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Best chance at a chip: Blake's rookie contract

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Best chance at a chip: Blake's rookie contract 

Post#1 » by LOJ » Tue Mar 6, 2012 11:15 am

It is very rare a franchise gets the chance to have a top 3 PF in the game on a rookie contract, along with a superstar player like Chris Paul. This gives us plenty of cap flexibility to become a stacked team. We will never have a better chance at a chip than we do before we have to extend Blake Griffin. Neil needs to work the phones NOW.

Keep in mind this is just something I thought of quickly. But just one of the many things that could possibly go down. Would definitely like your input on this og, and Det. :P

Trade Scenario/Off-season Signings:

I would love to trade DJ for anything substantial, he takes up a good chunk of capspace, keep in mind his contract isn't bad AT ALL, 10 mil for a big like him is great value. He is ideal for a rebuilding team. I like the chemistry him and Blake have, but sometimes I feel this is as good as DJ is going to get because all the focus is on Blake. If another young team got a hold of DJ and really forced his development he would be great. He has a plenty of potential. DJ is much better than anything any other team will offer for Monta Ellis.

Offseason trade with the Warriors

GSW gets: DeAndre Jordan, Caron Butler, 3.5 mil cash

LAC gets: Monta Ellis, Dorell Wright

After this season the GSW finally come to their senses and go into full rebuild mode. They have Curry and DJ as their cornerstones for the future. The salaries don't exactly match but they'll have enough capspace after Kwame Brown expires to make up for the 3.2 mil.

I like Mo as much as the next guy but if we get rid of Mo we'll have a little more over $26 mil of capspace relief in the offseason, this is including the tid bit we get from giving them Caron as well. I'm pretty sure we can trade Mo for at least some capspace, him being such a valuable expiring contract.

We get a new coach after Del Fail's contract ends, Blake and CP3 have another season under their belts. With Blake working diligently on his free throws and mid range shot.

We resign Kaman, Reggie, sign Carl Landry, Matt Barnes, and Belinelli.

Jerry Sloan: This team would be at least nearly twice as better than the Deron Williams Jazz that he coached. We need a Jerry Sloan type of coach so badly, to just come in here and change the culture completely. Really take control of the team. I'd go as far as to say it's slightly better than the Stockton/Malone teams he coached.

Paul/Bledsoe
Ellis/Belinelli
Barnes/Wright
Blake/Landry
Kaman/Reggie

This lineup gives us so much versatility, allowing us to keep one of Paul, Ellis, or Blake on the floor with the second unit at all times, a luxury we had before Billups went down. But Ellis is quite an upgrade over Billups. Carl Landry is a quality bench big, who will give us huge minutes from the bench, I'm honestly getting tired of K-Mart's antics. I can see why George Karl didn't like him much. Belinelli would give us a good 3pt shooter, Barnes a defensive minded SF, we can toy with the lineup a bit to see who should start, him or the 3pt specialist Wright. Reggie is just awesome. Bledsoe with an offseason under his belt would help him GREATLY, I prefer him being our backup PG over Mo, and he is much cheaper. Kaman comes back and we all know what he can do, such an underrated center and in my opinion better than DJ. We also get a another pick and pop player for CP3.

This is a STACKED team, I feel we become legit contenders with this team, even a chance to win multiple titles.
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Re: Best chance at a chip: Blake's rookie contract 

Post#2 » by Det the Threat » Tue Mar 6, 2012 11:49 am

I wouldn't do that GS at all.

That would make us an even worse defensive team(yeah, that's possible) as neither Paul nor Ellis are able to defend shooting guards.
Both also need the ball in their hands to be effective and that's just not a good thing to have.

Kaman's not coming back(he's already stated that) and will most likely receive a nice fat contract some place else.

Barnes is a nice idea, but I'd rather go for Pietrus. Though, I wouldn't mind either one and at best we could get both of them, or two guys in the mold of them.
A guy we could go for at the deadline is Raja Bell, who would give us solide defense and a guy that can and will knock down open jumpshots.

