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When the Los Angeles Clippers acquired Doc many believed he was the missing piece to a championship. After all, with a roster of Blake Griffin, Chris Paul, and Deandre Jordan the talent was assumed to be there, but we suffered playoff exits and a portion of the blame was laid at Vinny Del Negro's feet. With the acquisition of Doc, we all assumed that Doc could reach the players like Vinny could not. Of course Doc was not going to come here without a carrot being offered. So he was given the title of President of Basketball Operations.
Since his arrival here Doc has maneuvered many trades, free agent acquisitions, and draft picks. After two years these moves have been put in question by many fans and media experts. I myself have not been happy with many of these moves, and as the season goes by our competitors appear to be improving while we continue to struggle against playoff caliber teams and stay at 6th place in the western conference standings.
As a coach I want him to stay on and fulfill that role, but given his history so far as President of BO I would suggest the organization ask him to step down from that role and instead find a suitable person to fill it. What is everyone else's thoughts on this?

Personally, I'm done with him as both the head coach and the president of basketball ops.

We could have had a coach like Budenholzer or Malone, hired a real GM, and still had our first round pick this year, and likely have had better results this season. I see no difference between Doc and VDN beyond reputation.

MartinToVaught, interesting point. I think if you take away Doc's time with Boston's Big Three then his head coaching career does not look much better than Vinny's resume. I'm not saying that Doc isn't a good coach, but last years playoff ouster certainly gave rise to some doubt.
I still think he's a good coach based on a few things like being able to make Deandre Jordan a better player than Vinny could, and fixing our woeful three point defense last year (an upgrade from the trouble Vinny had in getting our guys to defend the three).

However, this year there have been a lot of questions about even Doc's coaching. Overalll, I think I would be for leaving him as head coach, but we definitely need a better judge of talent to be the president of BO. I not only base this opinion on bad acquisitions like CDR, Dudley, Mullens, Jamison, and Farmar, but bonehead drafting of guys like Bullock and Wilcox, and lastly, the complete lack of attention to our defensive needs by a continual bringing in of one way offensive players.

He's a terrible GM. Probably one of the worst I've ever seen. Every move he's made since he's been here has been a total "wtf moment" and now its finally playing out on the court. You inherited Blake, CP3 and DJ.. you add one or two vets who's "been there before" and the rest should be nothing but young athletes to mold and groom. This guy butchers everything and is in love with garbage aging role players. Unreal

Clemenza wrote:He's a terrible GM. Probably one of the worst I've ever seen. Every move he's made since he's been here has been a total "wtf moment" and now its finally playing out on the court. You inherited Blake, CP3 and DJ.. you add one or two vets who's "been there before" and the rest should be nothing but young athletes to mold and groom. This guy butchers everything and is in love with garbage aging role players. Unreal

He seriously might be the worst GM ever. Even Isiah, Dumars and Otis Smith had redeeming qualities. Isiah could draft (Ariza, Lee, Wilson Chandler, Nate, among others) even though he couldn't do anything else. Dumars and Otis built Finals teams, albeit inefficiently - Dumars even won a ring.

Meanwhile, Doc is utterly atrocious at drafting - when he hasn't already traded away our picks like candy, that is. He has lost every single trade he's been in, every single one. His solution to everything is more washed-up cheap vets when we need youth and athleticism. As a coach, he preaches defense, yet he's acquired nothing but old, slow players with no length or athleticism. We are now capped out with zero assets anybody wants outside of the Big Three. The next mistake will be giving DJ the max. People will defend it now and when it happens, but it will blow up in our face like every single move Doc has ever made. I can't think of anything Doc is good at as a GM, and that's scary.

By the way, Coach Doc doesn't get a pass either. He is the most stubborn person I've ever seen; everyone knows the platoon rotations will never work, yet he will never change it. It's clear that Gentry was the real coach on offense last year since our ball movement is a lot worse without him. His mancrush on Jamal Crawford, an inefficient no-defense chucker, in the clutch is costing us games. This team chucks too many jump shots, they get killed on the boards every night thanks in part to Doc's gimmick of giving up offensive rebounds, and they don't play defense. As a coach, Doc's legacy would be nothing without Thibs coaching defense for him and McHale bailing out his old teammate.

