PMOTT3 and Chuck Texas Early Off-Season Review: Los Angeles Clippers

[Texas Chuck]

PMOTT3's Review:

Key Losses:

N/A

Other Losses:

Matt Barnes
Spencer Hawes
Hedo Turkoglu
Glen Davis
Dahntay Jones

Nothing of significant importance here although a case can be made for Barnes. Turkey Glue, Big Baby, and Jones may still end up re-signing at some point but those guys should just be end of the bench scrap at this point in their careers.

Draft:

N/A

Trades:

.Spencer Hawes and Matt Barnes for Lance Stephenson
.630,000 cash for (#56)Brandon Dawson

If things break right the Stephenson trade can have its rewards. I still think he's a knucklehead who often makes boneheaded mistakes/decisions; just a talented one. With Paul, Griffin, and DJ as the vocal leaders in the locker room they should be able to keep him in check. Even if it all goes to hell he's essentially an expiring with that team option and they were able to clear Hawes salary off the books; not a bad trade at all.

Free Agency:

DeAndre Jordan
Paul Pierce
Austin Rivers
Josh Smith
Wesley Johnson
Cole Aldrich
Pablo Prigioni

I am actually amazed at the depth that Doc was able to create this off-season with them being capped out. This team is a lot deeper than last season.

Even though they broke the unwritten rule of backing off a teams player once they have signed elsewhere...(sigh)I do have to give them credit for re-signing DJ. He was a pivotal part of what they were able to do last season and would have been a tremendous loss had he stayed with the Mavs.

Being an ATL fan, i tend to hate on J-Smoove more than most but he had some excellent games in the post-season with Houston last year. If that's the Josh Smith the Clips are getting then i like it.

Stealing Paul Pierce away from Washington was brilliant. I thought he was the most clutch dude in the entire playoffs last season (and thats a factor the Clippers desperately need). His increase in age worries me but i suspect Doc will manage his minutes well through the regular season and then use him when it counts in the post-season.

Rivers, Johnson, Prigioni, and Aldrich gives them the bench pieces they need and all came on the cheap.

Current Depth Chart (rough sketch):

PG: CP3/Rivers/Prigioni
SG: Reddick/Crawford/Wilcox
SF: Stephenson/Pierce/Johnson/Hamilton
PF: Griffin/Smith/Dawson
C: DJ/Aldrich

I think Doc will go with a lot of small ball lineups this season. I think we'll see a lot of Blake at the 5 and Stephenson at the 3. Not sure on whether PP will start or not either.

Needs:

I'd like to see them add one more big. I dont see Dawson getting any burn this season except for garbage minutes. Smith and Aldrich are their only bigs outside of Griffin & DJ. And God forbid Doc tries to use Smith as a SF. Trading Crawford for that last big would make some sense and could very well still happen.

Additional Thoughts:

Chuck said that he thought the Kings had the biggest swing between best and worst case scenario; well for me its the Clippers. Worst case scenario...Pierce is too old to function (same with Prigioni), Stephenson proves that he really is a locker room cancer, Josh Smith returns to the ATL Josh Smith, and all of Doc's small ball lineups go to hell. OR Best case scenario...Stephenson looks like the Indy version again, Smith plays like he did for Houston, Pierce is still oozing with clutchness, the depth has huge payoffs, and small ball lineups work to perfection.

This off-season could turn into one big train wreck or it could finally lead the clippers to the promise land...a WCF appearance.

Win/Loss Prediction: 59-23

Off-Season Grade: A

Re-signed DJ, got a 2nd round prospect to look at and develop, cleared Hawes salary off the books, created depth while being capped out, brought in major bench pieces with PP & Smith, AND Doc actually didn't make one bad trade this off-season (yet).

Chuck Texas' Review:

Losses:

Matt Barnes
Glen Davis
Dahntay Jones
Spencer Hawes
Hedo Turkoglu
Epke Udoh

Barnes is the big one here. I think he is going to be missed. I kinda felt like he fit perfectly into that offensive-minded starting lineup and he added a toughness and edge that Jordan and Blake don't really bring. The rest of these guys are mostly irrelevant.

