Doc is on the Beast 980 Right Now

[bulldogcharly]

I understand Doc has underperformed a bit, but why are you guys so damn negative? Do you guys really think players like Ingles, Hamilton, and Bullock would have made a difference. I watched them all and as decent as they were, they were not going to propel us to the next level. He's the guy who brought in Collison and got us Redick for Bledsoe when he was just gonna walk. Every GM makes good and bad decisions. Do you guys not remember the owner of the Warriors getting booed a few years ago during a jersey retirement ceremony? Doc is trying to improve this team and the Lance trade is a good step forward. He's right about the fact that we have 3 max players and the Warriors don't have any. It's just how things played out with our core and the timing of their contracts. What do you expect him to say about Jamal? Say that he's trying to move him and then fail and have it be awkward when Jamal comes back for training camp? No. Those rumors of us going for Chandler (most likely not gonna happen) show that Doc is trying to improve and knows that Jamal doesn't fit on this team. And bringing back his son is a good thing too so I don't understand why everyone is hating on him for that too. He won us a couple of games in the playoffs with his play and he's so young that he only has room to improve.

I agree it's frustrating what's going on and it doesn't help that our rival just won a championship, but we'd all be signing a different tune if we didn't choke away that game 6 lead and ended up making the WCF (even if we lost). And let's not put that choke on Doc considering it wasn't him bricking every single damn shot out there. We have a solid foundation here and now all we need is consistency and patience. Blake and DJ are both young and CP3 is still relatively young and a guy who's game won't be affected much by age. We have very few assets to make moves and we still somehow got Lance and are actively trying to make other moves to bring in the right pieces around our core. Yeah the Spurs had won before, but they've had some demoralizing playoff losses before and they kept their core. As much as this game is about skill and strategy, it involves a little luck too. If we're patient there's a greater chance we win a championship than if we try to make desperate moves like firing the guy we traded away two damn draft picks for.

[nickhx2]

I understand Doc has underperformed a bit, but why are you guys so damn negative? Do you guys really think players like Ingles, Hamilton, and Bullock would have made a difference. I watched them all and as decent as they were, they were not going to propel us to the next level. He's the guy who brought in Collison and got us Redick for Bledsoe when he was just gonna walk. Every GM makes good and bad decisions. Do you guys not remember the owner of the Warriors getting booed a few years ago during a jersey retirement ceremony? Doc is trying to improve this team and the Lance trade is a good step forward. He's right about the fact that we have 3 max players and the Warriors don't have any. It's just how things played out with our core and the timing of their contracts. What do you expect him to say about Jamal? Say that he's trying to move him and then fail and have it be awkward when Jamal comes back for training camp? No. Those rumors of us going for Chandler (most likely not gonna happen) show that Doc is trying to improve and knows that Jamal doesn't fit on this team. And bringing back his son is a good thing too so I don't understand why everyone is hating on him for that too. He won us a couple of games in the playoffs with his play and he's so young that he only has room to improve.

I agree it's frustrating what's going on and it doesn't help that our rival just won a championship, but we'd all be signing a different tune if we didn't choke away that game 6 lead and ended up making the WCF (even if we lost). And let's not put that choke on Doc considering it wasn't him bricking every single damn shot out there. We have a solid foundation here and now all we need is consistency and patience. Blake and DJ are both young and CP3 is still relatively young and a guy who's game won't be affected much by age. We have very few assets to make moves and we still somehow got Lance and are actively trying to make other moves to bring in the right pieces around our core. Yeah the Spurs had won before, but they've had some demoralizing playoff losses before and they kept their core. As much as this game is about skill and strategy, it involves a little luck too. If we're patient there's a greater chance we win a championship than if we try to make desperate moves like firing the guy we traded away two damn draft picks for.

