Will Doc be fired this season?

[MartinToVaught]

I know the DJ situation isn't really his fault, but Ballmer publicly set the expectations high for this offseason by calling it "Doc's coming-out party." With the Clippers now taking a step back in the short term with DJ's departure, I don't think it's particularly difficult to imagine a situation in which Doc is scapegoated when the team struggles out of the gate. Especially after the two Vinny-esque playoff meltdowns he's presided over and his numerous bad moves as GM.

Before anyone jumps down my throat, I'm not saying he WILL be fired. I do think he should be - he's been a disaster as GM and he's hardly irreplaceable as a coach - but that's neither here nor there. I just think it's a question worth asking.

[Ranma]

Doubtful. If anything, the departure of DAJ just gives Doc another excuse. Plus, Ballmer would like to give Doc an opportunity to redeem himself in the 2016 free agent market. It would also be a little unfair to have a new GM take over without a 2017 first-rounder to work with, so I'd imagine Doc is afforded leeway through the 2016-2017 season. Then again, he'll probably continue to trade future first-rounders so ousting him sooner would stop the bleeding.

[mttwlsn16]

No. We would be better served having an actual GM though and keeping Doc as coach.

[QRich3]

Martin you must be a happy dude now huh? your doom and gloom expectations are basically coming true, this is the way you envisioned this team should go right?

Doubtful. If anything, the departure of DAJ just gives Doc another excuse. Plus, Ballmer would like to give Doc an opportunity to redeem himself in the 2016 free agent market. It would also be a little unfair to have a new GM take over without a 2017 first-rounder to work with, so I'd imagine Doc is afforded leeway through the 2016-2017 season.

God dammit Ranma don't even put that thought in our heads. I'd rather have Sterling back

I've always been saying Doc is one of the top coaches in the league, but that's a lot less valuable with our current roster being so far out of championship contention. He also happens to be the worst single GM in the league, and that's far more important for a team transitioning for a rebuild, so yeah, I guess I'm now on the fire Doc camp.

[Ranma]

I've always been saying Doc is one of the top coaches in the league, but that's a lot less valuable with our current roster being so far out of championship contention. He also happens to be the worst single GM in the league, and that's far more important for a team transitioning for a rebuild, so yeah, I guess I'm now on the fire Doc camp.

Hey now. Let's not get carried away. In the short time on the job, I have to think Vlade Divac--while technically not the GM but practically is--has got Doc beat as single worst personnel executive in the NBA. Doc's the runner-up in this category, though.

[QRich3]

Dunno, Koufos and Belinelli were decent signings and WCS has some upside. Divac also has to work under a really unstable owner, while Doc just does whatever he pleases and has the luxury to build around two top 10 players. Look at what OKC does building around two top 10 players, every scrub they play looks great and they end up trading him for gold. Doc managed to leave absolute nothing left around those two stars, like nothing at all except Redick. How do you even manage to do that even if on purpose??

[Ranma]

Excellent point about the respective ownership situation and I agree about Doc's struggle to build around two top-10 players compared to OKC, but you have to also consider that Divac's voice seems to be adding to the madness of his owner, not diffusing it. He supposedly has a great deal of influence with Ranadive. He shared in the opinion of not wanting to deal DeMarcus Cousins, but Karl wanted to recruit Divac over to his side in order to convince their owner, to no avail. Given that, I suspect Divac signed off on trading a fairly recent lottery pick, a future first-round draft pick, and the right to swap positions of two future first-rounders in order to clear up cap space--without securing a commitment from a true star player, mind you--before having to settle on overpaying for Rondo, Koufos, and Belinelli after numerous rejections from other FA's just so the Kings can save some face by going through the motions of actually signing free agents.

As bad as Doc has been, he seems to be making some progress albeit little. He finally devoted some resources to utilize the draft to fill an actual need on the roster even if it was with a bottom-5 pick. He finally wooed a big-name player to sign with the team even if he is at the tail end of his career. He's even trying to deal Jamal Crawford even if it is late and at low value. I wasn't kidding when I said his moves have been too little and too late, but it still counts as progress.

[Lindecision]

I don't want him fired. I just want someone else making roster moves. Doc should still have input on who he wants and who he doesn't want. I mean he's still the coach after all, but being GM is a different job altogether. You have to keep an eye on the rest of the league; who's undervalued/overvalued; which players would be a good fit through analytics (Hawes and Farmar); college ball and the draft (Bullock). You can't expect anyone to do that job well on top of coaching 82 games and the playoffs.

