So... this Jamal Crawford problem

[nickhx2]

doc the coach is definitely holding this team back. i think it's pretty clear as daylight. i don't think ballmer ever does it since he is a neophyte owner, but this team's expectations this year are very, very high with the current talent. i could see a veteran owner axing him at the end of the season.

[Roscoe Sheed]

I wonder what Crawford's value is in trade at this stage of his career. I noticed that Morrow is languishing at the end of OKC's bench. He is a great shooter, but it would be great if Crawford could somehow be packaged for Chandler. I imagine Denver would be willing to deal him especially as the season goes along and they keep losing.

[nickhx2]

crawford's value would be negative for any team wishing to improve their championship equity, but positive for any teams wishing to shed some salary come next offseason.

okc already has dion waiters who is another bad shot chucking, no-defense player, so they wouldn't want crawford.

it'd be a virtual impossibility to trade crawford for chandler. they resigned him to be an asset so they could flip him for another asset later on. jc is definitely not what they need in any sense.

like for real, crawford is just a plain horrible player and possibly the worst in the league right now. no team that wants to improve can use him.

[Don Tommy]

Too bad league execs don't just watch highlight film. The way the media talks about Jamal you would think he's the favorite for sixth man of the year award again. What gets me about him is that he is a 15 year player. But in Monday's game, even though he was passing the ball more, most of the passes were flashy passes, and they either didn't connect or the other player wasn't ready for it... probably because they were expecting a shot.
Like someone else says, it kills me when he plays with the starters and does his ball hog routine. He is a great shot maker when he is moving towards the basket, but he kills any flow our offense has. I keep hoping he gets hot for two games in a row, bumps up his trade value, and Doc trades him. More likely though, a hot streak may have Doc thinking about starting him.

[nickhx2]

lol for sure. doc would rather start him than trade him.

[Ranma]

Ranma, did you check out my 3-1 collapse thread? It details aftermath of the eight teams who suffered 3-1 collapses. Some teams missed the playoffs. Some teams lost their franchise star players to the team who defeated them.

I just did. Nice work on the research of the follow-up to the historical collapses. In each case, a big-name newcomer--whether it was a player or coach--was needed in order to turn things around, but like you said, the Clippers represent an anomaly. The aim is to bring home our 1st Larry O'Brien trophy. Doc and a few media pundits have suggested that if the Clippers don't win the championship or at least come close this season, it would not be agreeable to continue doing the same thing in keeping the core key players together and expect different results.

I actually agree with that sentiment, although not in the same way that Doc thinks. Even with an aging Chris Paul, the Clippers don't necessarily need another big-name player in order to succeed with an ever improving Blake Griffin. A new coach, on the other hand, is another story. Sure, adding Kevin Durant to complete our starting 5 would go a lot further than going without him, but no one in their right mind would count on that happening as a sure thing. I'd be much more inclined to completely remove Doc Rivers in both roles as coach and GM before I'd consider trading away Griffin, Paul, Redick, or even DJ. However, I'd be willing to compromise for just removing Doc from GM duties. DJ isn't exactly untouchable either, but he's necessary for now. The funny thing is that Doc would likely improve our chances in pursuing Durant as a free agent given his talent as a pitchman.

In any case, we do have a closing championship window, so there should be a sense of urgency. The question is if we continue to flounder in the playoffs, will Steve Ballmer have the balls to either get rid of Doc or limit his powers before he continues to waste time and assets in not living up to his duties.

[LACtdom]

I actually agree with that sentiment, although not in the same way that Doc thinks. Even with an aging Chris Paul, the Clippers don't necessarily need another big-name player in order to succeed with an ever improving Blake Griffin. A new coach, on the other hand, is another story. Sure, adding Kevin Durant to complete our starting 5 would go a lot further than going without him, but no one in their right mind would count on that happening as a sure thing. I'd be much more inclined to completely remove Doc Rivers in both roles as coach and GM before I'd consider trading away Griffin, Paul, Redick, or even DJ. However, I'd be willing to compromise for just removing Doc from GM duties. DJ isn't exactly untouchable either, but he's necessary for now. The funny thing is that Doc would likely improve our chances in pursuing Durant as a free agent given his talent as a pitchman.

In any case, we do have a closing championship window, so there should be a sense of urgency. The question is if we continue to flounder in the playoffs, will Steve Ballmer have the balls to either get rid of Doc or limit his powers before he continues to waste time and assets in not living up to his duties.[/color]

As much as everyone wants to keep the coach and player acquisitions separate. We really need to cement our coach before we make any big moves. For example, I'm open to losing DJ, however only if we had a competent defensive coach. If we kept Doc then there is no way in hell I would want DJ gone because of what he brings in terms of defense. Similarly, in order for Chris Paul to be considered tradeable (if his contract even allows), we would need a coach who has proven himself in terms of running half-court plays for less experienced point guards.

