Who Would You like to see as Clipper GM/ Presi of BO?

[Wammy Giveaway]

It seems that Steve Ballmer finally realized Doc is a bad GM and decided to can him, but because of Chris Paul's freak accident and Blake Griffin rupturing his tendon in a mere matter of minutes, he's been granted a grace (read, pardoned) season. Doc knows he's out. This might mean he pulls out his last hurrah: the ultimate trade (either Griffin for Durant or for The Brotherhood).

Interestingly enough, the year the Celtics won the title behind the farm trades for Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett, the media speculated that it would be Doc's last year (he became head coach in 2004). The 2008 championship, in conjunction with adding another W over their arch nemesis Los Angeles Lakers, ensured Doc would stay on as Boston's head coach for the foreseeable future. He only left when Pierce and Garnett were finally traded.

Too long, didn't read:

Good news: Doc is fired.
Bad news: He gets one final season. He has the option of breaking up the core if he has to.

[nickhx2]

wait he wants to stay on as pobo?

[MartinToVaught]

In other words, Glenn sees the upcoming decline of this team, and he's getting ready to quit again - just like he did in Boston.

If it's true that he's already plotting his exit strategy, Ballmer should just fire him now instead of wasting yet another season with a lame-duck coach and subjecting us all to a full year of "will he stay or will he go?" I genuinely don't understand what he sees in this fraud.

[Ranma]

Nothing confirmed. Russo is speculating that Doc may want to leave coaching based on something he's been told. We know he has some sources inside the organization as he was the one who broke the Zucker-rushed-logo-redesign fiasco, but he only responded to my question of whether Doc would stay on as President of Basketball Operations by saying that it is his understanding that he would leave coaching without clarifying if that would also entail his GM duties as well. Given the fact that his contract runs through the 2018-19 season, I have doubts that he'll leave money on the table, which leads me to believe he'd stay on as PoBO.

If he's already thinking about abandoning his coaching responsibilities again a la Boston, we might as well fire him rather than sit through a lame-duck season with him trying to collect paychecks while doing further harm at a higher magnitude as the lead personnel executive.

[Alex DeLarge]

Great thread, guys.

Probably the most interesting and informed discussion that I have read on realgm.

[Wammy Giveaway]

The Clippers have a gloom off-season ahead of them. If they lose to the Blazers in the first round, or if they eventually lose to the invincible Golden State Warriors in the second round, chances are the team is broken up and forced to rebuild. Bleacher Report writer Sam Quinn took the challenge of playing GM for a day, choosing the nuclear rebuild: trade everybody, reclaim Doc's traded assets.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/SamQuinn23/status/725967433840750593[/tweet]

Rebuilds among 53-win teams are a rarity. Generally, that sort of record indicates contention. But 53-win teams usually don’t finish 20 wins behind their conference leader. The Golden State anomaly changes the way teams have to think about roster construction. Not only did they just win 73 games, but their best player is only 28. Their two other All Stars, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson, are both 26. If the Warriors play this right, they could be winning close to 70 games per year for the better part of a decade.

If the Clippers were to admit to themselves that they could not keep up with Golden State, and that the best course of action would be to simply wait them out, they’d find themselves in a historically unique position. At most, teams tend not to have more than one superstar to trade when they decide to kick off a rebuild. But the Clippers have four, all in their primes, all under contract for reasonable salaries. What if, rather than trade one of them to reconfigure their roster, they moved all four to blow it up entirely?

Quinn's Proposed Plan
1. Chris Paul and DeAndre Jordan to Boston Celtics for Brooklyn Net's 2016-2018 1st round picks, Dallas Maverick's 2016 1st round pick; players Marcus Smart, Terry Rozier, James Young, R.J. Hunter; cash considerations. The Nets 2017 1st round pick has draft swap rights. This is a "Doc Rivers-helps-his-friend-Danny Ainge" type of move.

2. Blake Griffin to Phoenix Suns for 2016 1st round pick; player Alex Len; cash considerations. Instead of going home to Oklahoma City to play for the Thunder, Griffin reunites with former Clipper Eric Bledsoe.

3. J.J. Redick to Chicago Bulls for players Doug McDermott and Nikola Mirotic

Though the Clippers have traded multiple first round picks of their own in the future, all of them are lottery-protected. Making trades like this would likely push the Clippers out of the playoffs and allow them to keep their picks for the next few seasons. On a 2016-17 roster led by Marcus Smart and several rookies, Los Angeles could theoretically wind up with one of the worst records in the league. That’s another stud young player to add to the mix. All in all, these trades net the Clippers a likely SIX top-five draft picks. That’s more shots at a superstar than any team has ever had, including the current Philadelphia 76ers.

The summer of 2017 is absolutely loaded with star free agents. Most notable is Long Beach native Russell Westbrook. If the Clippers desperately wanted to compete again quickly, they could attempt to sell Westbrook on coming home and then use the vast assets they acquired trading off their last generation to surround him with veterans. Of course, they’d have so much cap space that they could afford to sign a second star with Russ before doing anything, but hey, having draft picks to trade is never a bad thing.