All things considered, I'd only trade DJ if it meant an upgrade at the center spot coming back to us and that's something very hard to do.

We should also look into keeping Bledsoe(if there isn't a great deal available) until draft night to try and trade him for a pick between #12 - #20.
There aren't many point guards available in this years draft and we might be able to convince a team to trade their pick for him.
If we're able to do so, then we should look into some of those guys.

Terrence Ross
Tony Wroten
Terrence Jones
Tyler Zeller
Meyers Leonard
Patric Young
Arnett Moultrie
Kendall Marshall(this would make Mo a full time sg)
John Henson
Quincy Miller
Jeremy Lamb
Evan Fournier

Next years team should look like this:

Paul/Mo/minimum guy or 2nd rounder
Free Agent/Rookie or Free Agent
Butler/Free Agent or Rookie
Blake/Martin or Evans/Thompkins
DJ/Free Agent or Rookie/vet minimum guy

Looking at that, shooting guard is our biggest need and we'll have to look at guys like Pietrus, Barnes, Bellinelli in free agency or a guy like Bell in trades to fill that void as we want to win now and don't need rookies as starters.

Though, our biggst need isn't on the court, but on the bench, where we desperatly need an upgrade over Vinny. With him at the helm I don't see us winning anything, unless CP3 just plays out of his mind for four straight playoff series.
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Re: Best chance at a chip: Blake's rookie contract 

Post#3 » by LOJ » Tue Mar 6, 2012 12:10 pm

I completely agree that our biggest need is getting a better coach.

I disagree that we would become a much worse defensive team with Ellis at the two. Our defensive woes aren't man defense, it's our whole defensive schemes or lack there of (credit to Del Fail). We don't need to be a top 3 defensive team to win a chip, top 10 with amazing options on offense, and a good coach should do it.

Paul and Ellis would work great on offense. Curry and Ellis do it just fine, with a maestro like Paul next to Ellis it would seriously work wonders. Ellis is great at driving to the rim and getting to the line, is a good shooter as well, can get hot very quickly. He's been up there in PPG the past few seasons and doing it with good TS%'s on a pretty bad GS team. He is also not Jamaal Crawford awful on the defensive end by any means.

Paul/Mo/minimum guy or 2nd rounder
Free Agent/Rookie or Free Agent
Butler/Free Agent or Rookie
Blake/Martin or Evans/Thompkins
DJ/Free Agent or Rookie/vet minimum guy


That line up isn't going to cut it Det, we need to go all in before we extend Blake, this is our best chance. We can settle for something similar to that after we extend Blake. If we can pull an Ellis trade off, we need to get rid of Mo, and Butler, and sign some quality FA's to go along with it.

What if we replace Kaman with say, Spencer Hawes? He was on a tear before falling to injury, and shouldn't be more expensive than DeAndre Jordan.

Also, DJ doesn't really erase many of Blake's shortcomings at all. He leaves his assignment to play help defense and get a blocked shot so many times when it's totally unecessary, resulting in easy buckets against us. DJ is not really a defensive monster at all. He could be though, that's for sure, with a team that will take time to develop and giving him all the touches and attention he needs.
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Re: Best chance at a chip: Blake's rookie contract 

Post#4 » by Det the Threat » Tue Mar 6, 2012 4:01 pm

I'm just not sold on Ellis.

He's a nice stats guy but doesn't seem to be one that helps you win consistantly.
If we're go "go in" during Blakes rookie contract then I'd be looking to go for other guys then him.

I mean, him and Curry are great offensively as well, but they still can't win anything.
A big thing right there is that they don't have a real defensive guy in the post(Biedrins can block some shots but gets bullied around by bigger guys and is even more challenged on offense then DJ) and that's what would happen to us as well.

I mean, David Lee isn't Blake, but he's still a double double guy and not that much worse then Blake and we'd become the Warriors of south california + maybe a somehow decent center.

You're lineup wouldn't cut it at all, as we couldn't defend the chairs we'd be sitting on and still would have two guards that need the ball to be effective.