Saying doc has under performed just a bit is just completely out of tune with what he's actually done to damage the franchise's outlook and championship window. There's a lot to get into of the things he's done to screw up personnel. And you know what? The situation as played, i don't get mad when guys like joe ingles, farmar, or the like don't play well enough to work out. Mullens was a waste? Oh well. Granger? Vujajic? Not everything is gonna work out for you, so you keep cycling through, that's fine. It's not that. It's his constant sabotaging of assets to try and fix earlier mistakes he's made. It's his complete obliviousness to the developmental side of the NBA that adds to all that. He keeps exacerbating these problems over and over in the worst way possible.

Let me start with this: via http://bballbreakdown.com/2015/01/17/for-doc-rivers-the-devil-is-in-the-details/

"Untangling all the deals L.A. has made, the opportunity cost of signing Spencer Hawes to the Mid-Level Exception this past offseason has been Jared Dudley, a future first rounder, a future second rounder, Bullock and the use of the Bi-Annual Exception until 2016. Not fully understanding the implications of a pending move beyond the immediate need for front line depth, the team thundered forward before realizing the predicament."

If doc didn't force jared dudley to play on a broken knee, then dudley doesn't suck. If dudley actually gets to rest, then we might have seen bullock get the confidence he needed to develop into a 3 and D guy. If dudley doesn't suck, he doesn't get traded with a freaking first rounder just to save the team from the hard cap. If doc actually watched hawes play, he would have realized hawes was an awful fit for this team and wouldn't have signed him to the MLE putting us against the hard cap in the first place. If dudley is still on the team and bullock actually got some developmental time, our wing spot would be a strength instead of a one man depth chart in matt barnes holding the line all by himself. Oh yeah and with that depth we destroy houston, go toe to toe with warriors and might even be holding a trophy right now. Not to mention likely beating OKC last year in the second round.

It's this chain of events that doc not only started, but somehow managed to make worse at every possible moment he had a chance. That's why people are negative about him. Because as a GM he's horrible. When it comes to personnel, he doesn't even know who he's trying to sign. Hawes was a great deal in a vacuum but awful for the team. We wasted BAE on Farmar. The list just goes on.




What makes it worse is he constantly tries to play it off as if the team was completely against the wall with minimal choices when he first arrived. That is COMPLETE BS trying to absolve himself of any responsibility. We had assets. We had choices. We had bledsoe (which, btw, was someone who was still under contract so he doesn't exactly just walk). There were many ways to improve the roster, and all he had to do was not screw it up. But screw it up was all he did. Just about all you can say he did right, personnel-wise, was getting dudley and redick for bledsoe. But all that positive expectation was obliterated when he started the chain reaction of events that were caused by his mishandling of dudley.

Doc shouldn't get a freaking cookie because he has good intentions of improving the roster. That's his god damn job. The least he could do is start doing it decently. And with his train wreck of a record as GM as well as his inability to even bother developing meaningful fringe talent, in addition to his borderline obsession with jamal crawford, you can see he's not doing his job at all.

[TheNewEra]

The arrogance of Doc after his mistakes is amazing. Bill Simmons did warn us about this but man.

[QRich3]

Yeah basically Nick hit the nail in the head.

It's baffling that Doc tries to act like he didn't have flexibility, he basically came to one of the best roster situations in the whole league. With a good GM we'd be one of the top 3 title favorites for half a decade at least.

Don't have the face to compare us to the Warriors, the 2nd most important player in the Warriors was drafted with the 35th pick, Doc's had the 25th and the 28th and used them on players worth exactly nothing to him. The Warriors spent their MLE on a key reserve in Livingston, we used it on guy who became a bad contract in a couple months (one we had to dump for another bad contract). The Warriors traded two future picks for the finals MVP. We traded them to dump a perfectly usable player that he signed himself and the right to have him as a GM. The Warriors traded their young player with potential (Monta) for a DPOY type of player, we traded ours for a one way wing role player. There's just so many things they did right and we did wrong with the same opportunity/assets, that it's insulting he tries to take us for fools spinning it.

Us having three Max players should be a reason to be better than them, not an excuse not to improve the roster.

Worst thing about it is he keeps making moves, so things will keep getting worse for a while.

[Quake Griffin]

I don't think Doc is totally wrong. He just doesn't have standing to make that claim.

