Has Doc's GM incompetence done irrepairable harm to this core?

[Roscoe Sheed]

I really hope the Clippers can pull off a turn around and win this series, but it seems highly unlikely.

The question is whether this core can be salvaged after the horrendous mistakes Doc has made as GM?

Of course the Clippers are a very good team, but they seem to have regressed slightly this season and CP3's prime is ticking away.

It is clear in today's NBA that you need versatile wing players that can defend and shoot and the Clippers basically have nobody that fits both skillsets- maybe Barnes on a good day but that is somewhat rare.

If rumors are true that the Clippers could have landed Wilson Chandler if only they had a first round draft pick to offer- then all the blame sits at Doc's feet for trading it away in the Dudley deal. Why not just hang on to Dudley or try to get a better deal? Chandler would have solved almost all of the Clippers problems. Or perhaps if Doc hadn't wasted the MLE on Hawes, they could have landed a decent wing player. Add on the fact that Doc couldn't find a decent back up for CP3. What an awful GM he has been. Why did he prioritize back up center over wing?

Now, what can be done about this situation? They basically have to re-sign DJ. Does that leave them any cap room for wing help? If not, maybe that should become the priority rather than re-signing DJ and maybe then take a flyer on a guy like McGee to be a poor man's DJ while upgrading the wing spot?

Sadly, if they can't find help at the wing this team is likely to regress unless Blake Griffin improves even more. Even then they would still have a glaring weakness in the position that has turned out to be one of the most important in the modern NBA.

[Neddy]

I really hope the Clippers can pull off a turn around and win this series, but it seems highly unlikely.

The question is whether this core can be salvaged after the horrendous mistakes Doc has made as GM?

Of course the Clippers are a very good team, but they seem to have regressed slightly this season and CP3's prime is ticking away.

It is clear in today's NBA that you need versatile wing players that can defend and shoot and the Clippers basically have nobody that fits both skillsets- maybe Barnes on a good day but that is somewhat rare.

If rumors are true that the Clippers could have landed Wilson Chandler if only they had a first round draft pick to offer- then all the blame sits at Doc's feet for trading it away in the Dudley deal. Why not just hang on to Dudley or try to get a better deal? Chandler would have solved almost all of the Clippers problems. Or perhaps if Doc hadn't wasted the MLE on Hawes, they could have landed a decent wing player. Add on the fact that Doc couldn't find a decent back up for CP3. What an awful GM he has been. Why did he prioritize back up center over wing?

Now, what can be done about this situation? They basically have to re-sign DJ. Does that leave them any cap room for wing help? If not, maybe that should become the priority rather than re-signing DJ and maybe then take a flyer on a guy like McGee to be a poor man's DJ while upgrading the wing spot?

Sadly, if they can't find help at the wing this team is likely to regress unless Blake Griffin improves even more. Even then they would still have a glaring weakness in the position that has turned out to be one of the most important in the modern NBA.

from what i understand, Jered's contract needed to go in order to free up some money to complete the roster, and that money went to 3 players.

rather than Hawes, we should have signed Paul Pierce with that MLE and that mistake by Doc but on paper, Hawes seemed to fit the other two bigs so well, and Spencer had bigger offers he walked away from to join this team so the intention was well thought of.

in the end, Steve Ballmer should see that this team needs a GM and all we have to do is re-promote Gary Sacks or hire from outside like Troy Weaver.

I still believe in Doc's ability to coach, it's just that we ran into the best coach in NBA possibly, ever in this first round. we still have clearly the better players, at least the top 6. in game 4, if CP comes out like Isaiah Thomas or Iverson like killer instinct, I believe we will take this series back to LA tied 2-2.

[LACtdom]

Dudley is having a great game today. It's disappointing. Doc made a call and it turned out to be the wrong one. However if Dudley failed to perform this year with us, we would be condemning him for not trading Dudley. Because of our poor system, it seems as though players like Dudley, Farmar, Hawes, etc don't get the mentoring or conditioning that they need and can't flourish.

