Clippers Acquire Lance Stephenson for Spencer Hawes and Matt Barnes

[mkwest]

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Sources: Clippers discussing deal to acquire Hornets' Lance Stephenson

The Clippers would send forwards Spencer Hawes and Matt Barnes to the Hornets, sources said. Talks have been ongoing for several days, but the proposed deal is yet to be considered imminent.

For the Clippers, this would be a fascinating proposition. Stephenson, 24, is a talented but temperamental player who turned out to be a free-agent bust for the Hornets. Charlotte has been desperate to unload Stephenson since early in the 2014-15 season.

Nevertheless, the Clippers need athletic, talented wing players to compete in the Western Conference, and there’s hope that Stephenson would fit better into a more talented, veteran-laden Clippers team that more closely resembles the Indiana Pacers than the Charlotte Hornets did. The Clippers are strapped under the salary cap and need to find creative ways to improve their roster.

Stephenson has two years left on his contract, but the 2016-17 season is a team option of $9.4 million. So, the Clippers would only be committed to paying him the $9 million owed this season – and could then let him go if things don’t work out. For Clippers president and coach Doc Rivers, he’d be counting on Stephenson to recapture the production of his four seasons in Indiana, where he developed into an important player on a two-time Eastern Conference finalist.

Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports

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[mattd13]

wow!! hope to hell this does not come true. do we need help? yes but not at that price. matt is a better more consistent player by himself. to give up hawes for that kind of player would just be stupid. however I could see doc being that desperate. so sad when we are so close. there has to be something better.

[Ranma]

Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports (6/15/15)

The Clippers are considering the idea of using Stephenson as the primary ballhandler when All-Star Chris Paul is out of the game, league sources said. Stephenson struggled with the way Charlotte point guard Kemba Walker dominated the ball on offense, and would assuredly find a similar situation with Paul in Los Angeles.

Sources: Clippers discussing deal to acquire Hornets' Lance Stephenson

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[Ranma]

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[mkwest]

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[Roscoe Sheed]

I don't like Stephenson, but he does have a skillset that could be very useful to this team- especially on D. However, I wish these writers would stop with how unlikable the Clippers are while saying that the Warriors are so lovable despite the fact that they behave the same way the Clippers do.

[nickhx2]

ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh wtf matt barnes was part of the best starting lineup in the league last year. yeah he tapered off but without him our SF depth is literally just hamilton. and looks like we're still holding onto jamal? and now where is our big man depth? on the surface it's sounding like doc either wants to start stephenson or start jamal.

i'm hating every bit of this, currently. not the way to go. it only works if you dump crawford too and you KNOW you are gonna get a decent big and a decent SF somewhere between now and next season. but i simply don't trust doc rivers to execute the big picture with the rest of the moves you'd need to make to get this all to work.

[thanumba2clippersfan]

If we were to do this deal I rather not include Barnes. I really don't have a good feeling about this and at the least I feel like the team can wait. (I rather that we not do this deal period)

[Ranma]

I don't understand the rush to make a move now. Is Stephenson really in demand at the moment? I would think Hawes would be the more appealing trade commodity. I have little-to-no faith in Doc actually pulling off a good deal given his history and too-little-too-late approach to the draft, so this proposal is decent relative to my expectations. Still, we better not be giving up any picks whatsoever. In fact, we should be getting some back.

There better be other deals lined up since we're trading our starting small forward away as well as a center capable of starting in the hands of a more conventionally competent coach. Hawes, like Dudley, should go on to succeed elsewhere. The Clippers would need to even further address their already lacking depth at the C and SF positions. Even if Doc were to convince Paul Pierce to come aboard, we would need more capable bodies to lessen the toll of minutes for his aged body. Dream scenario would be to convince Washington that Pierce would otherwise opt out if a sign-and-trade for Jamal Crawford did not occur. This would allow us to us the mini exception on a UFA small forward.

I'm not a fan of Stephenson's, but if the team can add him while also getting the veteran presence of Pierce in addition to unloading Crawford for something useful, then it would be palatable in comparison to what we currently have or what Doc is capable of with regards to his personnel maneuvers. In other words, nothing to get excited about but better than something likely worse. The team option on Stephenson's contract mitigates the risks extending beyond next season.