Summer of 2013, we were without a 2 and a 3 and they're vital in today's game.
How much did we really think Bledsoe, Caron and one of our late 1st rounders could yield?

That just has nothing to do with him packaging Dudley with a 1st rounder.
or sending out our 2nd this year.

[og15]

Doc started off well, the Bledsoe trade was fine based on his value at the time...but then the minimum signings he made were just all the wrong ones, Mullens, Jamison, no need for guys like that when you wanted defense.

Then move on, and not understanding cap implication and having a plan led to having to trade a 1st to move Dudley to open up space. Then again, the minimum signing of Udoh who was not even used didn't make sense, and not having a plan to adjust the defense to accommodate Hawes just didn't make sense, neither did signing Farmar without having him actually understand his role. There was a huge miscommunication there that shouldn't have happened, but that could have been Farmar not getting it during the negotiations.

[Quake Griffin]

Could have been a solid GM if he just let Dudley rehab his leg.

Dudley would have finished the year strong and he wouldn't have packaged that 1st with him.
We could have stomached the other failures….and those happen.

[LACtdom]

Doc started off well, the Bledsoe trade was fine based on his value at the time...but then the minimum signings he made were just all the wrong ones, Mullens, Jamison, no need for guys like that when you wanted defense.

Then move on, and not understanding cap implication and having a plan led to having to trade a 1st to move Dudley to open up space. Then again, the minimum signing of Udoh who was not even used didn't make sense, and not having a plan to adjust the defense to accommodate Hawes just didn't make sense, neither did signing Farmar without having him actually understand his role. There was a huge miscommunication there that shouldn't have happened, but that could have been Farmar not getting it during the negotiations.

I can live with bad moves. A lot of cheaper players are a gamble and sometimes you lose. The only thing that frustrates me is the total disillusion that we can win it all without playing defense. Did we really need to improve our offense? Could we have lived with a center who was a furious rebounder and could play D over Mullens and Hawes? I also don't think Doc does enough 'coaching' as half of our players seem unfamiliar with our system come game 1.

[Quake Griffin]

Doc started off well, the Bledsoe trade was fine based on his value at the time...but then the minimum signings he made were just all the wrong ones, Mullens, Jamison, no need for guys like that when you wanted defense.

Then move on, and not understanding cap implication and having a plan led to having to trade a 1st to move Dudley to open up space. Then again, the minimum signing of Udoh who was not even used didn't make sense, and not having a plan to adjust the defense to accommodate Hawes just didn't make sense, neither did signing Farmar without having him actually understand his role. There was a huge miscommunication there that shouldn't have happened, but that could have been Farmar not getting it during the negotiations.

I can live with bad moves. A lot of cheaper players are a gamble and sometimes you lose. The only thing that frustrates me is the total disillusion that we can win it all without playing defense. Did we really need to improve our offense? Could we have lived with a center who was a furious rebounder and could play D over Mullens and Hawes? I also don't think Doc does enough 'coaching' as half of our players seem unfamiliar with our system come game 1.

with you there.

this offseason is about defense IMO.
Defense has cost us in EVERY playoff loss since Paul has come here.

[og15]

Doc started off well, the Bledsoe trade was fine based on his value at the time...but then the minimum signings he made were just all the wrong ones, Mullens, Jamison, no need for guys like that when you wanted defense.

Then move on, and not understanding cap implication and having a plan led to having to trade a 1st to move Dudley to open up space. Then again, the minimum signing of Udoh who was not even used didn't make sense, and not having a plan to adjust the defense to accommodate Hawes just didn't make sense, neither did signing Farmar without having him actually understand his role. There was a huge miscommunication there that shouldn't have happened, but that could have been Farmar not getting it during the negotiations.

I can live with bad moves. A lot of cheaper players are a gamble and sometimes you lose. The only thing that frustrates me is the total disillusion that we can win it all without playing defense. Did we really need to improve our offense? Could we have lived with a center who was a furious rebounder and could play D over Mullens and Hawes? I also don't think Doc does enough 'coaching' as half of our players seem unfamiliar with our system come game 1.