[ejftw]

Doc could have kept Dudley and instead signed Ed Davis to a small portion of the Mid-Level and Aaron Brooks to the vet minimum, which is equal to what they did get or more.

If he wanted to dump Dudley (a guy who played injured every game), should have held on to Radjulica, at least, signed Ed Davis to the MMLE/BAE (whatever its called now), Pierce to the MLE and Brooks to the min, instead, he signed Hawes and Farmar

[nickhx2]

Because we actually have a legitimate shot to make it to the finals, i don't exactly want to say irreparable. But in a way it is, because if doc hadn't made so many ridiculous moves we would've been in extremely comfortable shape with a great bench.

In my opinion, our window is a smallish one and pretty much the biggest it's going to get from here on out. We have no cap flexibility, no real tradeable assets, no bench, and no young talent to develop. Meanwhile, GS looks like they can contend for 10 years. The spurs will go as far as kawhi and danny green can take them. Memphis is looking scary good again beating up the blazers. Portland has been decimated by injuries but they had a great team all year and a great GM who will stop at nothing to improve his roster. NOLA has someone who will be the best player in the league for the next 15 years. And of course there's OKC, a contender whose chances will skyrocket if they can snag TT. As for us, this team just can't get much better amidst a sea of GREAT WC teams. It's extremely depressing.

The dudley dump was maddening because doc pretty much forced him to play even though he was hurt. It wasn't any surprise at all that he was near worthless: how can you play well if you're not healthy? It's worse considering you could have given that burn to a potential rotation player in reggie bullock. Then all those picks, oh god, all those picks. The dump, obviously because we could have gotten someone like chandler or even avery bradley (a vicious defender). Drafting bullock instead of taking gobert when we CLEARLY had a need for a big. It goes on.

Can you imagine how absurd this team would have been if we

A. kept dudley and dropped jamal
B. used that pick to trade for chandler or bradley
C. drafted gobert (dpoy for rest of his career basically) instead of bullock
D. used MLE on literally ANYONE else except hawes?

Our team would be DEVASTATING. INSTEAD THOUGH:


Doc THOUGHT that jamal crawford was someone you could rely on to play quality playoff minutes when in reality he's a one-dimensional chucker who is literally only good for beating up bad regular season teams.

Doc THOUGHT that mid-season buyouts like KG, JO, ray allen, etc. would be lining up around the corner to sign with the team, when in reality it seems like we're the last-place destination we were back in our bad years.

Doc THOUGHT that his signing of hawes was genius (we mostly all did, actually), but in reality he had no clue how to integrate him. It shows now and that in itself means it was a horrid move.

Doc was wrong on all counts. It sucks. We deserve so much more and he should have been so much smarter.


---

Anyway, we have to sign DJ even if for the max. The complications are basically that if you let him go you still don't get much in the way of cap relief. So you either sign him or give him up and get almost nothing in return via FA. Even if it sounds like a lot now, the max for DJ actually becomes a huge bargain once the cap skyrockets, and then skyrockets again in the very near future. Not resigning him is lunacy.

FWIW the wing spot, even if it's weak, is not really that big a deal. Our starting unit is crazy good. Blake is going to get better and DJ is going to as well (maybe busting out in the first round will finally force him to learn underhanded FT's or something). It's our bench that is in dire need of help and not re-signing DJ does nothing for us in that department.

IMO we're pretty much stuck in the mud with what we've got. It can definitely get worse with doc at the helm (imagine if he resigned crawford? the horror). And we're gonna have to get pretty lucky to get better. We can still contend, and the roster getting better can still happen, but we'd need a lot of good fortune since we've pretty much blown all the sure things.


edit: for some reason i kept thinking it was wilcox we took instead of gobert when gobert was drafted a year earlier. instead it was bullock we took, but my point still stands. the biggest need for our team was a backup big and instead we took bullock!

[MartinToVaught]

I don't see how you can watch this team and act like the wing spot is "not really that big a deal." Not when the last competent wing defender we've had is still QRoss, and the last truly great wing defender we've had is Ron Harper. We've trotted out nothing but garbage at the league's most important position since Maggette walked.