[nickhx2]

i want doc gone. he is a plague. worse than that, even. just look at what he did to this team since he's been here.

his supposed value was to be able to recruit all the midseason cast offs and veteran ring chasers, as well as being the player whisperer in keeping things in line.


well, last year by my count he lost out on AK, KG, pierce, shawn marion, perkins, jermaine oneal, ray allen (anyone else?) so that's 0/7 with that.

he swindled spencer hawes out of millions which was a good move at the time for us but ended up being horrific cause it turned out that hawes doesn't have the same foot speed as jordan. who knew? (oh wait, he was supposed to know, he's an NBA head coach)

he let whatever the fk happened between cp3 and jordan get completely out of hand. if he puts that fire out then this is one of our best offseasons ever and we are fighting for a ring next year. instead we're fighting over javale mcgee and amare stoudermire

i think you could see it coming a mile away, but jordan really only wanted to be involved a little more both in the offense and also away from the game. that's why zucker was at the meeting. but doc should have been on top of that the entire year. as the guy who is supposed to be the most tuned in to his own players, he should have seen all this. when they ask players to do the post game interviews, he should have demanded that jordan was there whenever cp3 and blake were. and if i am doc i am demanding my players show up to the dinner, and obliterating every single one of them for being too LA to do so. i'm pretty sure cp3 is gonna regret not lifting a finger to be there in person when he's busy throwing passes over the head of amare or when mcgee is trying to dunk on our own goal.

that's not even counting the crawford stuff. i don't wanna get into it cause i probably complain about it more than anyone but i can't call doc rivers a good head coach with the way he handles jamal crawford. i'll say he's extremely overrated and leave it at that.

[thanumba2clippersfan]

Doc won't be gone this season. What would help is if we could get someone good to assist Doc with the GM duties so he can focus more on coaching. Since we don't have much flexibility and we've moved down a peg in the western conference, we need to be creative in how we add tallent.

[MartinToVaught]

Martin you must be a happy dude now huh? your doom and gloom expectations are basically coming true, this is the way you envisioned this team should go right?

I'm happy, but it has nothing to do with doom-and-gloom. A team that was realistically going nowhere is finally being shaken up, and the mess that was our cap situation has been solved. The future actually looks bright now, whereas we would have been screwed for a long time if we gave DJ that contract.

[MartinToVaught]

No. We would be better served having an actual GM though and keeping Doc as coach.

I highly doubt Doc would ever accept being kicked out of the front office after grabbing for all that power. IMO, the choice is either to keep him as GM and coach or to fire him altogether.

[JayClips92]

well, last year by my count he lost out on AK, KG, pierce, shawn marion, perkins, jermaine oneal, ray allen (anyone else?) so that's 0/7 with that.

and tayshaun prince

And don't forget the bad bledsoe trade

[JayClips92]

No. We would be better served having an actual GM though and keeping Doc as coach.

I agree with you, the only way I see Doc giving up GM power is if it too an older player he respects. Like Jerry West or Elgin Baylor but I doubt that happens

[QRich3]

I don't want him fired. I just want someone else making roster moves. Doc should still have input on who he wants and who he doesn't want. I mean he's still the coach after all, but being GM is a different job altogether. You have to keep an eye on the rest of the league; who's undervalued/overvalued; which players would be a good fit through analytics (Hawes and Farmar); college ball and the draft (Bullock). You can't expect anyone to do that job well on top of coaching 82 games and the playoffs.

Yeah I think the biggest mistake he did as a GM was to pick the wrong people to be surrounded by in the FO. Like you say, he's not supposed to be doing the day to day stuff cause he has enough on his plate as a coach. SVG is doing alright as an executive cause he has Bower doing that stuff everyday and he's a smart dude. Pop could do it cause he had Buford. Flip wanted to pick Okafor until his FO people convinced him Towns was the way to go. Doc instead surrounds himself by yes men with little clue like Wohl and Eastman, dudes who are patting him on the back telling him its smart to bring in Austin instead of being able to convince him he's doing a dumb mistake. Were going nowhere but down until these lot are out of a job.

Martin you must be a happy dude now huh? your doom and gloom expectations are basically coming true, this is the way you envisioned this team should go right?

I'm happy, but it has nothing to do with doom-and-gloom. A team that was realistically going nowhere is finally being shaken up, and the mess that was our cap situation has been solved. The future actually looks bright now, whereas we would have been screwed for a long time if we gave DJ that contract.

Da f*ck? You tryin some reverse psychology type of thing? We're really screwed, we cant add no one because we're over the cap and the one year were gonna have capspace next summer is the one year literally every team in the league is gonna have it too. And the two or three great FA's there are, are pretty safely gonna stay put.

[og15]

well, last year by my count he lost out on AK, KG, pierce, shawn marion, perkins, jermaine oneal, ray allen (anyone else?) so that's 0/7 with that.

and tayshaun prince

And don't forget the bad bledsoe trade

Bledsoe got us Redick, and Redick was 48/44/90 in the regular season and 44/40/94 in the playoffs. Problem is that he ended up wasting a draft pick to move Dudley because the front office didn't understand the cap and being hard capped, so the Bledsoe trade in isolation was fine.

The problem was the management of things after

Da f*ck? You tryin some reverse psychology type of thing? We're really screwed, we cant add no one because we're over the cap and the one year were gonna have capspace next summer is the one year literally every team in the league is gonna have it too. And the two are three FA's there are are pretty safely gonna stay put.

I think this is kind of the thing that people aren't taking into account. Even with DJ, assuming all the minimum contracts are for a year, which they should be, the team could have had about $10 million in cap space next off-season (would have to renounce Stephenson). With a roster of:

Paul / Rivers
Redick / Wilcox
Pierce
Griffin
Jordan
+ player signed with the rest of the MLE.