Is any of this going to happen? Almost assuredly not. This is a thought experiment, a path the Clippers could hypothetically take that no team ever has simply because no team has ever been in the position that the Clippers are right now: good enough to win a championship under normal terms, but with normal terms thrown out the window because of the existence of a super team. There is virtually no chance the Clippers decide to trade all four of their stars this summer, even if they all asked to be traded. But it’s fun to imagine, and if the Clippers had a more creative front office, might be a better long-term option than only making relatively minor roster adjustments.

If the Clippers end up surprising the masses by secretly signing a competent general manager while silently asking Doc Rivers to step down, could a plan like this be considered? Personally, this is the ultimate no-no. One trade of any piece of the core, and it's bye-bye playoffs, hello lottery, possibly forever. Clipper fans will be subjected to living an even worse nightmare, one where they're back to winning less than half a season's worth of games as if Donald Sterling were still running things.

But I'm not here to talk about my opinions of the tank job proposed by the author. I presented this article to make a point regarding how difficult it will be for any general manager, experienced or up and coming, to tackle a franchise whose moves were made based out of pride for reliving his glory days and knee-jerk reactions related to beating the Golden State Warriors. The Clippers may have to just wait it out, hope that Curry pulls a Michael Jordan, then steal the spotlight as the Warriors recover just as the Houston Rockets did in 1993-95.

What do you think the general manager should do, if Doc Rivers concedes to surrendering his power?

[Wammy Giveaway]

Asked through Twitter, of course.

The worry about any kind of rebuild is that the Clippers may never make the playoffs again. It's well documented that Doc Rivers is a bad GM who wastes picks needlessly to relive his 2008 Celtics glory days. But even worse, Clips have a bad history in the playoffs, even during their years as a snake-bitten franchise. (Ed. Note: four playoff berths in a 32-year span before the lockout season and vetoed trade). Do you think the Clips will be able to compete in the future? Or are they better off just not making the playoffs?

I don't trust Doc Rivers as a GM. Hope Clips bring in a non-final authority general manager like Bowers in Detroit and Layden in Minnesota as an advisor. I still think any team with a good coach in a good market has the bones to compete, just doubt they'll ever be able to beat the Warriors. So unless they get Kevin Durant, the best move is go in another direction and wait it out, try to win after the Warriors run. 5-7 years seems right.

But what if doing this turns the Clippers back into the Clippers of old, the one where they miss the playoffs every year? I think the Clippers hold the lead for longest playoff drought in NBA history. I don't know the exact number. (Ed. Note: Clipper's 30-year drought between winning a playoffs round, 1976 vs. 76ers to 2006 vs. Nuggets, is the longest in league history. A 15-year playoff drought, 1977 to 1991, is also the longest in NBA history.) It'll be like the fairy godmother's spell cast on Cinderella wearing off at midnight.

It depends on your goal as a franchise. Teams like the Jazz and Bucks have openly played just for the playoffs, but most are going for the rings. Personally, I think it's worth it to be bad for a few years to get the right people in place to eventually win titles. It's totally fair to believe otherwise. It sucks to watch a tanking team for several years as a fan, but Steve Ballmer strikes me as an owner who wants titles, and the modern landscape makes it impossible for them not to turn a profit.

[Neddy]

this proves it.

Steve Ballmer is an idiot who followed the coattail of Bill Gates. if he was any smart, he would fire Doc the GM and keep him as the coach or fire him from both jobs... right now.

SMFH....

[wco81]

How do you guys still feel about Doc?

It seems if there wasn't a chance the Clippers could win the KD sweepstakes, there would be more outrage about giving away the first-round pick for Green, who just signed with Orlando.

Injuries in the playoffs bought Doc at least another year?

With this core, Clippers will always win 50-60 games, be one of the top 4 seeds. And maybe if the ball bounces right, break through against a second round opponent.

Sounds like Ballmer is pretty sentimental about the current team, including presumably the coaching and the player personnel, since he reportedly cried during the pitch to KD.

One criticism of Ballmer during his MS days is that he didn't lay the law down when strong-headed division chiefs fought against each other, possibly hampering their response to mobile, web search and other new markets where MS has fallen behind.

Unless the Clippers melt down under Doc, maybe Ballmer will keep him?

[nickhx2]

you're kidding, right? the guy who said that he cried was clearly joking. he's a fantasy sports columnist.

[wco81]

Hmm, well the guy has been known to get emotional.

[MartinToVaught]

Absolutely despise the whole "brain trust" in charge. The KD pipe dream distracted everyone from the fact that we have no cap space, we keep giving away picks like candy, and this franchise is sentimentally attached to players that will never win anything. While the rest of the league is improving, we will bring back Austin and Jamal, somehow get even worse at the small forward position and once again lose early in the playoffs.

[mttwlsn16]

I'd love to see Martin2Vaught as gm so we could all collectively bash him at once