I also disagree that our starting unit is "crazy good." Four of our starters (DJ, JJ, CP3, Barnes) are extremely flawed and get exposed in the playoffs every year. Even Blake has T-rex arms and isn't very good at defense. I couldn't care less how good they look in the regular season when it never translates to the games that actually matter.

We can get out of the mess we're in, but it requires a new front office, a new coach, and trading CP3 and DJ while their trade value remains high. What scares the crap out of me is the strong possibility that Ballmer will just chalk this latest meltdown up to the "bad luck" of playing the Spurs in the first round (even though a less flawed team could have easily avoided this fate) and make no major changes, which just equates to another wasted season. The matchup and bench excuses don't fly when this core pulled similar chokejobs against worse teams than this year's Spurs in 2013 and 2014, with better depth.

[nickhx2]

because math and analytics prove that it's not a big deal and prove that our starting 5 actually is crazy good.

since you don't listen to anyone but yourself anyway there's no point in discussing it.

[MartinToVaught]

because math and analytics prove that it's not a big deal and prove that our starting 5 actually is crazy good.

Playoff basketball has consistently proven that both are big problems, regardless of whether or not they're advanced-stats darlings in the regular season.

[Rodddman]

Analytics are supposed to help you better understand the game. They are not supposed to divert your attention from what is palpably obvious year after year.

I know you all hate to hear it, but MartintoVaught is on the money.

[og15]

Dudley is having a great game today. It's disappointing. Doc made a call and it turned out to be the wrong one. However if Dudley failed to perform this year with us, we would be condemning him for not trading Dudley. Because of our poor system, it seems as though players like Dudley, Farmar, Hawes, etc don't get the mentoring or conditioning that they need and can't flourish.

I can understand trading Dudley, though part of the reason was because they didn't understand cap rules. Trading Dudley and a draft pick though, that was pretty bad. That pick could have helped in making a deadline trade for example, and since the Clippers traded for an injured guy, severely injured in Delfino, and a guy that wasn't getting much burn, it just made no sense including a draft pick. Like Neddy said, the Hawes idea wasn't bad, but if it wasn't supposed to be in addition to defensive adjustments for him, it certainly was an oversight thinking he could run around like Blake or DJ or even Davis.

The matchup and bench excuses don't fly when this core pulled similar chokejobs against worse teams than this year's Spurs in 2013 and 2014, with better depth.

2013? Really? Are we just ignoring all context or? I guess the Thunder also choked against the Grizzlies because Westbrook was out and Durant couldn't even match Paul's performance vs Mempis and they lost in 5. Did you forget winning game 2 on a game winner then Blake getting injured in practice after game 4 and in the last two games of the series and playing 17 mpg? Paul averaging 31.5 ppg in games 5 and 6 on 55% FG and getting to the line 10 times while only committing 1 turnover over two games and the team still loses by double digits because the defense sucked and Randolph man handled the bigs inside.

The team has its flaws, but the roster has yet to actually be built in a way that adequately addresses those flaws. There's no magic solution, and we've known these things could be an issue and have been playing the "hope they aren't game", and hope that CP, Blake and DJ's talent can overcome the issues. We still have to play that for the rest of the games in this series as it isn't over yet. We knew it last summer we had the same feeling after the signings this summer that the wing and defense issues still loomed, and the spacing issue in terms of bigs we thought was addressed obviously ended up failing, which does suck.

The thing is that when you have a ton of good, very good teams, every little thing starts to matter. If you match up neck to neck with another starting 5, then over 7 games, the winner will get determined by whose "other" players play better. Yes, when you play a team that you're clearly better than, it doesn't matter as much. I mentioned it before, but if you play even among your best players vs another good team, the winner of the series truly can get determined by whose 4th, 5th and 6th option can make their shots or make plays (offensive rebounds whatever). Basically who has the most efficient role players. Clippers lose game 6 to OKC by 6 points. Barnes was 4/14 FG (28.6%) and 1/6 3PT (16.7%). Clippers hold Westbrook to 4/15 FG and 11/12 FT, and he committed 5 turnovers. Blake didn't have the best game, but the stars did enough to win that game, but the team as a whole did not contain the role players.