Personally, it's obvious that Doc needs to get the pinkslip before he does any more damage to this team. Otherwise, we're about to relive the final years of the Dumbleavy era.

Well the reason CP3 resigned was because of Doc.


So you would've lost CP3, and then Blake Griffin.

reignfire wrote:Well the reason CP3 resigned was because of Doc.


So you would've lost CP3, and then Blake Griffin.

Doc was the reason why CP3 resigned, true, but sometimes it takes an evaluation of their entire body of work.

There should be one more option, and that is to wait until after the trade deadline. Let me explain.

In a recent recording of LACLIPCAST, Mike Jaglin revealed that the only way for the Clippers to upgrade their weakest spot, the small forward, would be to trade away a Clipper fan favorite. Matt Barnes, Jamal Crawford, and DeAndre Jordan are all favorites. Jordan is a greater symbol of a Clipper fan favorite because: 1) he's been a life long Clipper 2) he's Blake Griffin's BFF 3) Doc Rivers has made him a member of his Big 3, even without an All Star Selection.

The problem, however, is that Doc Rivers loves his players too much to the point that he would rather accept an early playoff exit with the guys he has. His philosophy of "flying and falling as one, not separately" stems back to the Big 3 Celtics era when Danny Ainge traded Kendrick Perkins, somebody Doc loved, for a position of need. The Donald Sterling scandal might also have been a factor in sticking with the guys he has. Knowing that the Clippers before Steve Ballmer has been a revolving door for wash-ups, has-beens, and never-wases, Doc made continuity, consistency and loyalty a higher priority than upgrading the small forward spot since trading to him is considered an anti-thesis of his priorities.

Earlier this week, Ric Bucher of Bleacher Report proposed that the Clippers could trade the farm for superstar Joe Johnson. For Clipper fans, he's their savior. For Doc Rivers, it goes against everything he stands for. But would you rather continue with your small forward lineup as is and get rousted, or make the sacrifice and begin the quest of repairing Chris Paul's tarnished legacy.

But here's the problem: Clipper fans just don't want to see DeAndre Jordan go. Neither Matt Barnes, Jamal Crawford, or J.J. Redick (if he gets included). When a player joins the Clippers, you take them in as family. It's happened with Sam Cassell and Eric Bledsoe. Too many times in Clipper fans lives have players "denounced" the team because of Donald Sterling. But now you have Steve Ballmer, somebody who wants to take risks and is not afraid of the repercussions. It's a new day, yes, but there still seems to be some unrest.

I would applaud Doc Rivers for making that huge sacrifice. But I'd also have to ding him because he'd be cutting a part of the core that he created. Either way, if Doc trades the farm for a superstar, then it's time we question Doc as GM, and if Steve Ballmer made a huge mistake in giving Doc this much power.

We needed a quality SF - We sign CDR, Hedo and draft Wilcox.
We play terrible in the pre-season - Pre-season games don't matter.
We get a string of ugly wins against terrible teams - We're winning so everything must be good.
I feel as though in the last 6 months, the only thing we did to try and get better was sign Hawes and Blake improve his range and we're in the same position of needing a small forward.

It is hard to watch other teams make moves to become stronger.
GSW got Livingston and Alvin Gentry.
HOU got Ariza and now Josh Smith
DAL got Parsons and Rondo

Wammy Giveaway wrote:There should be one more option, and that is to wait until after the trade deadline. Let me explain.

In a recent recording of LACLIPCAST, Mike Jaglin revealed that the only way for the Clippers to upgrade their weakest spot, the small forward, would be to trade away a Clipper fan favorite. Matt Barnes, Jamal Crawford, and DeAndre Jordan are all favorites. Jordan is a greater symbol of a Clipper fan favorite because: 1) he's been a life long Clipper 2) he's Blake Griffin's BFF 3) Doc Rivers has made him a member of his Big 3, even without an All Star Selection.