You can add a good SF (eg Batum by shedding some salary (Austin and Wilcox clears about $4 million) or a sign and trade).

If Durant REALLY wanted to come here, you need $27 million to give him the max. (Redick + Pierce + Rivers + Wilcox + 2.2 mil player = $17.6 million). You could attempt to clear those guys and gut your roster to get Paul/Durant/Griffin/Jordan plus Dawson + minimum players galore. You could of course attempt a sign and trade in which you would only have to match Durant's previous contract not the new contract.

The issue that arises here is that almost every team has cap space next off-season, so it's not that special next season, and there aren't multiple superstar level players on the market, and even the All-Star ones will be hard to get, and then a lot are restricted FA's, or a guy like Conley who plays a position the Clippers don't need.

Next off-season is still going to need great front office management, the cap space doesn't just automatically solve all issues. Clippers could end up with Joakim Noah at $16 million, and Luol Deng at $15 million

McGee can be signed for cheap this off-season, but he'll likely want an option for next season, so if he plays well he'll ask for a nice large raise to stay here himself, so that's cap space that's going. So again you're in a similar position with a C that isn't necessarily "better" than DJ, and a good but not star SF.

[nickhx2]

next offseason needs to be absolutely perfect for us to maintain a chance of keeping blake and cp3.

to me, though, doc's luster as a guy people would die to play for has mostly dissipated and for a while now. maybe a couple years ago i would have thought we'd have an awesome chance at him pulling a durant in, but now? how could he? and let's be frank: cp3 is going to get a ton of the blame for jordan leaving, and maybe even have some of that kobe "nobody wants to play with him" title credited to him. and doc has to have a lot of the blame for letting that stuff fester.

that's all a huge problem because now doc's words don't seem to carry the same punch they used to around the league. punch you need when you are trying to woo durant.

[Wammy Giveaway]

The only reason why Doc may not be fired is due to his service through the Donald Sterling scandal. Clippers felt as if he saved them from the forces of darkness, so they owed him. Big time.

But what has happened since then? Inexcusable. I think the trade for his son Austin was the coup de grace of Doc's power trip. Doc the coach, Doc the GM, Doc the father - three completely different personalities with differing responsibilities. With too much power, Doc has essentially turned himself into a schizophrenic. It's like Jim Carrey in Me, Myself & Irene.

What makes matters worse, if I recall, is that the contract Doc signed included language which stated nobody below or above him can fire Doc. Steve Ballmer may not be able to fire him if that type of language exists in his contract. (Clarity: this line was added in light of the Sterling scandal as an insurance move.)

The only way Doc can fire himself - really, relinquish his duties as president of basketball operations - will have to be by ultimatums. Chris Paul and Blake Griffin may have to demand trades, Steve Ballmer may take a leave of absence. Players may opt to not show up. They'd have to convince Doc to give up his powers, and only by way of protest due to the stipulations in his contract.

[Ranma]

Bledsoe got us Redick, and Redick was 48/44/90 in the regular season and 44/40/94 in the playoffs. Problem is that he ended up wasting a draft pick to move Dudley because the front office didn't understand the cap and being hard capped, so the Bledsoe trade in isolation was fine.

Technically, that is true, but the Bucks really only got two second-round picks for Redick; I believe one from each of the Clippers and Suns. Milwaukee was going to lose him for nothing as he was about to sign a deal with the Timberwolves. We could have easily tacked Redick onto any other deal with those parameters.

Doc deserves kudos for creatively involving J.J. in the overall return package, but he missed in squandering the hot commodity that was Eric Bledsoe. Basically, the Clippers traded Eric Bledsoe and Caron Butler for Jared Dudley and a second-round pick (that was forwarded to Milwaukee for Redick). Obviously, the problem was compounded with the subsequent continued playing of Dudley while he was hurt and the eventual packaging of a first-round pick to dump him quickly thereafter.

Stricly in a vacuum, the deal was solid, if unspectacular from the Clippers' perspective. However, this was a clear missed opportunity to make the most of the situation even if you take into account the salary cap restrictions. Orlando was in hot pursuit of Bledsoe offering packages that included Arron Afflalo, Andrew Nicholson, and a future first-round pick. Yes, they were reluctant to part ways with Tobias Harris, but if push came to shove, I'm confident they would have pulled the trigger on a deal for Bledsoe that required the surrending of Harris, especially since they still had Mo Harkless.

Even if we didn't get Harris, the offered package was still attractive from an assets standpoint to possibly move on for another small forward. Heck, Afflalo has even played small forward even if it isn't ideal. Instead, Doc went with the steady vet over the higher-payoff-potential package as he typically tends to do (see Hedo Turkoglu, Antawn Jamison, etc.). The fact that he hand-picked such a vet to fit into his tailored system makes it all the more egregious when it doesn't work out (see also Spencer Hawes).

One could even argue that the Clippers would have been better off in not trading Eric Bledsoe until closer to the trade deadline even with an incomplete roster, which Doc has a penchant of putting together, anyway. This failure exemplifies his short-sighted, narrow, and panicked approach to personnel management.

[Ranma]

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