I think a team consisting of Paul, Butler, Blake, DJ and Mo, coupled with two solid wing defenders that shoot the open jumper well(Pietrus, Barnes, Bell etc.) and some decent role playing bigs could go deeper then your squad.

During playoff time every team knows the other teams strengths and weaknesses and the game becomes much slower.
That means if you want to win anything in the playoffs you need to be able to get stops and you need guys punishing the other team from double teaming Blake down low.

So if we're to trade DJ, then it should be for a guy like Marc Gasol, Roy Hibbert, Dwight(yeah, a real possibility :roll: ) or at least a guy that can carry our team while not being a defensive liability like Ellis.

Still, the biggest thing for us to compete isn't trading for another big time scorer or upgrading at the center spot, it's Blake Griffin and his free throw shooting.
If he keeps shooting them as bad as he's done so far, then we'll never go anywhere near the NBA Finals.
And adding DJ to the mix doesn't help, because you can barely play him in close games at the end or you're going to lose because of free throw shooting.
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Re: Best chance at a chip: Blake's rookie contract 

Post#5 » by LOJ » Tue Mar 6, 2012 6:40 pm

We don't need Monta Ellis to win games for us, we have CP3 for that. We need another star guard that can score efficiently, handle the ball, and make the right play. Ellis goes under the radar a lot, but he's definitely had a couple of allstar seasons.

You mentioned that in the playoffs it's a whole different ball game, and in a series teams figure you out. Exactly why you need players that can make big plays. Do you really think switching Ellis for Foye and DJ's version of "I lyk swattin ballz durrrrr" defense for Spencer Hawes means we can't even defend the chairs? I really doubt that. Matt Barnes is a better defender than Caron Butler, who has been playing AWFUL. His shot selection is so bad, it's like he waits until someone can contest him if he's open to shoot the damn ball. Caron is not worth his contract.

You also mentioned DJ's horrible freethrow shooting and how it affects us during crunch time when paired with Blake Griffin. Spencer Hawes would be a major improvement there.

We need a third star, and we can only afford one while Blake is on his rookie contract. We were fine with Billups, and he's worse defensively than Ellis.
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Re: Best chance at a chip: Blake's rookie contract 

Post#6 » by thanumba2clippersfan » Tue Mar 6, 2012 10:47 pm

I think we just need a new coach and a legit SG. I wouldn't want Ellis and I don't think we need to trade DJ. Ellis has a lot of offensive ability but he's only about 6'3 and really skinny. He's just a scoring guard. I like the Pietrus idea, he can defend and hit the open shot.

I felt with Billups we had a good shot at making it to the finals, but without him it hasn't been the same. Unless things change or we make a move to have a consistent 3rd scorer we won't get there this year. Plus our defense needs to get better. I'm just hoping we can improve next year and add what we need.
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Re: Best chance at a chip: Blake's rookie contract 

Post#7 » by og15 » Tue Mar 6, 2012 11:19 pm

Kaman is not going to be the solution at C, and he's definitely not coming back. I wouldn't trade DJ for Ellis. Ellis is a good player, but he's in a terrible role on Golden State, that is being a #1 option. He's best as an 18-20 PPG scorer with high TS%, in his current role, he's an inefficient scorer.

Pietrus is good, but not as the starting SG. Right now, Pietrus would be best as a backup SG/SF. While Pietrus is better than every other Clipper on the perimeter defensively, on offense, he's not the most efficient guy, takes some bad three's, and he can't create anything. In addition to that, defensively, he can lack discipline with his fouls, and due to that he doesn't maximize his defensive effectiveness and isn't as good as one would presume. What I have been impressed with in regards to him is his shot making in the playoffs, well at least as a Magic player, he always seemingly stepped it up.

I do agree that Blake being on a rookie contract gives some flexibility, but it also gives some false flexibility. No matter what happens, you will have to re-sign Blake, so you don't want to invest too much money all around and put yourself in a bad cap situation when that time comes.