Trades:

Barnes/Hawes for Lance Stevenson
cash for Branden Dawson

Dawson deal is kinda whatever. I think he was a useful college player and worth taking a flier on. I'm not a fan of their other deal. Yes Lance could return to his 13-14 form and the Clippers will have really gotten a bargain, but I liked what Barnes brougth them and combined with Truth I love that SF rotation. And I still think Hawes could have been useful there despite his defensive issues.

Free Agency:

DeAndre Jordan
Truth
Josh Smith
Austin Rivers
Pablo Prigioni
Wes Johnson
Cole Aldrich


Obviously getting Jordan back was paramount. I don't want to get into the whole saga of that other than to say Blake Griffin was the MVP of that situation. Truth was another huge get and with Lance and Wes Johnson and Josh Smith he shouldn't have to be over-extended in the RS. But a great pickup for a playoff run. I think Rivers is a min player(at best) who got paid only because Doc is his dad. But the other signings are all nice pickups for a team with only min contracts to offer. Prigs is a very underrated get. He is a knock down shooter, a good defender even at his age, and he just knows what he's doing. Wes can shoot and Aldrich is a huge body to help against the size in the West. Smith is always a risk, but Paul, Blake, Truth, and Doc should be able to get him to play to what he does well. Hard to fault any of this but the Rivers deal and thats totally understandable.

Depth Chart(rough)*

Jordan/Aldrich
Griffin/Smith/Dawson
Truth/Wes Johnson/Jordan Hamilton
Redick/Stevenson/Wilcox
Paul/Prigioni/Rivers

*Jamal is intentionally left out because I think he is gone. Otherwise he is the primary backup 2 and Lance probably moves ahead of Wes at the 3.

Needs:

Find a trade for Jamal Crawford. He clearly is unhappy there and with his declining play, I'd look to move him for another big. Work all the new bodies into the rotation and figure out lineups that work. Keep Chris Paul healthy.

Additional Thoughts:

The Clippers have 2 of the 6 or 7 best players on the planet. Doc had by far his best off-season as a GM. Lot of pressure on this team to make it to at least the WCF for a lot of reasons. Will be interesting to watch some of the internal issues: Did Paul say what he had to say to convince Jordan to stay but will continue to treat him as he did before? And will Jordan be able to handle that? Will all the min guys resent the coach's son making money they aren't and contributing far less? Will Lance be a huge distraction? If Crawford is still there, will he? Good Josh Smith or Bad Josh Smith? No questions about the talent. Lots of questions about the chemistry.

Win/loss Prediction: 59-23

They won 56 games last year missing Blake for 15. Hard to imagine Paul plays 82 games again, but with guys like Prigs, Lance, Truth, and Smith I feel like they are better covered if he misses some games. With the added depth if everything comes together I could see them winning over 60 games. Went a little under that because I think with so many new players it might take them a little while to get up to top speed.

Off-Season Grade: A+

I didn't like 2 moves: overpaying Austin Rivers--not because I care about Ballmer spending more money, but I do worry with so many min contract guys that there is potential resentment because Doc clearly overpaid his own kid. And I'm not sold on the Lance deal.

But, those are relatively minor, nit-picky things. Retaining Jordan whom they almost lost was terrific. Truth was terrific. Smith and Prigs were really really good. Wes and Aldrich were solid. Clippers were among the 4 or 5 best teams last year and they are clearly better this year. Problem is GSW didn't get worse, OKC got a lot better, SAS got a lot better, Houston got better, Memphis got better. But 2 legit MVP candidates, 3 other quality starters, vastly improved depth. Only Lance and Rivers could be called bad contracts and neither of those are that bad. What's not to love here?

[HartfordWhalers]

Really really great offseason.

But Crawford is in semi-limbo atm. Still, I gave it an A+.

[DK-All Day]

The Clippers finally have a bench to lean on when CP3 and Blake are resting. Love the additions of Pierce, Stephenson, and Smith. Very good offseason.

[nickhx2]

pretty good write-ups. i agree with just about everything, cept a couple things here and there.

some things i think are worth mentioning:

- for pmott or any other atl that wants to answer - i've found josh smith to be a polarizing guy for other atl fans in the past, and i've always hated his inefficiency. what can the clippers really expect from him at 29? but in a non focal point role?