The sad part is, I actually think we have a championship team. We just don't have a coach who can make them click.

[mattd13]

have to agree totally. however I hope we are both wrong.

[nickhx2]

reading this kind of makes me sad http://www.foxsports.com/nba/story/charlotte-hornets-marvin-williams-role-2015-16-season-most-improved-111215

not that we know for sure if we could have done a crawford for marvin williams swap when we did the hawes deal, but it was one of the primary discussions we had for sure at the time.

[Neddy]

so far this season, Jamal is recording 99 offensive rating while posting 110 defensive rating.

that is whopping negative 11 points.

on the other hand, Wes Johnson is at 130/107. he is plus 23.

obviously he wont be keeping up 130 offensive rating forever, but this gives you a perspective of which one of the two should be on the court. only thing I can make sense of all is that Doc is trying to show case Jamal for his trade value, but it is back firing. otherwise Doc would have to be a complete idiot.

[Roscoe Sheed]

Crawford definitely played a strong role in today's victory. Gotta give him some credit. I think he is useful as an insurance policy for situations in which Redick is out. He has his flaws for sure, but he serves a purpose. He still shot a bit too much, but he did facilitate at times today as well as score.

[Neddy]

Crawford definitely played a strong role in today's victory. Gotta give him some credit. I think he is useful as an insurance policy for situations in which Redick is out. He has his flaws for sure, but he serves a purpose. He still shot a bit too much, but he did facilitate at times today as well as score.

Hey I am not gonna lie, Jamal made me eat a crow today.

[Roscoe Sheed]

I was at the game today- sitting in section 317. From up there you can really see plays unfolding. One thing that was a bit frustrating is that they kept missing Pierce for wide open 3s. They weren't rotating the ball properly. Crawford didn't see him sometimes or just ignored him. Crawford definitely had a good game but it could have been even better with an extra pass here and there.

[TroubleS0me]

The only new development was guard Jamal Crawford's proposed approach to fixing the team's problems.

"I may do a Q&A with our fans to see what they see," Crawford said Wednesday, referring to a question-and-answer session via social media, "because I honestly don't know and I want to figure it out."

Crawford said he would watch footage of the Clippers' 102-91 loss to the Utah Jazz on Wednesday to determine what was plaguing his team. Then he paused, reconsidering.

"Maybe I don't need to watch that on Thanksgiving," he said.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/clippers/la-sp-clippers-report-20151127-story.html

[nickhx2]

i doubt he would ever take criticisms from fans too seriously, and even more doubt doc would restrict his minutes based on what fans said.

[Ranma]

Can you find Jamal Crawford in the graph tweeted below? Don't forget to look for CP3 and BG. Also, take note where former Clipper and super bench-player Eric Bledsoe is as well.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/SethPartnow/status/674868825595191296[/tweet]

[madmaxmedia]

Crawford definitely played a strong role in today's victory. Gotta give him some credit. I think he is useful as an insurance policy for situations in which Redick is out. He has his flaws for sure, but he serves a purpose. He still shot a bit too much, but he did facilitate at times today as well as score.

The problem is, that he's only not a problem 1 out of every 4 games or so.

But yeah, he still has good games for sure. At this point, I don't know whether to fault him or Doc more for his shot selection. This whole season is confusing...

[madmaxmedia]

Can you find Jamal Crawford in the graph tweeted below? Don't forget to look for CP3 and BG. Also, take note where former Clipper and super bench-player Eric Bledsoe is as well.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/SethPartnow/status/674868825595191296[/tweet]

The Clippers have 2 solidly excellent self-created FG players in BG and CP3, as does OKC. That is absolutely great, but on the flip side how good is our offensive scheme at creating shots (vs. self-created shots)?

I think that is the part of the offense that I always have doubts about, that I was hoping a more dynamic wing player would help address- ball movement, cutters, weak side opportunities, that sort of thing. It gets a lot harder to create shots for yourself in the playoffs than during the regular season, and there are less easy transition opportunities too. But the way we run our half-court offense, the ball is in CP3 or Blake's hands 80% of the time. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but whoever we fill in at the 3 ends up standing in the corner, and our offense scheme never improves. It's hard for me to describe, and I'm not in the position to break down a lot of film to do a better analysis, but that's what I feel when I watch them play. And it's why I feel we lost to Houston and couldn't stop their run that game. It doesn't happen all the time, but we regress to this certain style of play in crunch time that is somewhat predictable.

Then when our second unit comes in, often it's the Jamal Crawford show which is more self-created shot attempts.

[Ranma]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/FlyByKnite/status/681546241759690752[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/FlyByKnite/status/681546634614943744[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/FlyByKnite/status/681548307768983552[/tweet]
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