If Paul had been acquired earlier, I think it would have helped things a little. With how the Clippers are currently built, I think the best way to approach the team would be to look for a mid priced SG, and a lower priced SF. Because going into the off-season, Gordon was on the team, that was obviously not an option, and a middle priced SF in Butler was signed.

...but again, I think we need to understand this. If the Clippers had a coach that could push out a top 5-7 defense, having a Top 3 PG , a Top 3-5 (depending on who you ask) PF who can both create for themselves and others + some shooters (however inconsistent) would allow for the team to be able to go far in the post-season. Interestingly enough, Monty Williams would be a great coach for this team, and so would a guy like Dwayne Casey.

Personnel wise, the Clippers have two mobile and athletic bigs, and another nice on in Martin off the bench where they are capable of being a very good defensive team with the right coach. So it isn't a lack of personnel issue, it is a system and focus issue, and to Vinny's defense, a lack of time to work on things and the inclusion of a lot of new players.
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Re: Best chance at a chip: Blake's rookie contract 

Post#8 » by Chronz » Wed Mar 7, 2012 12:37 am

I dont like Monta at all, hes not even a good stats guy because his Advanced Stats suck, his team does better without him on the floor for the past 4 years. The guy only has value to **** teams IMO and only if they are great defensively.
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Re: Best chance at a chip: Blake's rookie contract 

Post#9 » by og15 » Wed Mar 7, 2012 12:58 am

Interestingly enough, I think it might be the opposite. I think Monta is more valuable to good teams (in the right role) because he becomes an efficient 6th man or a 2nd/3rd option. On a bad team, he's a #1 option, and with Golden State also playing heavy minutes, and in that role, he's not effective because he does not have the talent to be that guy.
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Re: Best chance at a chip: Blake's rookie contract 

Post#10 » by Chronz » Wed Mar 7, 2012 2:14 am

og15 wrote:Interestingly enough, I think it might be the opposite. I think Monta is more valuable to good teams (in the right role) because he becomes an efficient 6th man or a 2nd/3rd option. On a bad team, he's a #1 option, and with Golden State also playing heavy minutes, and in that role, he's not effective because he does not have the talent to be that guy.


That seems like such a long time ago tho, before the moped accident. And its not as if he doesnt have the talent around him to play more off the ball IMO, he either doesnt want to (he never embraced Stephen Curry when he first arrived saying the 2 couldnt co-exist) or he lacks the ability now. Though I admit the stats dont support this since his off the ball plays are still deadly efficient.

Looking back though, Monta had to have someone guard 2's for him (Baron) and has to have 2 guys who can create for everyone (Baron/Jacko) in order to force him to accept playing off the ball, thats the recipe for getting the most out of Monta.

Just seems like such a head case, I really dont want to bother with him, he gets abused 1 on 1.
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Re: Best chance at a chip: Blake's rookie contract 

Post#11 » by Cracka2Hi » Wed Mar 7, 2012 4:12 am

There is NO WAY I would trade DJ for Monta. Not sure I'd even take Monta at all because of the same reasons others have said. Sure he'd be a fine 6th man or 4th option but I don't see him accepting that role. I think our best chance at a chip is just locking up CP3 and Griffin and hoping to have the right pieces around them just once in the next 5-7 years. It cost us so much to get Paul that I see it being very hard for us to ever build a dynasty type team. However we should be title contenders from next year on. I think we could possibly compete this year but Chauncy going down sure looks like more and more of a season killer every game.

I think what we really need is tall athletic wings who can knock down the 3. We could use one that can defend and one that can create his own shot. That's really whats missing this season. I'm really hoping Chauncey makes a full recovery and is 100% by next playoffs. Other than that there are tons of guys we can plug in at the 2 and 3.
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Re: Best chance at a chip: Blake's rookie contract 

Post#12 » by LOJ » Wed Mar 7, 2012 8:20 am

What if the Hawks go into rebuild mode, and want to give up Al Horford + Tmac for DJ + filler?