Miami wins game 6 in 2013 by 3 points after coming back and going to OT, and it is not seen as important that Shane Battier shooting 3/4 3PT and scoring 9 points in 13 minutes is a big deal in the grand scheme of the game. He shoots 1/4 3PT, and Miami has to make up an extra 4-6 points in their come back depending on if they get an offensive rebound on one of his misses and the outcome of that. It's not seen as primarily important that Danny Green shoots 1/7 FG and 1/5 3PT, but if he shoots 3/7 FG and 2/5 3PT and that's another 5 points Miami has to make up. If both those things happen, you could have a game where Miami loses by 7 more points after a great attempted comeback as opposed to a win.

Back to game 6 last season for example, take out Durant and Westbrook, Ibaka, Sefolosha, Adams, Collison and Jackson combined to shoot 15/24 FG, 3/6 3PT, 6/9 FT, 6 assists, commit only 3 turnovers and scored 39 pts. Take out Blake and Paul and Barnes shooting alone already killed any comparison.

So yes, your complimentary players do matter. If we remember when the team was struggling early in the season, what was a big reason? Redick being cold. Of course we knew the law of averages is real and someone that has multiple years of good shooting doesn't forget how to shoot. The team was basically losing like 5 PPG, so the offense looked worse. SA's strategy hasn't necessarily been to go all out and shut down CP and Blake and then in turn give a guy like Redick open shots, and maybe you don't even contain those two guys very well. They know they aren't likely to kill them every single game as even the best players have off nights (eg: Durant 6/22 in game 5 despite the win), so their strategy has been to shut down Redick because in the end, if you can consistently shut him down, which is a reasonable expectation with a guy like Leonard on him those are efficient points the Clippers can't easily make up.

The damage isn't irreparable, but they can't keep going in the same pattern, they need to make a change in the front office. On the other hand, blowing it up with the same people that can't adequately fix a teams holes is an even worse idea.

[Little Digger]

I don't see how anybody could say the clippers wing starters are a strength..Both Barnes and Redick are severly flawed..If it's wasnt for the fact that they get to play alongside maybe the best top3 core in basketball, both would be totally viewed as nothing more than role players who should come off the bench. Clippers are painfully weak on the wing.

[nickhx2]

who said that they are a strength

Overall our wing spot is weak, but again it's not a big deal with our starters. Also, the fact of the matter is that JJ's skill set is pretty much the magic elixir for our starting unit. Defensively, sure he gets to hide behind DJ a bit but he doesn't cause car pileups on that end the way crawford does. And offensively he makes the team go vroom. His value offensively far transcends whatever we lose defensively from him and he's covered for when you put him next to DJ and CP3.

Pretty much every team in the league builds the same way: you get the big game pieces on board and then you surround them with talent that fills the gaps. That's what jj and barnes are for. It is pretty much impossible to have 5 stars in each starting role, and if you look throughout the league there's 95% of the time gonna be a team that has some kind of hole in their top 5.

The wings are certainly gonna have their flaws. I would rather barnes be a sick two-way all-star and jj be the next coming of klay thompson. But barnes is a bargain and jj is great for us anyway even if he's far from a lockdown defender. And the reality is they aren't to blame for our current woes. It's doc's lack of foresight building the roster and the perfect storm of a super pass-heavy team facing a frenetic rotating defense. And all this at the same time that doc is simply being outcoached.

[LACtdom]

Dudley is having a great game today. It's disappointing. Doc made a call and it turned out to be the wrong one. However if Dudley failed to perform this year with us, we would be condemning him for not trading Dudley. Because of our poor system, it seems as though players like Dudley, Farmar, Hawes, etc don't get the mentoring or conditioning that they need and can't flourish.

I can understand trading Dudley, though part of the reason was because they didn't understand cap rules. Trading Dudley and a draft pick though, that was pretty bad. That pick could have helped in making a deadline trade for example, and since the Clippers traded for an injured guy, severely injured in Delfino, and a guy that wasn't getting much burn, it just made no sense including a draft pick. Like Neddy said, the Hawes idea wasn't bad, but if it wasn't supposed to be in addition to defensive adjustments for him, it certainly was an oversight thinking he could run around like Blake or DJ or even Davis.

