Vinny stays

[Kyle]

Damn it

[mkwest]

Clippers to retain Vinny Del Negro as coach

The Clippers informed Coach Vinny Del Negro Tuesday that the team will pick up his contract option for the 2012-13 season, said sources that were not authorized to publicly speak on the matter.

Clippers owner Donald Sterling, president Andy Roeser and vice president of basketball operations Neil Olshey came to the conclusion that Del Negro would at least finish his third year as coach of the Clippers.

Brad Turner, LA Times

We need to at least improve the staff by adding a quality assistant or two.

[-[Clippers]-]

Same old cheapskate Sterling. It'll be back to the lottery after next season. Only that dumbass Sterling would choose Vinny Del Negro over championships.

[azncorruptedo17]

lol, shiee... back to the good ol days of below .500 records after next season.

[TheNewEra]

Tough call we really needed a general that could keep this team composed in games. Young guys justify have to continue to step up.

[Kyle]

Gotta bring back Billups as player-coach!

[mkwest]

Dan Woike is giving live updates of a team conference call on Twitter right now.

[mkwest]

Olshey said that he and VDN will evaluate assistant coaches, training staff and rest of basketball ops

Dan Woike

We need to add some combination of an Offensive Coordinator, Defensive Coordinator and big man coach. Something.

[Angel strike1]

actually i think cp3 and blake had something to do with this. our gm said they had some internal stuff before dealing with vinny. they prob got the okey from our 2 stars 1st


worse news is our gm is top 3 candidate for portland job. WE CANT LOOOSE HIM!

[mkwest]

actually i think cp3 and blake had something to do with this. our gm said they had some internal stuff before dealing with vinny. they prob got the okey from our 2 stars 1st


worse news is our gm is top 3 candidate for portland job. WE CANT LOOOSE HIM!

I'm sure they were consulted and asked their opinions on how they felt Vinny acted as coach. Neither one has shown to be a coach-killer as of yet. If Paul is truly on board with Vinny, then it is what it is. He is the one that we need to be satisfying right now.

[mkwest]

Transcript: Clippers conference call with Vinny Del Negro and Neil Olshey

Neil…can you give us a feel for where you are? There have been some reports, possibly Portland, that you’ve been discussing with other teams. Just curious about your status.

NO:…I don’t have any comment on my situation or anyone’s in the front office, right now. We’re here to talk about Vinny and the coaching staff. We have a chronological order of things that need to take place in this organization to assure that we’re playing at this time next year. The first one was to make sure we solidified our coaching situations and made sure we had stability there in that regard. We took care of that piece of business today, and the rest of that will work itself out as we forwards this summer.

Neil, you said that every decision was going to be made to try and make you guys consistently one of the top four teams contending in the league. What was it about Vinny that convinced you that having him as the head coach was a step in that direction?

NO: He already had us in the top eight. That’s about as close as you can get to the top four. Look, Vinny’s been a great partner in all of this. Every decision we’ve made, he and I have consulted with one another. He helped recruit Chris Paul. He helped recruit Caron Butler. He’s deep in any negotiations we have as far as a confidante and advisor for me. I think that any team that finishes its season winning thirteen of fifteen and wins a game seven on the road with a roster that’s the walking wounded certainly has the organization pointed in the right direction. With a training camp, with an offseason and an entire summer for his staff to get in the gym and work with our younger players and a couple of roster additions, we’re going to take another step forward in our quest for a championship. So, clearly, Vinny had one of the most successful seasons as a coach in Clippers’ history. Vinny and I talked, and we’re not going to judge ourselves by Clipper history, but we’re going to judge ourselves by NBA history. And I think we’re on the right path. Vinny does all the right things, and there’s no greater compliment for a coach than to see how hard his players are playing at the end of the year. And that wasn’t always the case in this organization. Even though we lost games three and four here at home against San Antonio, those players still completed right down to the final whistle in both those games no matter what they were up against. It’s a testament to Vinny as a communicator and as a motivator as a guy who has his team mentally and emotionally ready to play. I think we’re on the right course. I think we’re going to make some roster additions and upgrades. And I’m fully confident with those additions to the existing core, Vinny’s going to have the support of the roster and they’re going to do whatever it takes to make sure that we’re playing at this time next year.