I would do that in a heart-beat. Also, Landry Fields is unrestricted next season and the Knicks have NO capspace. :lol:

I wouldn't mind offering him 3-4 mil a year. Only thing is his 3pt shot is a bit inconsistent, but he plays good D and rebounds like a mad man. A very savvy young wing, that can grow with your core.

Also, pay attention to the Blazers, who are plummeting fast. I wouldn't be surprised if Gerald Wallace declines his player option to get a longer contract somewhere else. Hell, I would give them Caron Butler in a sign and trade.

Paul
Fields
Wallace
Griffin
Horford
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Re: Best chance at a chip: Blake's rookie contract 

Post#13 » by Chronz » Wed Mar 7, 2012 8:41 am

LionOfJudah wrote:What if the Hawks go into rebuild mode, and want to give up Al Horford + Tmac for DJ + filler?

I would do that in a heart-beat.

Same here, we could probably squeeze Hinrich out of them, and yes we have to take advantage of our window for cap space.
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Re: Best chance at a chip: Blake's rookie contract 

Post#14 » by Neddy » Thu Mar 8, 2012 5:13 am

LionOfJudah wrote:
Paul
Fields
Wallace
Griffin
Horford


that's a dreamy starting 5, albeit chauncey would probably take the starter's job out of fields, otherwise i don't see him returning to be a backup here. all in all, it would drastically improve our team. let's say that the filler was foye, as he is an expiring, then we would look like

Paul------Mo---------Bledsoe
Billups--Fields-----Leslie(if he is still even on the roster)
Wallace-Simmons--Gomer
Griffin---Kmart-----Thompkins
Horford--Evans---rookie.

i do think that Evans will be gone. maybe Kmart too via FA.

damn i think i drank too much after that dumb loss tonight. posting too many roster depth chart.
ehhhhh f it.
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Re: Best chance at a chip: Blake's rookie contract 

Post#15 » by LOJ » Thu Mar 8, 2012 8:29 am

As much as I'd like, I don't think Billups is coming back.
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Re: Best chance at a chip: Blake's rookie contract 

Post#16 » by og15 » Thu Mar 8, 2012 12:25 pm

Horford is a good player, but is not a true C, he's a PF, I'm not sure I want to have him be the starter at C, not because he can't produce, but because the team becomes undersized when going up against some of the leagues taller and bigger C's, and one can get frustrated with the offensive rebounds given up.

I also agree about Billups, I'm not sold on his return, neither am I sold on starting him at SG after coming off an Achilles injury at his current age


Chronz wrote:
og15 wrote:Interestingly enough, I think it might be the opposite. I think Monta is more valuable to good teams (in the right role) because he becomes an efficient 6th man or a 2nd/3rd option. On a bad team, he's a #1 option, and with Golden State also playing heavy minutes, and in that role, he's not effective because he does not have the talent to be that guy.


That seems like such a long time ago tho, before the moped accident. And its not as if he doesnt have the talent around him to play more off the ball IMO, he either doesnt want to (he never embraced Stephen Curry when he first arrived saying the 2 couldnt co-exist) or he lacks the ability now. Though I admit the stats dont support this since his off the ball plays are still deadly efficient.

Looking back though, Monta had to have someone guard 2's for him (Baron) and has to have 2 guys who can create for everyone (Baron/Jacko) in order to force him to accept playing off the ball, thats the recipe for getting the most out of Monta.

Just seems like such a head case, I really dont want to bother with him, he gets abused 1 on 1.
All true observations, I'm not huge on Monta myself as I wouldn't actually trade any players I liked for him, DJ being the only real option there.
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Re: Best chance at a chip: Blake's rookie contract 

Post#17 » by Sofia » Thu Mar 8, 2012 10:20 pm

Wow this thread isn't just pressing the panic button, it's mashing it like its the strong kick button in Street Fighter.
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Re: Best chance at a chip: Blake's rookie contract 

Post#18 » by LOJ » Fri Mar 9, 2012 9:32 am

clips1386 wrote:Wow this thread isn't just pressing the panic button, it's mashing it like its the strong kick button in Street Fighter.


It's not a panic button, read the thread. :beer:

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