The problem, however, is that Doc Rivers loves his players too much to the point that he would rather accept an early playoff exit with the guys he has. His philosophy of "flying and falling as one, not separately" stems back to the Big 3 Celtics era when Danny Ainge traded Kendrick Perkins, somebody Doc loved, for a position of need. The Donald Sterling scandal might also have been a factor in sticking with the guys he has. Knowing that the Clippers before Steve Ballmer has been a revolving door for wash-ups, has-beens, and never-wases, Doc made continuity, consistency and loyalty a higher priority than upgrading the small forward spot since trading to him is considered an anti-thesis of his priorities.

Earlier this week, Ric Bucher of Bleacher Report proposed that the Clippers could trade the farm for superstar Joe Johnson. For Clipper fans, he's their savior. For Doc Rivers, it goes against everything he stands for. But would you rather continue with your small forward lineup as is and get rousted, or make the sacrifice and begin the quest of repairing Chris Paul's tarnished legacy.

But here's the problem: Clipper fans just don't want to see DeAndre Jordan go. Neither Matt Barnes, Jamal Crawford, or J.J. Redick (if he gets included). When a player joins the Clippers, you take them in as family. It's happened with Sam Cassell and Eric Bledsoe. Too many times in Clipper fans lives have players "denounced" the team because of Donald Sterling. But now you have Steve Ballmer, somebody who wants to take risks and is not afraid of the repercussions. It's a new day, yes, but there still seems to be some unrest.

I would applaud Doc Rivers for making that huge sacrifice. But I'd also have to ding him because he'd be cutting a part of the core that he created. Either way, if Doc trades the farm for a superstar, then it's time we question Doc as GM, and if Steve Ballmer made a huge mistake in giving Doc this much power.

Wammy,
I can understand your willingness to want to wait until the trade deadline, but I would probably go against waiting. Overall this squad is coming off a second round exit, and to be honest that first round matchup against GSW could have gone the other way if Bogut were healthy. So I wouldn't hesitate trading anyone outside of Blake, J.J., and Chris if it meant improving this squad.
Our biggest weakness was defense, which Doc still hasn't solved. The fans have favorites, but the loss of a fan favorite will quickly be forgotten if we win more games because of a trade. /
I do agree with you that part of the reluctance of Doc to trade players is that he develops a bond with them, and that family atmosphere even trickles down to the announcers of the Clipper games.
I tweeted Isaac Lowenchron, and I asked him if a trade was on the horizon due to our inability to beat good teams. He quickly responded that we should keep the team intact and let them learn how to beat elite teams. The problem with Isaac's logic is that we've already tried that, and this trend of not beating good teams extends to even last year throughout the regular season.
Isaac loves the roster, and I'm sure Doc does to. They have formed a bond with these guys, and on a personal note I know that Crawford, Blake, Baby, Paul, and all these guys are nice. My ex-wife has season tickets, and I have met most of these guys, so as a fan you tend to fall in love with the players and take it personally when they are traded.
But I can only speak from myself but as a fan since 2001 I've gone through enough losing. For me I don't want this club to meet the same fate as the Utah Jazz of the early 2000s, you know the core of Boozer, Williams, and others. This group was a perennial playoff team, but always got bounced by teams in the 2nd or 1st round.
I want a championship, and I'm willing to trade whoever it takes to get it.

MartinToVaught wrote:

Clemenza wrote:He's a terrible GM. Probably one of the worst I've ever seen. Every move he's made since he's been here has been a total "wtf moment" and now its finally playing out on the court. You inherited Blake, CP3 and DJ.. you add one or two vets who's "been there before" and the rest should be nothing but young athletes to mold and groom. This guy butchers everything and is in love with garbage aging role players. Unreal

He seriously might be the worst GM ever. Even Isiah, Dumars and Otis Smith had redeeming qualities. Isiah could draft (Ariza, Lee, Wilson Chandler, Nate, among others) even though he couldn't do anything else. Dumars and Otis built Finals teams, albeit inefficiently - Dumars even won a ring.