VDN: I would just like to add to that. I appreciate Neil’s comments, but a lot of this goes to the players. I mean, come on. Chris Paul’s a bulldog. Blake Griffin, DeAndre (Jordan), Caron’s been playing with a broken hand. Eric Bledsoe’s been injured for the first half of the season, and he came on and did a great job for us in the playoffs. Mo Williams and Randy (Foye). Reggie (Evans) and Kenyon (Martin) stepped up big for us in the playoffs. I give the players a lot of credit for playing hard and believing in what we were trying to do. I appreciate their effort. I appreciate my staff’s effort. That’s what it comes down to, getting guys to believe in the opportunity they have and to make them play at a level to be successful. From my standpoint, I appreciate that, but I also appreciate the players stepping up and being pros and competing at a level that gave us an opportunity to be successful.

Dan Woike, OC Register

[jflipclip]

It could be worse. Say we did sign SVG/Sloan/McMillan and the team underachieves by the All-Star break. We'd have to go through the whole process again. There's some small form of reinsurance with VDN since it's just one more year and it looks like CP3/Blake have his back (although it's purely speculative at this point). He has a whole off-season to reevaluate his personnel and to work with the players.

We shall see.

[mkwest]

It could be worse. Say we did sign SVG/Sloan/McMillan and the team underachieves by the All-Star break. We'd have to go through the whole process again. There's some small form of reinsurance with VDN since it's just one more year and it looks like CP3/Blake have his back (although it's purely speculative at this point). He has a whole off-season to reevaluate his personnel and to work with the players.

We shall see.

One thing to consider is that Paul is not inked up long-term yet. Will he? Probably, but it's 13 months from being official. Say we were to sign someone like SVG or D'Antoni and Paul decides that he can't play for them for whatever reason. Then we're screwed. Those 2 happen to be talking about taking a year off from coaching anyhow.

Monty Williams has another year on his contract and possibly 2 (team option for 4th season). Brooks will probably re-up with the Thunder. Malone has 0 experience as a head coach in the NBA. Phil Jackson probably wasn't much of a possibility to begin with. McMillan has been criticized for some unimaginative schemes by Blazer fans, but a great motivator and person (sound familiar?). Then there is Jerry Sloan...

I'm just going to hope for the best. Some woes can be improved by the players actually becoming better themselves, but having the proper systems in place would make things easier. If we had a 3rd guy to take the pressure off of Paul and Blake, maybe coaching would matter even less but I just don't like to see them have to work so hard make things happen. Other teams make it look sooooo easy.

[mkwest]

Update to the transcript I posted early.

Neil was asked if Paul's opinion was taken into consideration for bring Vinny back

I think all you guys that have been around me for the last couple of years know I work collaboratively. I speak to anyone who could have a valued opinion in any decision that I’m going to make, anything to do with this organization. Sufficed to say, all the appropriate parties that people are concerned with were all on board with this decision and supported and embraced Vinny’s return to coach the team for another year

[mkwest]

In case you were wondering: Chris Paul is cool with VDN. They met last week and have enjoyed a good relationship this year

Ramona Shelburne

[Cracka2Hi]

Don't get me wrong I didn't expect Clipper fans to be excited by Vinny being back, but I think it's pretty clear he is the best coach for next year. If you think CP3 and Blake didn't sign off on this you're crazy! I know there are better coaches out there, but I thought more Clipper fans would understand and be onboard with this. VDN just had a top 5 coaching season in team history. Justify it like that. This is a 1 year deal. Why not have an open coaching vacancy when trying to re-sign Blake/Paul? Doesn't that seem like a good bargaining chip!?

[LOJ]

[Neddy]

CheapSkateDonald strikes once again. i knew it was premature to spend my money on a crapload of clippergear for the first time since the early 90s sporting jackson and harper jerseys. i knew he would get too happy too quick and avoid big investments he deems unmarketable. nobody buys a coach's jersey afterall. oh well, at least we know if we win it all next year, CP3 should win MVP and the Coach of the Year, as we would all know it sure as hell wouldn't be Vinny who can carry us even 1 game in the playoffs.

[Sofia]

I'm not mad. Despite the shortfalls of VDN, I can understand the reasoning behind it. The key is that it is for only one year. We now have that extra sell to cp3 that he can also pick a coach if he comes back.

[Air Poohdini]

Sorry to hear the bad news.