Yup, that's essentially it. After that first off-season, I said "okay, maybe Doc thinks his coaching or his system is so good that he and/or it can make poor defenders into good ones". Of course that wasn't realistic. Last season I then said, okay, Udoh makes sense on that front, but then he didn't play, then we said maybe the team is just waiting to make some moves, but nothing materialized.

Yes, everyone knows it, this team needs defense, so at least Stephenson is in the right direction in terms of not adding poor defensive players.

The team really shouldn't add any player this off-season that isn't at least an average defensive player at their position, and they need to try and get some guys who are above average to "good" defenders. Definitely prioritize that over anything. Usually with cheap role players you have to chose offense or defense, choose defense please.

[nickhx2]

Doc started off well, the Bledsoe trade was fine based on his value at the time...but then the minimum signings he made were just all the wrong ones, Mullens, Jamison, no need for guys like that when you wanted defense.

Then move on, and not understanding cap implication and having a plan led to having to trade a 1st to move Dudley to open up space. Then again, the minimum signing of Udoh who was not even used didn't make sense, and not having a plan to adjust the defense to accommodate Hawes just didn't make sense, neither did signing Farmar without having him actually understand his role. There was a huge miscommunication there that shouldn't have happened, but that could have been Farmar not getting it during the negotiations.

I can live with bad moves. A lot of cheaper players are a gamble and sometimes you lose. The only thing that frustrates me is the total disillusion that we can win it all without playing defense. Did we really need to improve our offense? Could we have lived with a center who was a furious rebounder and could play D over Mullens and Hawes? I also don't think Doc does enough 'coaching' as half of our players seem unfamiliar with our system come game 1.

Yup, that's essentially it. After that first off-season, I said "okay, maybe Doc thinks his coaching or his system is so good that he and/or it can make poor defenders into good ones". Of course that wasn't realistic. Last season I then said, okay, Udoh makes sense on that front, but then he didn't play, then we said maybe the team is just waiting to make some moves, but nothing materialized.

Yes, everyone knows it, this team needs defense, so at least Stephenson is in the right direction in terms of not adding poor defensive players.

The team really shouldn't add any player this off-season that isn't at least an average defensive player at their position, and they need to try and get some guys who are above average to "good" defenders. Definitely prioritize that over anything. Usually with cheap role players you have to chose offense or defense, choose defense please.

Yup. This is exactly why i didn't hate those signings at the time. This was a real key issue, to which people pointed out: look at what he did with ray allen and the celtics, getting him to play good enough team D.

I thought if doc could make that work then we could get scrubs from A to Z to buy in, no matter how bad. But obviously we have seen that this is not the case.

It still makes me so god damn angry that for a team with incredible offensive firepower and two legit playmakers in blake and cp3, that doc continued (continues?) to add more and more offense (that wasn't even good) in lieu of defense. That is not how you win in this league. But apparently everyone knows that except doc.

The warriors figured it out. Other teams like the bucks are doing the same thing (as you guys pointed out in response to me a while ago). If you create an army of long-armed defenders who can do just enough of other things, your defensive potential skyrockets. It's just too bad that doc is old-school JUST enough that he will be extremely unlikely to change his ways. I mean, if we just had 2-3 reliable defensive reserves i think we would have either pushed GS to 7 games or won the championship. That's how close we were and doc chose to look the other way.

[Ranma]

James Herbert, CBS Sports (6/17/15)

"This is really only my third year but you can make a case this is our second year if you know what I'm saying," Rivers told Beast 980's Fred Roggin. "If I someday wrote a book and told you a couple of the trades we had in the first year that we didn't do because of other reasons, you would fall off your chair."