Meanwhile, Doc is utterly atrocious at drafting - when he hasn't already traded away our picks like candy, that is. He has lost every single trade he's been in, every single one. His solution to everything is more washed-up cheap vets when we need youth and athleticism. As a coach, he preaches defense, yet he's acquired nothing but old, slow players with no length or athleticism. We are now capped out with zero assets anybody wants outside of the Big Three. The next mistake will be giving DJ the max. People will defend it now and when it happens, but it will blow up in our face like every single move Doc has ever made. I can't think of anything Doc is good at as a GM, and that's scary.

By the way, Coach Doc doesn't get a pass either. He is the most stubborn person I've ever seen; everyone knows the platoon rotations will never work, yet he will never change it. It's clear that Gentry was the real coach on offense last year since our ball movement is a lot worse without him. His mancrush on Jamal Crawford, an inefficient no-defense chucker, in the clutch is costing us games. This team chucks too many jump shots, they get killed on the boards every night thanks in part to Doc's gimmick of giving up offensive rebounds, and they don't play defense. As a coach, Doc's legacy would be nothing without Thibs coaching defense for him and McHale bailing out his old teammate.

Personally, it's obvious that Doc needs to get the pinkslip before he does any more damage to this team. Otherwise, we're about to relive the final years of the Dumbleavy era.

Isaah Thomas drove that Knicks organization to a total state of stagnant talent bankruptcy with the idiotic contracts he gave out to slightly above average players and set that franchise back for a decade.

We've had an executive by the name of Elgin Baylor who drafted likes of Bo Kimble, Danny Ferry, Olowakandi, Chris Wilcox and Melvin Ely in the same draft, Lorenzen Wright, Joe Wolf, a crap load of misses with very high picks year in and year out, even if you excuse him for having DTS as his boss who didn't extend anyone or sign any decent FAs.

Doc isn't good, but not these guys bad.

pageC4 wrote:When the Los Angeles Clippers acquired Doc many believed he was the missing piece to a championship. After all, with a roster of Blake Griffin, Chris Paul, and Deandre Jordan the talent was assumed to be there, but we suffered playoff exits and a portion of the blame was laid at Vinny Del Negro's feet. With the acquisition of Doc, we all assumed that Doc could reach the players like Vinny could not. Of course Doc was not going to come here without a carrot being offered. So he was given the title of President of Basketball Operations.
Since his arrival here Doc has maneuvered many trades, free agent acquisitions, and draft picks. After two years these moves have been put in question by many fans and media experts. I myself have not been happy with many of these moves, and as the season goes by our competitors appear to be improving while we continue to struggle against playoff caliber teams and stay at 6th place in the western conference standings.
As a coach I want him to stay on and fulfill that role, but given his history so far as President of BO I would suggest the organization ask him to step down from that role and instead find a suitable person to fill it. What is everyone else's thoughts on this?

I didn't make the vote because i think he can stay as the top executive as long as Ballmer can step in to give his veto. what we need is a cerebral GM/Owner's special advisor who can give an economic based benefit vs risk analysis in each and every trade Doc may want to pull. there is little doubt seeing his "out of time out" plays that he is a great coach. players wanting to play for him is a cherry on top. his ego could be severely bruised with demoting him from his position, especially considering what he meant to this franchise through DTS saga. what we instead need to do, is to let him save his face and keep his title while install a safety system that his GM idiocy can be filtered through an authority over him which is Steve Ballmer. just bring in a basketball version of Paul DePodesta, Theo Epstein, Andrew Freidman, Farhan Zaini type to consult Ballmer and we are set.

pageC4 wrote:

Wammy Giveaway wrote:There should be one more option, and that is to wait until after the trade deadline. Let me explain.

In a recent recording of LACLIPCAST, Mike Jaglin revealed that the only way for the Clippers to upgrade their weakest spot, the small forward, would be to trade away a Clipper fan favorite. Matt Barnes, Jamal Crawford, and DeAndre Jordan are all favorites. Jordan is a greater symbol of a Clipper fan favorite because: 1) he's been a life long Clipper 2) he's Blake Griffin's BFF 3) Doc Rivers has made him a member of his Big 3, even without an All Star Selection.

