The Clippers select Reggie Bullock with the 25th pick

[mike3]

Solid first impression, Bullock. I like he's straight to the point of what he's going to bring.

[mkwest]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sf7ZcJzBXc[/youtube]

[mkwest]

Doc is pretty confident in himself and his coaching staff. Listen to him talk about Bullock's defensive abilities now and what they should be like after training camp. After watching last season's team, defense is the biggest issue. If you want to win a championship, you have to be able to rebound and you have to be able to defend. How are we going to defend if we are adding players that don't defend? I value team defense over individual defense, but you can't do much with someone like Jamison defensively. Doc is saying that DJ has DPOY potential. DJ has listed that as a goal of his for the last couple of years. The desire is there, but there's a difference in talking about it and doing it. I just hope Doc isn't overestimating.

[TheNewEra]

We were a strong defensive team during the regular season with our only true weakness being 3pt defense we protected the paint well and forced tough shots inside the 3pt line. The playoffs we played tough but looks like the team. Made no adjustments as the series went on and we paid dearly in the end.

[donudon]

He sounds like an intelligent young man and seems like he knows what he can and can't do. I think he is more suited as a 3 in the league for now until he tightens up his ballhandling (which is a weakness he pointed out on multiple interviews). I'm hoping he does really well in the LVSL.

On a different note, glad to hear that Blake and DJ are back from their European escapades. Hope they improve what they can and work hard with Doc and/or Hakeem.

[mkwest]

We were a strong defensive team during the regular season with our only true weakness being 3pt defense we protected the paint well and forced tough shots inside the 3pt line. The playoffs we played tough but looks like the team. Made no adjustments as the series went on and we paid dearly in the end.

We started off on a high note defensively (top 3 or so in the league). There was a big drop off in the 2nd half of the season where we were middle of the road at best defensively. The end result is a solid showing in the top 10, but a weak finish doesn't help us.

Perimter defense was an Achilles heel and that does certainly have to improve. League average was 35.9% (we shot 35.8% btw). We gave up 37.5% or greater in 21 of our 26 losses. No argument there, we need to improve on the perimeter.

If we lose Odom who was our most effective defender, and he's replaced by someone who is allergic to defense, it's going to have an effect. I get it, in someone like Jamison's defense (no pun intended), we're talking about 9th or 10th in the rotation at best. We were thin/small in the frontcourt last season. We're potentially getting thinner/smaller there this season. It's a little concerning for me. There is still a lot of time to see how things shake out, but I just feel that it can't be neglected.

Warriors: Bogut, Lee, Speights, Ezeli
Rockets: Howard, Asik, Motiejunas, Smith
Grizzlies: Gasol, Z-Bo, Koufos, Davis
Nuggets: Faried, McGee, Hickson, Arthur
Spurs: Duncan, Splitter, Bonner, Diaw
Thunder: Ibaka, Collison, Perkins

Even the Kings and Pelicans are more than solid at the 4/5 positions. Not everybody is a scoring threat, but there's still physicality and big bodies that we'll have to deal with. God forbid we lose one of our starting bigs for a period of time

[og15]

Front-court is definitely thin. Hollins is an end of bench player who isn't much of a defender, should not be your first big man, and Jamison is still a tweener who can't defender PF or play high level team/help defense.


Also about the defense, there were things that were worrying during the season. First was that it was an average / above average defense when it came to eFG% (12th), defensive rebounding was average (15th), and one of the worst at fouling (29th), that would actually be an overall below average defense if not for turnovers. The defenses stregnth was being #1 in turnovers. That's not a bad thing if you're good in other areas, but is it sustainable in the post-season?

The thing that screamed "no it isn't" was that the Clippers were a horrible crunch time defense. What did this mean? It meant when teams played more carefully and slowed things down and tried to execute more accurately, the Clippers defense got picked apart because forcing turnovers is not what you need then, defensive execution is what you need. When teams are more deliberate and go into safe mode, it's hard to force turnovers.

So you average out turnovers and you have a team that's:
12th in opponent eFG%
15th in defensive rebound % (73.5%)
29th in opponent FT/FGA
Average in turnovers

That's not a good defense. That's an average defense everywhere but then who fouls a lot, making it below average. That's why Memphis beat on the Clippers defense. They played safe and deliberate, and were even below average in turning it over. They played get the ball to the bigs, run pick and pop, don't do anything fancy. If the Clippers can't even turn a team over to average and are fouling even more than during the regular season, they become a league bottom level defense, which is what they were against Memphis, even worse than the worst.

You give the Clippers the average turnover rate and the defense goes from 8th to similar to Dallas who was 19th, so basically the 111-12 Clipper defense.

Dallas:
10th in opponent eFG%
22nd in defensive rebound % (73.1%, average 73.5%, Clippers 73.5%)
28th in opponent FT/FGA
20th in opponent TOV% (13.3, average was 13.7, Clippers was 15.4)

[mkwest]

Rookie photo shoot

[Quake Griffin]

good looks on the rookie photo shoot.



some say the CLips didn't get better this offseason. they must not think much of our first round pick.

[McAdoo]

some say the CLips didn't get better this offseason. they must not think much of our first round pick.

We have had a great offseason, putting our free agent signings aside, Bullock looks like he might have been an absolute steal at the 24th pick.

[mttwlsn16]

NBA rooks impressed by Reggie Bullock

http://www.clipsnation.com/2013/8/26/46 ... k-shooting

[mttwlsn16]

NBA rooks impressed by Reggie Bullock

http://www.clipsnation.com/2013/8/26/46 ... k-shooting

[mttwlsn16]

whoops, dbl post

[mkwest]

Thanks Matt. Here's a direct link to the 2013-14 NBA Rookie Survey.

[Neddy]

good to hear... if reggie pans out to be a lethal shooter, i am sure we can try to package one of our glut of 2/3 wings for a bench big who can actually bang down low. a bit cautious about our bench being thin on bigs but highly optimistic about our possibilities.

[Verballer]

I think he will honestly be the steal of the draft and it's looking moreso with all these stories and surveys coming out!
His basement is a spot up shooter who can play D,think Mike Miller with more D.
His ceiling I dunno tbh