Doc Rivers: You'd 'fall off your chair' at rejected trades under Sterling


Nope. Not buying it, Doc. Let's not forget that Wojnarowski detailed from Boston's side how Doc bailed on the Celtics with Simmons calling him out on it, yet Doc refused to own up to his ploy when it was obvious and widely reported that he was eyeing the Clippers' situation in light of the Celtics' rebuild. And just recently, he was bemoaning how flawed the roster was when he took over while somehow forgetting how much he wanted to be here in the first place. Also, if he had his way, DeAndre Jordan would be in Celtic green with Kevin Garnett brandishing the new Clippers logo. I can only assume the trades he's referring to was having Garnett and Paul Pierce joining him in LA to go along with BG and CP while DJ (and maybe Bledsoe) headed to Boston.

I've maintained that he mis-played the Eric Bledsoe trade even as he correctly identified Redick as a target. I haven't caught up with a previous thread regarding this very subject or even this thread due to really only recently starting to recover from the dispiriting collapse against Houston. Suffice to say, he exacerbated the pitfalls of that deal in continuing to play an injured Dudley only to package a first-rounder in dealing him away.

Despite the obvious lack of athleticism and defense from the wings, Doc continued to draft, sign, and trade for shooters lacking in both only to discard them later and, in some cases, packaging draft picks in order to do so. He's only now starting to take the draft somewhat seriously in a too-little-too-late fashion despite talking about how much he wants to emulate the Spurs. While San Antonio continues to draft well with opportunistic aggressive moves like trading up for Kawhi Leonard despite consistently low picks, Doc has mostly expressed a disregard and even disdain for 1st-round selections given the salary commitment.

He continued to let Jamal Crawford have free reign on offense despite espousing the virtues of Ubuntu and Crawford's continual shortcomings as a non-positive overall contributor and a postseason invisible man who doesn't play defense.

All of this kept the Clippers with a lack of depth and a flawed roster that eventually led to one of the most embarrassing choke jobs in NBA history, which is a monumental pseudo-accomplishment given the franchise's numerous failings.

Is it possible that Sterling could have adversely interfered with Doc's maneuverings? Of course, since Doc mentioned a while ago how Sterling changed his mind in order to renege on the commitment to Redick before Doc changed his mind right back. However, Neil Olshey was able to do just fine under Sterling and, lest we forget, Sterling is loathe to trade draft picks while Doc has been giving them out like candy.

We see the Golden State Warriors celebrate a well-deserved championship under 1st-year head coach Steve Kerr because they draft, sign, and otherwise acquire players that play team basketball with defense, athleticism, and grit. Guys such as Shaun Livingston, Andre Iguodala, Draymond Green, Harrison Barnes, et al. Yet we have Doc whining despite having two of the best players in the league on his roster in Chris Paul and Blake Griffin while also making use of Sterling as the convenient scapegoat. Sounds like a bunch of excuses lacking in merit for a guy who keeps saying there are no excuses.

Long before Doc writes that book about these so-called missed opportunities, he should read one about how to properly build a team or at least how to put aside one's ego in order to let more capable people do the job. The whole reason he's argued for also having the role of GM is because he wants to find the right fits for him to coach, however, as illustrated in the Spencer Hawes and Dudley acquisitions, he's basically made his own job harder with pieces he's only been able to mis-handle so far. Nobody does less with more than Doc Rivers.

[mj_shoefanatic]

Doc said jamal is under contract and right now, he will be back.

Dangit I want WChandler or GGreen starting with Pierce off the bench. Guess only the latter will happen.

[illastrate]

Doc said jamal is under contract and right now, he will be back.

Dangit I want WChandler or GGreen starting with Pierce off the bench. Guess only the latter will happen.

Nobody actually believes that. Jamal is as good as gone. Doc is not going to admit it to the media.

[Wammy Giveaway]

Also, if he had his way, DeAndre Jordan would be in Celtic green with Kevin Garnett brandishing the new Clippers logo. I can only assume the trades he's referring to was having Garnett and Paul Pierce joining him in LA to go along with BG and CP while DJ (and maybe Bledsoe) headed to Boston.