- i think the clips will miss matt barnes a lot more than they're letting on. yeah, pp is an upgrade but he'll mostly be a playoff upgrade. barnes was huge for the team in the regular season by being really efficient, not ball needy, a pretty good defender, and a general fit. i wish i could go back in time and force doc to give them crawford instead of barnes in the stephenson trade, but i guess doc thought he had a trade lined up for jamal too. if that's the case it backfired, and i can't say i'm hopeful of trading crawford for a big cause not much is out there.

- i'd expect blake to use the regular season as his petri dish again, especially with lance rebound hogging and josh smith as the backup. last year was being a mini-cp3 trying to set up his team. this year i pretty much expect him to rain 3's all day in the RS. all while averaging 6 boards and 6 assists a game.

- not that he's someone i'd try to sell to other people but i think rivers will improve a lot this year with a guy like lance now being the primary bench ball handler. austin's problem so far has been being asked to do things he sucks at. this time around all he's gotta do is defend and shoot. i think he'll be pretty efficient.

- hope baby comes back. he can still contribute, especially on a bench with other good players. imo he can give real impact when other guys around him are defending, which is not something that happened very often last year in the 2nd unit.

to finish, i think most clip fans are pretty happy with the offseason. i hate that it even came down to picking up some of the more notorious names of the nba but when your gm's tenure has been a trainwreck thus far, you don't have much choice except to gamble hard on the riskier names. i don't think it will be a combustible disaster if things go badly, but it definitely feels like there's a high ceiling there. would love to get the season started right away!

[Texas Chuck]

some things i think are worth mentioning:

Spoiler:

- for pmott or any other atl that wants to answer - i've found josh smith to be a polarizing guy for other atl fans in the past, and i've always hated his inefficiency. what can the clippers really expect from him at 29? but in a non focal point role?

- i think the clips will miss matt barnes a lot more than they're letting on. yeah, pp is an upgrade but he'll mostly be a playoff upgrade. barnes was huge for the team in the regular season by being really efficient, not ball needy, a pretty good defender, and a general fit. i wish i could go back in time and force doc to give them crawford instead of barnes in the stephenson trade, but i guess doc thought he had a trade lined up for jamal too. if that's the case it backfired, and i can't say i'm hopeful of trading crawford for a big cause not much is out there.

- i'd expect blake to use the regular season as his petri dish again, especially with lance rebound hogging and josh smith as the backup. last year was being a mini-cp3 trying to set up his team. this year i pretty much expect him to rain 3's all day in the RS. all while averaging 6 boards and 6 assists a game.

- not that he's someone i'd try to sell to other people but i think rivers will improve a lot this year with a guy like lance now being the primary bench ball handler. austin's problem so far has been being asked to do things he sucks at. this time around all he's gotta do is defend and shoot. i think he'll be pretty efficient.

- hope baby comes back. he can still contribute, especially on a bench with other good players. imo he can give real impact when other guys around him are defending, which is not something that happened very often last year in the 2nd unit.

to finish, i think most clip fans are pretty happy with the offseason. i hate that it even came down to picking up some of the more notorious names of the nba but when your gm's tenure has been a trainwreck thus far, you don't have much choice except to gamble hard on the riskier names. i don't think it will be a combustible disaster if things go badly, but it definitely feels like there's a high ceiling there. would love to get the season started right away!

Appreciate you adding your Clippers perspective here.

I couldn't agree with you more than they should have pushed hard to swap Jamal in for Barnes and they could easily have made the money work for the Hornets by also taking back Brian Roberts. I'm not 100% sure the Hornets would have done that deal, but I don't think its unreasonable at all.

[Hawk Eye]

pretty good write-ups. i agree with just about everything, cept a couple things here and there.

some things i think are worth mentioning:

-for pmott or any other atl that wants to answer - i've found josh smith to be a polarizing guy for other atl fans in the past, and i've always hated his inefficiency. what can the clippers really expect from him at 29? but in a non focal point role?