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[nickhx2]

I'm not a fan of Stephenson's, but if the team can add him while also getting the veteran presence of Pierce in addition to unloading Crawford for something useful, then it would be palatable in comparison to what we currently have or what Doc is capable of with regards to his personnel maneuvers. In other words, nothing to get excited about but better than something likely worse. The team option on Stephenson's contract mitigates the risks extending beyond next season.

this is the only way this works.

unfortunately, properly executing roster and personnel moves is not what doc rivers knows how to do. call me cynical if anyone wants to but there is distinct possibility that we roll into the season with lance as our starting SF, crawford still on the team at SG, and davis and turkoglu as our big man backups.

i can just see it now. watching golden state win big finals games with small ball, doc might try out a lineup of blake/lance/jamal/jj/cp3

just great

[bulldogcharly]

I agree that this move would be better if there was a succession of moves that involved us getting a serviceable SF and unloading Jamal, but this move on it's own is still really good IMO. At first I wasn't too high on the move and felt like trading Hawes now would be a lot similar to trading Dudley last year, but Hawes isn't that useful anymore. Yeah he's still relatively young and has shown he can perform, but did you guys watch him run last year? It looked like it took him wayyyyyy too much effort to just start his running motion to get down the court. He's a huge defensive liability because of that and the way the game is transitioning, a guy like Hawes is going to become more and more useless. I want to give the guy another chance, but not if we can someone like Lance for him.

Losing Matt is where I'm hurting the most. He's getting up there and age and he could've honestly just played his last serviceable season, but he had one hell of a year for us last year. His shoulder injury was the downfall for him in the playoffs and just as I see him easily falling off, I can see him coming back strong next year as well. I love him as a player and as a person and he's absolutely helped this team gain toughness.

With all that being said, however, you cannot let the emotional attachment to those two guys cloud your judgement on a talent like Lance Stephenson. I haven't been the biggest fan of him and he absolutely sucked last year, but he's shown that the talent is there. He can do a little bit of everything and more. He's like Jamal in that he's pretty reckless and has his fans wanting to bang their head against the wall fairly often, but at least he isn't one dimensional like Jamal. If he isn't hitting his shots, we can still expect him to rebound, dish the ball, and defend pretty damn well. He's young and he was somewhat held in check by Frank Vogel and a relatively young Pacers squad so I expect Doc and Chris to be able to handle him pretty well. It's a risky move, but it's one that you have to take 100 times out of 100.

[nickhx2]

i think you can't really evaluate moves in a vacuum. context is too important. but yeah i think it's pretty low risk for very high reward, and it improves our cap situation by a good amount. one thing i hated about the hawes signing is that the deal runs into the 89M cap boom year. lance's deal doesn't and he can simply be negated if we don't like him after just one year.

[nickhx2]

one interesting thing is that matt barnes's contract is partially guaranteed. if he is waived before FA begins, whatever team he's on is only on the hook for 1M instead of 3.5M.

i don't know if there are any rules in place to prevent it, but:

could this trade possibly happen, with charlotte waiving barnes before his contract goes into the full guarantee, with barnes re-signing with the clippers? i.e.

A. would charlotte actually have a role for barnes to play?
B. is there anything preventing that as a legal CBA move?

doc is about as big a slimeball as you can find. if that works, i wouldn't put it past him to be whispering in barnes's ear and telling him to just re-up with the team afterward.

[mkwest]

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I'm not that high on Stephenson, but he's the best player in the deal if he can rebound from his poor showing last season. If not, he's essentially a $9M expiring contract, which can be beneficial to the team one way or another.

For my peace of my mind, it would be even better if Crawford could be moved prior to this deal being made. He very well can still be moved, so we'll just have to see.

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I'll miss Matty.

[nickhx2]

well, looks like the ball's in motion.

back when we were waiting on elton brand to resign after we'd already stolen baron davis away from GS, i was gonna type, in celebration: "time to get drunk!"

well, we lost elton, and hey, guess what? it still applied.


we're either gonna love this off season or hate it. at the end of the offseason, we are gonna find some very big reasons to drink, one way or another.

[mttwlsn16]

I'm cool with it. Barnes is getting older and Lance showed he has real talent in Indiana. Hawes is being paid too much. This gets us a young guy who is low risk/high reward and frees up money. I'll miss Barnes but whatever.

[Kyle]

I would much rather take a gamble on a 24 year old that nearly averages a triple double two years ago than stand pat with a 35 year old who has nothing left in the tank. Sucks that Hawes was so bad this year and that his stock dropped but a young defender like Stephenson with play making ability is wayyyyyyyy too much to pass up. Very good trade (if he wants to play basketball).

[nickhx2]

tuscon plz come make us feel better about what lance can do for this team, thanks

[mkwest]

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[Roscoe Sheed]

I agree that losing Barnes is tough, but if Stephenson plays up to his potential he could really benefit the team- even though he is short for the 3 position he has demonstrated that he is strong enough to guard 3s. If you look at a team like GSW- they have so many athletic wing players- Clippers needed to upgrade there. However, it would have been nice to keep Barnes.