Say we trade Hawes like we did with Dudley. What's going to be different? Hawes will probably have a good year and whomever we sign will probably struggle. I'd rather keep Hawes who has proven he has talent and develop him. Don't get me wrong, Hawes needs to put in the effort but there is some accountability on our coaching staff to.. well.. coach.

[mkwest]

I really hope the Clippers can pull off a turn around and win this series, but it seems highly unlikely.

The question is whether this core can be salvaged after the horrendous mistakes Doc has made as GM?

Of course the Clippers are a very good team, but they seem to have regressed slightly this season and CP3's prime is ticking away.

It is clear in today's NBA that you need versatile wing players that can defend and shoot and the Clippers basically have nobody that fits both skillsets- maybe Barnes on a good day but that is somewhat rare.

If rumors are true that the Clippers could have landed Wilson Chandler if only they had a first round draft pick to offer- then all the blame sits at Doc's feet for trading it away in the Dudley deal. Why not just hang on to Dudley or try to get a better deal? Chandler would have solved almost all of the Clippers problems. Or perhaps if Doc hadn't wasted the MLE on Hawes, they could have landed a decent wing player. Add on the fact that Doc couldn't find a decent back up for CP3. What an awful GM he has been. Why did he prioritize back up center over wing?

Now, what can be done about this situation? They basically have to re-sign DJ. Does that leave them any cap room for wing help? If not, maybe that should become the priority rather than re-signing DJ and maybe then take a flyer on a guy like McGee to be a poor man's DJ while upgrading the wing spot?

Sadly, if they can't find help at the wing this team is likely to regress unless Blake Griffin improves even more. Even then they would still have a glaring weakness in the position that has turned out to be one of the most important in the modern NBA.

We could opt to not re-sign DJ, waive both Crawford and Barnes who are both partially guaranteed, and still would be left with very little cap space (i.e. less than the MLE). In other words, parting with those players doesn't free up much cap space to improve the team.

One thing that has hurt the flexibility of improving the roster has been the self-imposed hard cap. If you use the Non-Taxpayer's MLE (i.e. the full $5M+ MLE), you're bound to a hard cap. If you use the BAE (Bi-Annual Exception), you're bound to a hard cap. Unfortunately, we used both on the likes of Hawes and Farmar. Someone had to be moved to free up roster space to meet the minimum requirement. It ended up being Dudley and sadly a future (2017) 1st. I didn't agree with it then and it's even more blatantly obvious now. It didn't make sense at all. It would be a little more palatable (it would still be pretty bad though) if it was with a team that had cap space like Philadelphia. Then we wouldn't have had to have stretched salary on the books in the future.

According to Marc Stein, the Nuggets wanted 2 1st rounders for Chandler. Then you have to have enough in player salary going out as well. Nobody else ended up with him, so it would seem that the Nuggets may have wanted a little more than teams were willing to part with.

We could have used the full MLE on someone else, like Pierce for example.

We could have used the Taxpayer MLE (~$3.3M per for 3 years), kept Dudley's contract and pursued a piece through trade, since we wouldn't be bound to the hard cap.

I liked the thought of Aminu coming back and giving us his length and athleticism, but I don't know if there was a mutual interest. Dallas got him for the minimum.

With the Sterling controversy, some players may have not wanted to come here while things were still up in the air. I don't know. Ed Davis was previously mentioned. The Clippers were interested in him, but he turned down money in the short term from multiple teams in order to showcase himself for a potential bigger payoff in the future by signing with the Lakers. I can't blame him, because it's worked for other players in the past.

[Woodsanity]

Gonna basically copy and paste something I said on clippers topbuzz.

The fact of the matter is we arguably have the worst GM department in the league. The Clips have the 29th ranked bench in the league.
How did Doc and co not learn from the "Mullens" experiment? A lot of GMs now realize the way to go is to get athletic players with length that can guard multiple positions. Yet Doc and CO want to head the opposite direction which is unathletic players with no length who can't guard a garbage can or frankly even shoot.