- i think the clips will miss matt barnes a lot more than they're letting on. yeah, pp is an upgrade but he'll mostly be a playoff upgrade. barnes was huge for the team in the regular season by being really efficient, not ball needy, a pretty good defender, and a general fit. i wish i could go back in time and force doc to give them crawford instead of barnes in the stephenson trade, but i guess doc thought he had a trade lined up for jamal too. if that's the case it backfired, and i can't say i'm hopeful of trading crawford for a big cause not much is out there.

- i'd expect blake to use the regular season as his petri dish again, especially with lance rebound hogging and josh smith as the backup. last year was being a mini-cp3 trying to set up his team. this year i pretty much expect him to rain 3's all day in the RS. all while averaging 6 boards and 6 assists a game.

- not that he's someone i'd try to sell to other people but i think rivers will improve a lot this year with a guy like lance now being the primary bench ball handler. austin's problem so far has been being asked to do things he sucks at. this time around all he's gotta do is defend and shoot. i think he'll be pretty efficient.

- hope baby comes back. he can still contribute, especially on a bench with other good players. imo he can give real impact when other guys around him are defending, which is not something that happened very often last year in the 2nd unit.

to finish, i think most clip fans are pretty happy with the offseason. i hate that it even came down to picking up some of the more notorious names of the nba but when your gm's tenure has been a trainwreck thus far, you don't have much choice except to gamble hard on the riskier names. i don't think it will be a combustible disaster if things go badly, but it definitely feels like there's a high ceiling there. would love to get the season started right away!

I think he can be good when he's your PF, 4th-8th best option, and not standing around the perimeter jacking 3's. The problem in ATL was he was used as our SF, our 2nd-3rd best option, and was ALWAYS settling for those annoying inefficient perimeter shots. He proved to be a good role player for the rockets and somehow managed to transform into a really good one in the post-season. He was never a role player in ATL but was instead one of the main focal points.

[nickhx2]

some things i think are worth mentioning:

Spoiler:

- for pmott or any other atl that wants to answer - i've found josh smith to be a polarizing guy for other atl fans in the past, and i've always hated his inefficiency. what can the clippers really expect from him at 29? but in a non focal point role?

- i think the clips will miss matt barnes a lot more than they're letting on. yeah, pp is an upgrade but he'll mostly be a playoff upgrade. barnes was huge for the team in the regular season by being really efficient, not ball needy, a pretty good defender, and a general fit. i wish i could go back in time and force doc to give them crawford instead of barnes in the stephenson trade, but i guess doc thought he had a trade lined up for jamal too. if that's the case it backfired, and i can't say i'm hopeful of trading crawford for a big cause not much is out there.

- i'd expect blake to use the regular season as his petri dish again, especially with lance rebound hogging and josh smith as the backup. last year was being a mini-cp3 trying to set up his team. this year i pretty much expect him to rain 3's all day in the RS. all while averaging 6 boards and 6 assists a game.

- not that he's someone i'd try to sell to other people but i think rivers will improve a lot this year with a guy like lance now being the primary bench ball handler. austin's problem so far has been being asked to do things he sucks at. this time around all he's gotta do is defend and shoot. i think he'll be pretty efficient.

- hope baby comes back. he can still contribute, especially on a bench with other good players. imo he can give real impact when other guys around him are defending, which is not something that happened very often last year in the 2nd unit.

to finish, i think most clip fans are pretty happy with the offseason. i hate that it even came down to picking up some of the more notorious names of the nba but when your gm's tenure has been a trainwreck thus far, you don't have much choice except to gamble hard on the riskier names. i don't think it will be a combustible disaster if things go badly, but it definitely feels like there's a high ceiling there. would love to get the season started right away!

Appreciate you adding your Clippers perspective here.

I couldn't agree with you more than they should have pushed hard to swap Jamal in for Barnes and they could easily have made the money work for the Hornets by also taking back Brian Roberts. I'm not 100% sure the Hornets would have done that deal, but I don't think its unreasonable at all.

yeah, i agree. we can't know what goes on behind closed doors, but if they were cutting barnes anyway then why not take jamal crawford too? their salaries were essentially the same. hell, they might even have kept him or tried to have moved him in a 3-team deal.

to me that's doc getting greedy thinking he could get more out of jamal. hard for me to hate on doc after this offseason though.





actually that's not true, it's still pretty easy.