The problem, however, is that Doc Rivers loves his players too much to the point that he would rather accept an early playoff exit with the guys he has. His philosophy of "flying and falling as one, not separately" stems back to the Big 3 Celtics era when Danny Ainge traded Kendrick Perkins, somebody Doc loved, for a position of need. The Donald Sterling scandal might also have been a factor in sticking with the guys he has. Knowing that the Clippers before Steve Ballmer has been a revolving door for wash-ups, has-beens, and never-wases, Doc made continuity, consistency and loyalty a higher priority than upgrading the small forward spot since trading to him is considered an anti-thesis of his priorities.

Earlier this week, Ric Bucher of Bleacher Report proposed that the Clippers could trade the farm for superstar Joe Johnson. For Clipper fans, he's their savior. For Doc Rivers, it goes against everything he stands for. But would you rather continue with your small forward lineup as is and get rousted, or make the sacrifice and begin the quest of repairing Chris Paul's tarnished legacy.

But here's the problem: Clipper fans just don't want to see DeAndre Jordan go. Neither Matt Barnes, Jamal Crawford, or J.J. Redick (if he gets included). When a player joins the Clippers, you take them in as family. It's happened with Sam Cassell and Eric Bledsoe. Too many times in Clipper fans lives have players "denounced" the team because of Donald Sterling. But now you have Steve Ballmer, somebody who wants to take risks and is not afraid of the repercussions. It's a new day, yes, but there still seems to be some unrest.

I would applaud Doc Rivers for making that huge sacrifice. But I'd also have to ding him because he'd be cutting a part of the core that he created. Either way, if Doc trades the farm for a superstar, then it's time we question Doc as GM, and if Steve Ballmer made a huge mistake in giving Doc this much power.

Wammy,
I can understand your willingness to want to wait until the trade deadline, but I would probably go against waiting. Overall this squad is coming off a second round exit, and to be honest that first round matchup against GSW could have gone the other way if Bogut were healthy. So I wouldn't hesitate trading anyone outside of Blake, J.J., and Chris if it meant improving this squad.
Our biggest weakness was defense, which Doc still hasn't solved. The fans have favorites, but the loss of a fan favorite will quickly be forgotten if we win more games because of a trade. /
I do agree with you that part of the reluctance of Doc to trade players is that he develops a bond with them, and that family atmosphere even trickles down to the announcers of the Clipper games.
I tweeted Isaac Lowenchron, and I asked him if a trade was on the horizon due to our inability to beat good teams. He quickly responded that we should keep the team intact and let them learn how to beat elite teams. The problem with Isaac's logic is that we've already tried that, and this trend of not beating good teams extends to even last year throughout the regular season.
Isaac loves the roster, and I'm sure Doc does to. They have formed a bond with these guys, and on a personal note I know that Crawford, Blake, Baby, Paul, and all these guys are nice. My ex-wife has season tickets, and I have met most of these guys, so as a fan you tend to fall in love with the players and take it personally when they are traded.
But I can only speak from myself but as a fan since 2001 I've gone through enough losing. For me I don't want this club to meet the same fate as the Utah Jazz of the early 2000s, you know the core of Boozer, Williams, and others. This group was a perennial playoff team, but always got bounced by teams in the 2nd or 1st round.
I want a championship, and I'm willing to trade whoever it takes to get it.

True, Bogut may have made a difference, but let's not forget that O'Neal played very well in his place and the entire Sterling scandal was a huge distraction that must also be factored into why the series was so close

He's not stepping down. He made a huge power grab in that small time when Sterling was gone and Ballmer hadn't officially bought the team, and far from trying to slow him down, Ballmer rewarded him with a massive extension and pay rise when he took over. Sad thing is we had one of the smartest executives in the league acting as GM in Gary Sacks, and he got demoted to being the assistant to Doc's figurehead.

