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Ralph Lawler Interview


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Vinny Del Negligent

- Ralph was never a believer in the Laker team this season. Didn't like the make-up.

- Battled Prostate Cancer in the mid 2000's.

- Chris Paul is a leader like no other that Ralph has ever seen.

- Team needs more shooters; expressed concern last summer to Roeser/Vinny that the needs shooters.

- Asks the question if Blake and DJ are a good pairing. He asks if the Clippers would be better if there was a big that can shoot next to Blake instead.

- He wants the Vinny situation to be resolved to be quickly. Coaching staffs are being filled and it would only be fair to give the assistants an opportunity to go elsewhere if they are let go. Delaying puts them at risk of not having a job.

- He thinks Vinny will be in demand for other young teams. Vinny has a home in Phoenix. His mother is in Charlotte and they would both be great fits for him. Overall, he is supportive of Vinny. He still has a lot to learn, but he does have his qualities yada yada yada.

- Ralph likes Phil Jackson, Jerry Sloan, Doug Collins, Larry Brown and younger candidates like Mike Budenholzer (Spurs) and Mike Malone (Warriors).

- He thinks the problems with Donald Sterling as owner is old history. He wishes people would forget about the old days of putting out the cheapest line-ups possible, because that isn't the case anymore.

- Team will be luxury tax payer this upcoming season. The organization knows it and accepts it.

- DeAndre Jordan and Eric Bledsoe's best use may be as trade bait.

- The error of this team was probably too many players that deserved playing time.

- He thinks team may have been better off with young up and coming guys who could sit and learn or specialists that could come in for certain situations as opposed to having guys like Grant Hill sitting on the bench because of lack of opportunity.

- The bench was better than the Clippers' starting unit for many years.

finally got around to listen to the whole interview. chris wilde from topbuzz seems to be getting better at his broadcasting skills, i used to think he was annoying but now he is actually up to par with some of the ESPN radio jockeys. of course the standard set by the espn radio guys are pretty low.

i like all of ralph's choices for our next HC. although i think phil will never work for donald. doug/larry/jerry seems to me are the best candidates, even if larry and jerry are short term coaches.

i was a bit flabbergasted when ralph started mentioning bargnani. yes he is a stretch big and can shoot the 3, and shoot well within the arc, but the man cannot rebound to save his life. it would be a lateral move overall as we are gonna get rid of interior defense and rebounding DJ who lacks offense for mid range shooting/long range capable(not great, just capable) bargnani who brings no defense, or rebound. i guess that can force blake to go back to being the rookie year blake who gets his hands dirty down low. with DJ's 15 % trade kicker and bledsoe, I'm sure we can and we must get more than just bargnani. who else do we want? they won't give up on derozon, i don't want over paid and over hyped landry fields, and if raptors get bledsoe Im sure they would want to dump kyle lowey, but he will only be a 1 year merc who can't play SG so it's a wash for us.

how about

DJ + our 25th pick this year for bargnani + T ross + their 2nd round pick

with DJ's trade kicker, contracts match better if ross is thrown in, but the draft picks balance the talent disparity.

with this deal, raptors can have

lowey-derozan-gay-amir-DJ. that is some athletic starting 5 that can run with the best.

for us, we pick up ryan kelly with that second rounder. if we can bring back odom for a vet min, then we can have blake-odom doing the dirty work inside and bargnani-kelly playing the stretch big at all times.

then we use bledsoe and use tuffjuice to pick up a starting 2 or 3 who can shoot the lights out. if bargnani is indeed in our uniform, i would strongly hope that we get a wing player who is above average at rebounding as well.