Who's one Clippers player you thought would be great, but didn't live up to your expectations?

[ejftw]

-As for the topic, I thought Corey Maggette was going to be a star.

Great comment.

Our bar is low, let's face it. But C-Magg is one of the greatest Clippers of all time. Just sayin'. I thought we drafted him but...we almost did--

Drafted at #13 overall by ORL in 1999. Played one year there.

June 28, 2000: Traded by the Orlando Magic with Keyon Dooling, Derek Strong and cash to the Los Angeles Clippers for a 2006 1st round draft pick (Marcus Williams was later selected).

Is this one of the greatest trades in Clipper history?




COREY Maggette: 8 seasons as a Clipper, 17.3 ppg, 5 rpg, 3 apg. Averaged 20+ ppg 3 times as a Clipper. A 6'8" SG/SF.
Frankly, we have PG and KL but I'll take Clipper Corey RIGHT NOW too. So would most teams.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/m/maggeco01.html

It's right there with Marko Jaric and Lionel Chalmers for Sam Cassell and a FFRP, which, ironically was a key part of getting Chris Paul.

Jaric needs his jersey retired, due to him, Clippers received two of the best PGs we have ever had. Plus, he bagged Adriana Lima.

[TrueLAfan]

An even bigger Clipper tragedy was Ralph Lawler's favorite player. This was WRITTEN by Ralph.

Who is the all-time Greatest Clipper with the last name of Smith? Here it is as a multiple choice quiz.

Take your pick:

A. Charles Smith B. Randy Smith C. Derek Smith D. Michael Smith

You have to be a long-time Clipper fan to remember any of those players. If you chose “A.” or “B.” there is plenty of evidence to make your case. If you chose “D” I suspect you are a member of Mike’s immediate family, but if you chose “C.” you move to the head of the class.

The mere mention of Derek Smith’s name brings to mind a sad and ultimately tragic story of what might have been...

...

That was the summer that the Clippers made the move from San Diego to Los Angeles, and Smith was primed and ready for the Big City Stage.

Derek averaged 22.1 points per game as a full-time starter for the new Los Angeles Clippers. This was Michael Jordan’s wondrous Rookie of the Year season in Chicago. He would go on to average 28.2 points a game that year. It was also Derek Smith’s first year as a full-time starting NBA shooting guard. The parallels would grow more clear the following season.

So why didn’t it happen? Nine games into the 1985-86 season, Smith went down with a seemingly minor knee injury. He was averaging 27 points a game at the time of the injury. It was believed he would be back within the customary four-to-six weeks. He tried. Oh, how he tried. He felt some real or perhaps perceived pressure to come back quickly. He tried to play on December 18. He was ineffective and uncomfortable in brief minutes. He was to play again in a Christmas Day game in Portland a week later. I sat with him at a team dinner the night before and he expressed concern that his knee was not right, but he wanted to give it a try. It was another unsuccessful attempt and it would be his final game in a Clipper uniform. Derek Smith was ruled out for the season.

Who knew that he would never be the same?

I truly believe that Derek Smith would be known as the Greatest Clipper of all-time were it not for that career changing knee injury. HBO would likely have followed its epic “Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals” documentary with one on Michael & Derek. He was that good. Just ask those who played with and against him.

Ralph's full article here:
https://www.apbr.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4080

Can’t believe I forgot about Derek Smith—what a sad story. And what a great player; I was at the Portland game about a month before he got hurt. Portland was stacked back then; people thought that, with Bowie, they‘d be pushing the Lakers pretty hard. We came back in the fourth and beat them; Derek Smith had, like, 35. He blew Drexler away. The sky was the limit—for him and for the team. He got hurt a few weeks later. I agree he’s probably at the top of the list.

[madmaxmedia]

-As for the topic, I thought Corey Maggette was going to be a star.

Great comment.

Our bar is low, let's face it. But C-Magg is one of the greatest Clippers of all time. Just sayin'. I thought we drafted him but...we almost did--

Drafted at #13 overall by ORL in 1999. Played one year there.

June 28, 2000: Traded by the Orlando Magic with Keyon Dooling, Derek Strong and cash to the Los Angeles Clippers for a 2006 1st round draft pick (Marcus Williams was later selected).

Is this one of the greatest trades in Clipper history?




COREY Maggette: 8 seasons as a Clipper, 17.3 ppg, 5 rpg, 3 apg. Averaged 20+ ppg 3 times as a Clipper. A 6'8" SG/SF.
Frankly, we have PG and KL but I'll take Clipper Corey RIGHT NOW too. So would most teams.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/m/maggeco01.html

Also one of the all-time GOAT nicknames of course...

[Don Tommy]

I became a Clippers fan after watching Danny Manning lead Kansas to the NCAA championship. A few years later I stopped wearing #44 after Hank Gathers died and switched to #54 for Charles Smith. I was positive that these two would become the bedrock of a championship team. Manning and the Miracles Part Two, if you will. The fact that neither man became anywhere near what I thought was just the beginning of 35 years of heartbreak.

[Roscoe Sheed]

I thought Jerome Robinson had some real potential. In some of the highlights, he resembled CJ McCollum. I did not think he would be such a bust.

[donemilio21]

Yaroslav Korolev... I just expected more.

[esqtvd]

Yaroslav Korolev... I just expected more.

Good point. 12th pick overall. But man, what a lousy draft. After our pick, only two players ever averaged more than 15 ppg, Danny Granger [#17] and Monta Ellis [#40]. Talk about crapshoots--it was all crap.


https://www.basketball-reference.com/draft/NBA_2005.html

[playaloc916]

-As for the topic, I thought Corey Maggette was going to be a star.

Great comment.

Our bar is low, let's face it. But C-Magg is one of the greatest Clippers of all time. Just sayin'. I thought we drafted him but...we almost did--

Drafted at #13 overall by ORL in 1999. Played one year there.

June 28, 2000: Traded by the Orlando Magic with Keyon Dooling, Derek Strong and cash to the Los Angeles Clippers for a 2006 1st round draft pick (Marcus Williams was later selected).

Is this one of the greatest trades in Clipper history?




COREY Maggette: 8 seasons as a Clipper, 17.3 ppg, 5 rpg, 3 apg. Averaged 20+ ppg 3 times as a Clipper. A 6'8" SG/SF.
Frankly, we have PG and KL but I'll take Clipper Corey RIGHT NOW too. So would most teams.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/m/maggeco01.html

I still have an autographed Maggette card I bought for $5-$10 on eBay sitting in a box somewhere...

My favorite part of his game was him putting his head down, driving hard, going for a layup and hearing that raspy "ayeeee"!

[clipsfever]

FYI - the TNT cable channel's new doc series "Rich and Shameless" is covering the murder of Lorenzen Wright at 10pm pst tonight, I'm expecting exploitation trash but who knows.