To be honest, this years struggles are more to do with the rosters general build and lack of defensive ability, which is something he already inherited and couldn't have drastically changed yet unless he rebuilt the whole roster. The Bledsoe trade was good I thought, and would've worked great hadn't Dudley flop like he did. That set us back quite a bit, and our lack of flexibility makes it nearly impossible to add any player that's a meaningful improvement, so having a better GM wouldn't have left us in a much better position today.

What he is really bad at, we won't suffer it until 2-3 years from now, and that's undervaluing draft picks and young players in general. He avoids like hell adding any future young piece and opts for adding washed up veterans that might or might not help us for this year run. Those players have no future value and that makes his model unsustainable in the long term. When Paul starts to age is when we're gonna be in real trouble because of Doc's current decisions. We're gonna be stuck with a treadmill team that only has Blake as a tradeable piece, no picks, and a big ass payroll that won't allow us to add anyone in free agency.

I like Doc and I think the guys believe in him. He gives us class and a steady hand, and an environment free agents find respectable.

Had Dudley not been a total bust we'd have the defensive wing we need. Also, I'm 100% against trading DJ under any circumstances. He's the most athletic big in the league, he regularly pulls down 15+ rebound games, he's never injured, he plays good defense and causes zero chemistry problems. In fact he's a great guy in the locker room. I'd throw the max at him and a couple Ridgeback's for good measure.

This team is good and I think we should keep the core group of CP3, JJ, Blake, DJ, Crawf and Barnes together. Longevity builds trust and instincts and that'll pay off. We're one piece away, I'm sure Doc knows that, and if there's a way to improve the team he'll make it.

Perhaps Doc gave up on Dudley too soon. He probably would have been more productive for the Clippers this season.

KyletheDingbat wrote:Also, I'm 100% against trading DJ under any circumstances. He's the most athletic big in the league, he regularly pulls down 15+ rebound games, he's never injured, he plays good defense and causes zero chemistry problems. In fact he's a great guy in the locker room. I'd throw the max at him and a couple Ridgeback's for good measure.

DJ is a great rebounder and a great locker room guy, no doubt. But he has no offensive game, his basketball IQ is low, he can't make free throws, he can't defend skilled centers, and he isn't a good postseason player. That's not the profile of a max player in my opinion... but in my opinion, the only players in the league that deserve the max are LeBron, Durant and Davis. A small forward and a role player center would be a more efficient use of that money than spending it all on DJ.

This team is good and I think we should keep the core group of CP3, JJ, Blake, DJ, Crawf and Barnes together. Longevity builds trust and instincts and that'll pay off. We're one piece away, I'm sure Doc knows that, and if there's a way to improve the team he'll make it.

We're not one piece away... not even close. We have no starting small forward, no bench, and almost no defensive personnel. On top of that, we have hardly any assets to improve, unless we want to trade DJ and/or CP3. And we're short on picks as well. This is all on Doc.

Neddy wrote:

MartinToVaught wrote:

Clemenza wrote:He's a terrible GM. Probably one of the worst I've ever seen. Every move he's made since he's been here has been a total "wtf moment" and now its finally playing out on the court. You inherited Blake, CP3 and DJ.. you add one or two vets who's "been there before" and the rest should be nothing but young athletes to mold and groom. This guy butchers everything and is in love with garbage aging role players. Unreal

He seriously might be the worst GM ever. Even Isiah, Dumars and Otis Smith had redeeming qualities. Isiah could draft (Ariza, Lee, Wilson Chandler, Nate, among others) even though he couldn't do anything else. Dumars and Otis built Finals teams, albeit inefficiently - Dumars even won a ring.

Meanwhile, Doc is utterly atrocious at drafting - when he hasn't already traded away our picks like candy, that is. He has lost every single trade he's been in, every single one. His solution to everything is more washed-up cheap vets when we need youth and athleticism. As a coach, he preaches defense, yet he's acquired nothing but old, slow players with no length or athleticism. We are now capped out with zero assets anybody wants outside of the Big Three. The next mistake will be giving DJ the max. People will defend it now and when it happens, but it will blow up in our face like every single move Doc has ever made. I can't think of anything Doc is good at as a GM, and that's scary.