[loserX]

Yeah, I have them pegged as a very good off-season as well.

Bringing back DAJ is obviously the big thing...it might have been a legit disaster if they didn't. Putting aside how it happened, they got their man.

The Lance trade is intriguing. He's a potential problem child, but working with guys like that is one particular area where I think Doc excels. He'll make Lance feel part of the team, and with guys like Chris Paul and Paul Pierce also there, I think Lance's personality is less of a risk on the Clippers than it might be elsewhere. Let's see if he can get his groove back on the court, too.

The Clips did a decent job filling in the rest of their roster...got Prigioni and (especially) Smith cheaply, and Pierce is a nice addition too.

Having said all this, I repeat my position that "every time I see the Clips make a move, it's for more and more guards". Hawes obviously didn't get Doc's trust so he had to go, but Cole Aldrich is in no way a replacement for him. I agree completely with Chuck that if Crawford gets moved, and he probably should, they need a backup C. If DAJ goes down for any length of time...

[HartfordWhalers]

Yeah, I have them pegged as a very good off-season as well.

Bringing back DAJ is obviously the big thing...it might have been a legit disaster if they didn't. Putting aside how it happened, they got their man.

The Lance trade is intriguing. He's a potential problem child, but working with guys like that is one particular area where I think Doc excels. He'll make Lance feel part of the team, and with guys like Chris Paul and Paul Pierce also there, I think Lance's personality is less of a risk on the Clippers than it might be elsewhere. Let's see if he can get his groove back on the court, too.

The Clips did a decent job filling in the rest of their roster...got Prigioni and (especially) Smith cheaply, and Pierce is a nice addition too.

Having said all this, I repeat my position that "every time I see the Clips make a move, it's for more and more guards". Hawes obviously didn't get Doc's trust so he had to go, but Cole Aldrich is in no way a replacement for him. I agree completely with Chuck that if Crawford gets moved, and he probably should, they need a backup C. If DAJ goes down for any length of time...

Jason Thompson you said?

[Hawk Eye]

I'm sorta kicking myself here for not giving them an A+. One of the things that held me off from it was the way the Clippers went about the DJ situation. I just hate that they broke one of the most important unwritten rules in the league. I also think it could potentially effect their ability to make future trades and whether or not GM's will want to deal with them. Maybe i shouldn't have let this effect me and not giving them an A+ but it just rubbed me the wrong way (and i know it really rubbde Chuck the wrong way even though he didn't go into detail about it in his review).

[loserX]

Yeah, I have them pegged as a very good off-season as well.

Bringing back DAJ is obviously the big thing...it might have been a legit disaster if they didn't. Putting aside how it happened, they got their man.

The Lance trade is intriguing. He's a potential problem child, but working with guys like that is one particular area where I think Doc excels. He'll make Lance feel part of the team, and with guys like Chris Paul and Paul Pierce also there, I think Lance's personality is less of a risk on the Clippers than it might be elsewhere. Let's see if he can get his groove back on the court, too.

The Clips did a decent job filling in the rest of their roster...got Prigioni and (especially) Smith cheaply, and Pierce is a nice addition too.

Having said all this, I repeat my position that "every time I see the Clips make a move, it's for more and more guards". Hawes obviously didn't get Doc's trust so he had to go, but Cole Aldrich is in no way a replacement for him. I agree completely with Chuck that if Crawford gets moved, and he probably should, they need a backup C. If DAJ goes down for any length of time...

Jason Thompson you said?

That seems reasonable. I was also thinking Crawford/Hamilton to Washington for Webster/Blair (Wiz get a sparkplug guard and shave a year off Webster in time for Durant '16, the Clips get back another shooter and another big body).

[Texas Chuck]

I'm sorta kicking myself here for not giving them an A+. One of the things that held me off from it was the way the Clippers went about the DJ situation. I just hate that they broke one of the most important unwritten rules in the league. I also think it could potentially effect their ability to make future trades and whether or not GM's will want to deal with them. Maybe i shouldn't have let this effect me and not giving them an A+ but it just rubbed me the wrong way (and i know it really rubbde Chuck the wrong way even though he didn't go into detail about it in his review).