Hawes was a piss poor defender stat padding on a garbage team and he was still scoring inefficiently. Why does Doc think the number 1 offense in the league needs more offense(Not that Hawes is a good offensive player)? It just makes me fume thinking about it. A waste of a season due to Doc and co's incompetence. Not that I am giving up and saying that we will lose this series but even if we win it will be an uphill battle with our starters playing 40+ mpg thanks to Doc. In fact, if Doc got us a better bench we would have won a few more games. Even one more win would have made us 2nd seed which faces a dysfunctional Mavs team in the 1st round.

There are plenty of bargain bin players out there. Heck even the incompetent Lakers got Ed Davis who is a nice two way PF who would have helped us a ton instead of Mullens 2.0. We could have gotten someone like Aminu who has been very good defensively this season and many other players for cheap. Its a matter of knowing what type of player you should look for but Doc and co are clueless in that regard. Even VDN was far better in that regard.

Bottom line: The damage isn't irreparable but it makes this season a waste. We can still make the Finals and win it all but the chances are far slimmer than if we had a competent GM. In fact, if we had a better GM we would be facing the Mavs in the 1st round. I am pissed that Doc has probably wasted one year of our core. CP3 isn't getting any younger, he is going to be out of his prime soon.

[ohio]

I think it's time to fire Doc as the GM and bring in some Microsoft level thinking guys, leave him as the coach though.

The Clippers ownership has a huge advantage and means to be the advanced version of Houston which is kind of crazy, yet Doc is still the GM, the guy that doesn't believe in cameras.

[mattd13]

nick hits the nail on the head about the team. jj has made himself into a very solid nba player and is not the problem. if he was then why has the best coach in the game made stopping him their focus. doc made some poor choices on players and just got unlucky with others. his coaching in this series has been weak. blake, as good as he is, gets beat to many times and cp3 is gambling to much and gets beat. if the clips are to advance they have to step up on defense. the future of this team looks good for 2 more years if you keep jj, cp3, blake, and dj. how you fix the rest is the question. maybe now that the big money is on board they will find a way. the bench is bad but I am not giving up on this year just yet. plus this, mtv is very annoying but does make a few points that are valid. however they are very few.

[nickhx2]

I think it's time to fire Doc as the GM and bring in some Microsoft level thinking guys, leave him as the coach though.

The Clippers ownership has a huge advantage and means to be the advanced version of Houston which is kind of crazy, yet Doc is still the GM, the guy that doesn't believe in cameras.

it might be an unpopular opinion but honestly if we bust out in the first couple rounds i'd rather be done with him altogether. the dude's an egomaniac and it would cause an incredible strain for him to be demoted and being "forced" to coach someone else's players.

the word out there is that TT is almost sure to be fired. and i certainly wouldn't mind alvin gentry coming back and heading things up. we definitely have some options if we choose to go that route.

of course, i don't see it happening because this is ballmer's first year in the league and he basically thinks doc is the second coming of christ. i just don't see him axing doc until he's traded dj and two first rounders for "cap relief" (with doc it could happen).

[MartinToVaught]

The thing that makes me nervous about Thibs is that I've heard a lot of complaints from Bulls fans that sound exactly like what we hate about Doc: stubborn, rarely makes adjustments, runs the starters into the ground with his piss-poor rotations.

I'd actually like to look to Europe for our next coach. Blatt has done a good job in Cleveland so far despite concerns about how he'd translate to the NBA. I've been promoting him practically all year in my sig, but Zeljko Obradovic is arguably the best coach in Europe, and there's been rumors of him coming to the States before (IIRC, the Pistons were interested in him last offseason). Pop is a huge fan of his and even admits to stealing his plays; that's a ringing endorsement in my book. He's also drawn comparisons to Larry Brown for how he keeps players in line and makes them play the right way.

[og15]

We're speaking about this as if Doc is actually going anywhere lol

I'm more worried about a new GM / front office than coach