By the way, Coach Doc doesn't get a pass either. He is the most stubborn person I've ever seen; everyone knows the platoon rotations will never work, yet he will never change it. It's clear that Gentry was the real coach on offense last year since our ball movement is a lot worse without him. His mancrush on Jamal Crawford, an inefficient no-defense chucker, in the clutch is costing us games. This team chucks too many jump shots, they get killed on the boards every night thanks in part to Doc's gimmick of giving up offensive rebounds, and they don't play defense. As a coach, Doc's legacy would be nothing without Thibs coaching defense for him and McHale bailing out his old teammate.

Personally, it's obvious that Doc needs to get the pinkslip before he does any more damage to this team. Otherwise, we're about to relive the final years of the Dumbleavy era.

Isaah Thomas drove that Knicks organization to a total state of stagnant talent bankruptcy with the idiotic contracts he gave out to slightly above average players and set that franchise back for a decade.

We've had an executive by the name of Elgin Baylor who drafted likes of Bo Kimble, Danny Ferry, Olowakandi, Chris Wilcox and Melvin Ely in the same draft, Lorenzen Wright, Joe Wolf, a crap load of misses with very high picks year in and year out, even if you excuse him for having DTS as his boss who didn't extend anyone or sign any decent FAs.

Doc isn't good, but not these guys bad.

Baylor was awful at drafting, no question. But even with all his flaws, the Chandler/Brand trade and the Cassell trade were a lot better than anything Doc's ever been able to pull off. In retrospect, the Sam trade was one of the biggest fleecings in NBA history.

MartinToVaught wrote:Baylor was awful at drafting, no question. But even with all his flaws, the Chandler/Brand trade and the Cassell trade were a lot better than anything Doc's ever been able to pull off. In retrospect, the Sam trade was one of the biggest fleecings in NBA history.

neither trades were initiated by Elgin. if you dig up the old articles, the Wolves thought Cassell was over the hill and wanted out of his contract, and was enamored with the young European PG prospect in Marko. but mostly salary issues plus Sam having had wore out the welcome with the Wolves management is the main reason why they were willing to dump him here even throwing in a future pick. the exact same with Brand. the Bulls did not think Elton had the size to become an elite player that they used #1 overall pick for. at 6-7 something with no shoes and initially coming out of college very thick, his physique was seen by Jerry Krause to be a limitation, thus swapping Elton for whom they thought was a can't miss high school kid who looked the part in Tyson. only thing Elgin gets a credit for was reuniting Brand with his comer college teammate Corey Maggette.

MartinToVaught wrote:DJ is a great rebounder and a great locker room guy, no doubt. But he has no offensive game, his basketball IQ is low, he can't make free throws, he can't defend skilled centers, and he isn't a good postseason player. That's not the profile of a max player in my opinion... but in my opinion, the only players in the league that deserve the max are LeBron, Durant and Davis. A small forward and a role player center would be a more efficient use of that money than spending it all on DJ.

This team is good and I think we should keep the core group of CP3, JJ, Blake, DJ, Crawf and Barnes together. Longevity builds trust and instincts and that'll pay off. We're one piece away, I'm sure Doc knows that, and if there's a way to improve the team he'll make it.

We're not one piece away... not even close. We have no starting small forward, no bench, and almost no defensive personnel. On top of that, we have hardly any assets to improve, unless we want to trade DJ and/or CP3. And we're short on picks as well. This is all on Doc.

The cap will go up soon, we'll be able to afford DJ. I think he'll peak a little higher than Chandler. I love guys who are physical, athletic and play hard. He hasn't been a good post season player to this point and that is a concern.

I think we're one piece away. Do we need all stars at every position? Dallas has a tiny back court, Houston has a bunch of no-names surrounding their stars, OKC has 4 guys and a bunch of no-names, the Spurs are a collection of no-names, the Warriors are pretty stacked but they're an anomaly. We have just as much talent as any team in the league. We just need to figure a few things out, make one trade or signing, and we'll be as much a contender as anyone.