I'll be honest that I was pretty shocked by it in real-time, but as more and more details of the story came out I really don't have any bad feelings towards the Clippers for their part in this. I have a minor beef with Doc on one small issue that I don't want to re-hash here, but considering Jordan clearly initiated this with Blake and Blake by all accounts was putting Jordan's interests first , I can't blame the Clippers for rushing and putting the hard sell on.

Jordan is the bad guy here, and even he isn't really that bad. Just horribly immature and obviously didn't think about how anyone but himself would be effected and not just the Mavs. It never made any sense for him to come to Dallas unless he truly believed what Dallas was trying hard to sell him--that he could be the face of a franchise. And I think pretty much no one truly thinks he is that type of player including Dallas.

So I'm going to illogically dislike Doc for awhile because its fun as a fan to find villains to boo. But other than that no hard feelings. I do imagine Donnie and Cuban feel quite differently.

[Texas Chuck]

I like the Jason Thompson idea quite a bit. Makes sense for both sides.

[HartfordWhalers]

I like the Jason Thompson idea quite a bit. Makes sense for both sides.

A clipper fan suggested it somewhere (while I was off pushing Thompson for Wallace + deal).

I think somewhere I threw out a Thompson/Crawford/Felton 3 way with the full understanding that it might get done in two separate steps so Cuban and the Clippers don't let personal feelings get involved.

[nickhx2]

I'm sorta kicking myself here for not giving them an A+. One of the things that held me off from it was the way the Clippers went about the DJ situation. I just hate that they broke one of the most important unwritten rules in the league. I also think it could potentially effect their ability to make future trades and whether or not GM's will want to deal with them. Maybe i shouldn't have let this effect me and not giving them an A+ but it just rubbed me the wrong way (and i know it really rubbde Chuck the wrong way even though he didn't go into detail about it in his review).

I'll be honest that I was pretty shocked by it in real-time, but as more and more details of the story came out I really don't have any bad feelings towards the Clippers for their part in this. I have a minor beef with Doc on one small issue that I don't want to re-hash here, but considering Jordan clearly initiated this with Blake and Blake by all accounts was putting Jordan's interests first , I can't blame the Clippers for rushing and putting the hard sell on.

Jordan is the bad guy here, and even he isn't really that bad. Just horribly immature and obviously didn't think about how anyone but himself would be effected and not just the Mavs. It never made any sense for him to come to Dallas unless he truly believed what Dallas was trying hard to sell him--that he could be the face of a franchise. And I think pretty much no one truly thinks he is that type of player including Dallas.

So I'm going to illogically dislike Doc for awhile because its fun as a fan to find villains to boo. But other than that no hard feelings. I do imagine Donnie and Cuban feel quite differently.

This is where i'm gonna contest. Feel free to disagree with my viewpoint, as i'm sure many wouldn't want to give a clipper fan a chance anyway. We're all villains to some.

You can go back and read my first posts that day: i was really pissed at doc for even attempting this weak swindle crap. But as time went on and the stories came out, it not only became evident, but came out completely that jordan was the one who reached out. So, like chuck said, he initiated it and doc responded. Both doc and dj themselves said doc wasn't contacted at first when the decision was made, nor did he contact dj. But when jordan changed his mind, again, he was the first to reach out.

A lot of the narrative is really crazy and hilarious and entertaining as hell: i love it all but it's mostly untrue. Jordan had misgivings, he was urged by his family and JL3 to think harder on it and he went to doc about it. He wanted to meet so doc said ok let's meet. Imagine you're in doc's shoes and you want to contend for championships, do you say no to that call?

