Roscoe Sheed wrote:I'm still so disappointed the Clippers cut Ingles years ago. What a huge mistake.
Well, they did bring him to America in the first place. I liked him too, from the first preseason game. He ran the court well and was always in the right place on both ends of the court. But he shot horribly, we needed a guard and we already had everybody but Ingles on a guaranteed contract.
The plan was to slip Ingles through waivers and pick him back up later after roster situation was dealt with. But the Jazz swooped in, although frankly at the time I thought it was partly to keep #5 pick Dante Exum company in transitioning to America, as they are both Aussies. Utah had a lottery team that year and throwing their 15th spot at Ingles was a no-lose crapshoot.
But once again, between CP, BG and DJ eating up most of the sal cap, there was little flexibilty. Add in Sterling's cheapness and that was that.
That team still somehow won 56 games, with only 6 real NBA players plus half a season of 22-year old Austin Rivers.
https://www.latimes.com/sports/clippers/la-sp-clippers-report-20190116-story.htmlIngles began his career in his native Australia, then played to Spain and Israel before joining the Clippers for training camp in October 2014. Clippers coaches found him to be a well-liked teammate whose basketball intelligence showed in meetings. He averaged only 1.2 points and 1.0 rebound during five preseason games but coaches looked beyond the statistics at his skillset: Great vision and a good shooter, too, even if didn’t display the accuracy that has made him invaluable in Utah.
“He was solid but you know, he was on the third unit so he wasn’t getting a lot of (opportunity),” said Jazz forward Ekpe Udoh, who was then a Clipper. “He wants to compete and just show people that he can play. He’s done that since the beginning of time, from Europe to here.”
The Clippers were intrigued but even they couldn’t have predicted the kind of contributor he’s become.
An injury to guard Jordan Farmar sealed Ingles’ fate. Needing a backup for starting point guard Chris Paul, the Clippers opted to keep guard Jared Cunningham than hold onto Ingles.
Without using Donald Sterling’s name, Rivers intimated it was the former owner’s preference to keep roster costs low that forced the team’s hand. The Clippers could have kept Ingles on the 15-man roster, but it would have required releasing someone else while paying out their contract.
“Unfortunately I was working for someone who said we couldn’t eat a contract and that’s life,” Rivers said. “We were begging to try to just, ‘Let’s eat one contract.’ And they said, ‘That will never happen.’ So we had to let him go.”
The Jazz claimed Ingles three days later off waivers and beat Jordan Hamilton for the team’s final roster spot. Both Ingles and Utah have reaped the rewards since.
