and 1 dribble drive stuff trying to beat his guy. i think that has a lot to do with trust in his teammates (which he'll need to build). and he might just have it ingrained in him, since he was more talented than any of his peers growing up, that the best player needs to play bail-out hero ball when things go bad. that's something doc will need to disabuse him of, and i hope he can.

asero · Post #192 » by **asero** » Sun Nov 15, 2015 1:36 am

Is he injured or having a fal out with doc?

Post #193 » by **Diop** » Sun Nov 15, 2015 5:28 am

Or Doc realised that he sucks.

LACtdom · Post #194 » by **LACtdom** » Sun Nov 15, 2015 10:17 pm

I hope both Lance and Doc work hard to make Lance an asset. It will be a waste of both time and trade assets if we end up letting him go at the end of the season.

nickhx2 · Post #195 » by **nickhx2** » Mon Nov 16, 2015 4:30 am

his option can be declined to give the team a little bit of cap space at the EOS so it's not all bad if he doesn't pan out. that said, he can definitely do some good things for us if he can be solved.

madmaxmedia · Post #196 » by **madmaxmedia** » Mon Nov 16, 2015 6:24 pm

I'm not sure if the coach is telling him to camp at the corner 3 all day, because that's most of what he does on offense. He's not good enough a 3-pt shooter to help that way.

Post #197 » by **QRich3** » Mon Nov 16, 2015 7:09 pm

nickhx2 wrote:his option can be declined to give the team a little bit of cap space at the EOS so it's not all bad if he doesn't pan out. that said, he can definitely do some good things for us if he can be solved.

Better yet, he can be traded on draft day as an expiring for a similar salary that some team searching for capspace is looking to get rid of. Say the Bulls are trying to unload Gibson for a run at Durant, or Houston moves Ariza or Brewer, or something similar. Whatever Lance does, the trade is still good since his expiring contract is more valuable than Hawes'.

Post #198 » by **og15** » Mon Nov 16, 2015 8:16 pm

madmaxmedia wrote:I'm not sure if the coach is telling him to camp at the corner 3 all day, because that's most of what he does on offense. He's not good enough a 3-pt shooter to help that way.

Over 35% of his attempts have been inside 5 feet, and he's shooting 59% there. His problem so far offensively is that he's awful from mid-range, shooting under 20% so far. He can attack closeouts to get himself shots at the rim instead of shooting the 3PT shot, and he has been giving chances to handle and create that are reasonable based on hierarchy. The team can't give up extra possessions for Paul and Blake to direct the offense in order to give Lance more, he's just not that good or efficient with the ball for that to make sense.

That's why we thought Lance with the bench made sense because then he could be a primary ball handler, but with Austin and Jamal also on the bench it did not look cohesive or functional, not to mention Smith too, and of those three guards, he's the only one that can truly masquerade as a SF.

LACtdom · Post #199 » by **LACtdom** » Mon Nov 16, 2015 9:54 pm

When I heard Lance was starting I had imagined him taking on a 'glue guy' kind of role. Someone who can hold their own on defense while having the passing skills to not kill ball movement. Good things happen when CP and Blake have the ball. I imagined Lance being the guy they passed out to when either of them got doubled and then he could use his ball handling and passing skills to get the ball to the other star as quickly as possible. An all-rounder like a poor man's Iggy but more similar to Tony Allen in the sense that a lot of his scoring would come from cutting to the basket and using positioning to his advantage while knocking down the occasional 3.

If Lance was moved to the bench unit, we certainly would have an arsenal of capable passers with Austin, Jamal, Lance, Pierce & Smith. Hopefully we can utilize their passing abilities to build our offense around ball movement.

nickhx2 · Post #200 » by **nickhx2** » Tue Nov 17, 2015 2:10 am

QRich3 wrote:
nickhx2 wrote:his option can be declined to give the team a little bit of cap space at the EOS so it's not all bad if he doesn't pan out. that said, he can definitely do some good things for us if he can be solved.

Better yet, he can be traded on draft day as an expiring for a similar salary that some team searching for capspace is looking to get rid of. Say the Bulls are trying to unload Gibson for a run at Durant, or Houston moves Ariza or Brewer, or something similar. Whatever Lance does, the trade is still good since his expiring contract is more valuable than Hawes'.

Yeah, that's definitely good if we can't make lance work.

Lance's contract might work out for us in some different ways as well. Let's say KD says no to OKC and he wants LAC. We can't sign him outright, but we can move DJ's contract to a third party (omg, assets!) and then decline lance's option. I think that gets us around-ish where we need to offer him a max outright.