Consider the alternative if you say no. That day it comes out in the paper "doc says no to dj returning because of 'imaginary rules he didn't even break' ". Now go tell cp3 and blake you told the 3rd most important guy and one of the most important championship pieces they have to get lost. How exactly do you guys think this plays out? It plays out like this: Goodbye cp3 and goodbye blake. Goodbye any recently earned franchise credibility, goodbye goodwill, goodbye any future NBA job you will ever have. Oh, but at least you kept your integrity for the sake of an imaginary rule you didn't even break. Like seriously, doc already wasted the past couple years of their primes, and now if he says no he's wasting the rest of cp3's and the next 2-3 of blake's. People keep bringing it up like it was an option. It was an impossible option.

In the end what I want to say is this: Imagine the same thing happened to your own (or anyone else's) team who thinks doc had any culpability here. Well, that's what i want to say but unfortunately i can't ask people to imagine that because most people probably don't know what it's like to have a team that's been abysmal for multiple decades. They don't know what it's like to have had an owner who was such a wretched person overseeing the team they cared for. They don't know what it's like to overcome all that and to be incredibly fortunate to have a team with not one, but two superstars. And people who are criticizing doc for taking the call don't realize they are basically just saying he should throw those two guys away, and as a result, everything else as well. You guys don't know what you're asking. Or maybe you do. But that's pretty cold for anyone who thinks doc should have put down the phone knowing the consequences on the other side, and knowing you'd set a sports franchise back by at least another 1-2 decades. And as much as i detest doc rivers, he did nothing wrong and exactly what any logical person would have done.




Btw here's the thing that really grinds my gears. This kind of stuff happens ALL the time. Execs say it happens all the time. Players say it happens all the time. JJ redick said it happened to him and that he even said he reneged on flip saunders once as well. This is a regular occurrence, and while it was blown up because of the way it happened, at its heart it wasn't out of the ordinary. So when people go on saying how it's potentially gonna affect every future dealing in the nba offseason, that's not actually true cause it's been happening since forever. People sign up, they renege, they sign an actual contract with someone else, and life moves on.

[HartfordWhalers]

This kind of stuff happens ALL the time.

I would challenge you to find 5 examples of a player backing out at least 3 days later. That part doesn't happen all the time. (And if you find the very few that did happen, might be worthwhile to note if they told the team they were backing out on or didn't feel like it was ever needed...)

[nickhx2]

well my point is that reneging happens all the time. not trying to make any points regarding timestamps for it in particular if it sounds like that in my post.

fwiw, and while understandably it sounds clippers-biased, doc/jj/dj all said it's the agent's job to call back and not the player's. that said i thought dj absolutely should have called and let cuban know what was going on. i wouldn't begin to absolve him of that even if it's generally considered to be the agent's responsibility.

[HartfordWhalers]

well my point is that reneging happens all the time. not trying to make any points regarding timestamps for it in particular if it sounds like that in my post.

fwiw, and while understandably it sounds clippers-biased, doc/jj/dj all said it's the agent's job to call back and not the player's. that said i thought dj absolutely should have called and let cuban know what was going on. i wouldn't begin to absolve him of that even if it's generally considered to be the agent's responsibility.

The thing is, most people aren't making a big deal out of Jordan switching. It is all the details about how he did so.

If he did it that day it is a small thing. Some in Dallas would be pissed but no one nationally gives a hoot. Instead, he did it after everyone else signed everywhere else, in a massively high profile way (Blake tweeting a chair barricading the door) and despite all that never once talked to the Mavs.

Switching might happen all the time, but that level of high profile **** over a team doesn't (Mavs definitely got burned bad by the wait), nor does that level of seeming immaturity.

But the great thing is, it will be forgotten in another 30 seconds (until they play Dallas).

[nickhx2]

really not sure what we're arguing here? as i mentioned, at the heart of it all people renege all the time. everything else was blown up like crazy, and it's more than anyone else's jordan's fault for that happening. i'm not trying to understate that if it sounds like i am. it was mishandled from the minute jordan changed his mind.

[HartfordWhalers]

really not sure what we're arguing here? as i mentioned, at the heart of it all people renege all the time. everything else was blown up like crazy, and it's more than anyone else's jordan's fault for that happening. i'm not trying to understate that if it sounds like i am. it was mishandled from the minute jordan changed his mind.

You are saying everything else was blown up like crazy. I am saying everything else -- including that the renege was so far afterwards -- was crazy (and thus wasn't blown up at all).