If that were the case, then maybe Donald Sterling had a hand in the gag order. Maybe he told David Stern to prevent the Clippers from getting Kevin Garnett and/or Paul Pierce by any means necessary. The CBA explicitly stated that coaches cannot be traded for players, so that worked for Sterling. In hindsight, the gag order was just a technicality, and Donald Sterling got lucky (until he was ousted by TMZ and banished later by Adam Silver, of course).

He's only now starting to take the draft somewhat seriously in a too-little-too-late fashion despite talking about how much he wants to emulate the Spurs. While San Antonio continues to draft well with opportunistic aggressive moves like trading up for Kawhi Leonard despite consistently low picks, Doc has mostly expressed a disregard and even disdain for 1st-round selections given the salary commitment.

Key word here is late. The worst case scenario was watching the Golden State Warriors, a hated rival of the Clippers, win the championship first before the Clippers did. It was the Clipper's fault for not taking them seriously two years ago. Their misjudgement of Golden State as a lottery team all because of their losing record in the 2012 lockout season gave them an insane amount of confidence. They won the season series in 2012-13, got Blake Griffin ejected in 2013-14, and had an easy path to a championship in 2014-15. Take into consideration the 3-1 series collapse the Clippers experienced to the Rockets, and the Warrior's path felt more than just a cakewalk. Now it's "the Clippers gift wrapped the Warriors a championship because they didn't want it."

Helping other teams become better is one of the Clipper's worst habits. Only by seeing the Dubs win the whole thing forced Doc's hand into making moves. The Lance Stephenson trade was a start, but it may already be too late. What if the Clippers inadvertently ushered in a Warriors dynasty? What if the Spurs, Thunder, Grizzlies, or the Lakers return to playoff contention? What if the Clippers do make the NBA Finals but lose to the Cleveland Cavaliers or another eastern conference team that is inferior than them?

In short, the Clippers are going to kick themselves hard for coming up short. But there is a lesson to be learned, and I hope they recognize it: "Don't take lottery teams for granted, or else you will see them in the playoffs."

[Ranma]

Adam Kaufman, Boston.com (6/19/15)

Rivers inherited a Los Angeles ball club that had won 56 games under Vinny Del Negro – Vinny Del Negro! – the previous season and had finally unseated its Laker arena-mates as kings of the Pacific Division. Alas, a six-game, first-round loss to Memphis sparked a change and then-owner Donald Sterling brought a former star player home.
...

Rivers took the podium to address the media following last month’s second-round collapse at the hands of the Rockets. With the playoff exit, Rivers became the first coach in NBA history to blow multiple 3-1 series leads, the latest coming on the heels of an embarrassing, almost visibly effortless, 113-100 defeat in Game 7.

“I want to fix it,” Rivers told USA Today’s Sam Amick. “I want to win. That’s why I came here. I knew when I came here that roster-wise, it was going to be very difficult. The first thing I did before I took this job, I look at the roster and we laughed. It was like, ‘What the (expletive) can we do with this?’ It was more the contracts. But we have to try to do it somehow.”

Hang on.

Rivers laughed at a roster featuring Griffin, Paul, Crawford, Jordan, Barnes, Butler and Bledsoe? Hardly the 2006-07 Celtics there, Doc. This was a group with a .683 winning percentage, two All-Stars in their primes, and a defensive force the second he walked through the damn door. This guy didn’t need to ask for Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish.

It’s insanity.

Under Rivers, the Clippers have really made no more progress than they did under Del Negro. Two seasons with win totals of 57 and 56. Two playoff appearances, both with disappointing second-round exits. He’s had Griffin, Paul, Crawford, Jordan and Barnes all along the way, not to mention Reddick, who’s only improved as a shooter and scorer since his arrival.
...

Glenn: We get it; Sterling was a miserable boss. That doesn’t excuse your being a bad GM (in action, if not title) unless you really write that book and provide some details on his interference. Until then, it’s more comical lip-service for reasons your team failed to reach its expectations and it’s making you look more terrible by the day.

And, by the way, in today’s social media news-breaking age, at least one of those moves that would have made the Clippers so good might have surfaced on Twitter.

Doc Rivers Needs to Stop Talking and Take Responsibility