LACtdom wrote:MartinToVaught wrote:LACtdom wrote:You can hardly blame CP for his shortcomings in the playoffs.
Yawn. Same old, same old, CP3 being shielded from the same scrutiny that
all other superstars face, even though he has by far the worst resume of all of them.
I'm not shielding him. I'm saying that CP3 isn't the problem. Look at his stats, both individual and how he improves our team by just being on the court.
I can't think of any superstar outside of curry who could carry this trash team as much as CP has.
LeBron and Iverson single-handedly dragged teams to the Finals that were a lot worse than this one.
Are there better players than CP? yes but which ones can we realistically get? It seems much more feasible to keep CP3 and put him in a good system.
Everyone can't have the top of the top talent, that's just the reality, but I'll take a top player who puts his all out there on the floor and doesn't care about people liking him or anything else, but plays all out for his team every night. That's who CP is and what he does. Now does that mean he should be shielded from being traded? No, but criticism for the sake of criticism while sticking one's head in the sand to reason is stupid. Also winning in the NBA to an extent also about luck and timing.
Iverson is an awful example, he got to the finals when the East was extremely weak and relative to competition in the East he had a stacked roster. Plug in Vince Carter to Philly instead of Iverson and he makes the finals, likely Ray Allen from that season too. It's not a knock on Iverson it's just the reality of the competition. There's a reason those Philly teams did not have continued success after the talent level rose in the East and there's a reason Iverson barely ever got out of the first round most seasons in his career.
You can see that the examples we have are all players in the Eastern Conference, that is not a coincidence. Lebron is a great player either way, but if he spent his career in the West without not just "good enough" teams, but very good teams, he would not have as much "winning success" as he currently does despite being the same caliber player.
ClipsFanSince98 wrote:LACtdom wrote:ClipsFanSince98 wrote:
*Will not make us better now. CP3 will be 32 and is broken down every year in the playoffs, never has gotten a team past round 2 and you really wanna give him like 130 million over 4 or 5 years?
You can hardly blame CP for his shortcomings in the playoffs. I can't think of any superstar outside of curry who could carry this trash team as much as CP has. With CP on the court, compared to off the court, our offense goes from 30th to 1st so he clearly has a positive impact on our team. Has he made mistakes in the playoffs? Yes but so has everyone and if you expect 1 player to do EVERYTHING every game then of course he will come up short some nights. Not getting out of the 2nd round will never be a valid argument IMO.
I kind of want CP to be traded so then people like you will realise he wasn't the problem when we still can't get out of the 2nd round because we have a terrible coach / culture.
And to answer your question... Yes I would give CP a top 10 player, a max contract even at age 32 since he is in career form.
LMAO. CP3 has carried trash? He's actually had pretty stacked rosters in LAC outside of last year where the bench was atrocious. In 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016 most people considered the team pretty talent stacked. Not just in the sense of having another legit superstar next to him, but also an all star caliber player in DJ, borderline star in Redick and good role guys. I didn't say CP3 didn't perform. I said he's not a smart investment in the FUTURE. Unless you have Steve Ballmer logic and pay a guy for what he did in the past, it's dumb. CP3 will be 32, is injured every single year come playoff time and hasn't been able to get it done here or in New Orleans with very talented rosters many years.
On the other hand, calling the Clippers roster "trash" is way off. The team has had a very solid roster, but a solid roster with holes. The holes are not holes that CP can fix, he's maximized what he can provide for the team. He's not going to anchor your defense, he's not going to control the glass, and if you're asking him to contain wings that are 7+ inches taller than him, then there's a problem. If you're asking more from a 6'0 PG than what CP has done the last 4 playoffs (35 games) as a Clipper, 22 / 4 / 9 /.605 TS%, directing the team well, taking on difficult matchups on defense and doing his best, then you have a flawed team. This is not 22 ppg / 60.5% TS playing scrub teams or poor defenses (outsideo of Portland), this was vs Memphis (2nd Drtg), Golden State (4th Drtg), OKC (6th Drtg), San Antonio (2nd Drtg), Houston (8th Drtg), Portland (20th Drtg).
We see every regular season, people will be claiming that PG's like Lowry and Lillard have "surpassed" Paul and are better, then we get to the playoffs against tougher defenses and schemes and these guys are nowhere close to his performance.
Trading Chris Paul, trading Blake Griffin, none of that is going to "solve" having a flawed team. Do you know what will solve having a flawed team? Making solid moves consistently year after year. Not getting past the second round is irrelevant, it really means absolutely nothing about the caliber of a player or whether they are "capable" of doing it. KG got out of the first round once, missed the playoffs a couple of times then goes to the finals. Kevin Love hadn't made the playoffs then he got to play with Lebron in the East and went to the finals, good for him. Guys like Lowry and DeRozan could get to the ECF this season, does that mean those two are a better duo than Paul/Blake as they shoot 32% FG / 17% 3PT (DeRozan) and 32% FG / 16% 3PT (Lowry) in the playoffs? Maybe it's their intangibles of iso ball and the most stagnant clock wasting offense that must be pushing them forward.
The NBA isn't played in a vacuum. If you have a "stacked" team and others have equally or more stacked teams, then your stacked team is not an advantage in comparison, so it doesn't matter. The Clippers over the whole span have had the weakest two way wings in West when compared to the other WC teams for the past 5 seasons, that's been a problem. The Clippers have consistently had poor backup big men, that's been a problem. The perceptions of stacked people have of the Clippers has always included "and you have 6th man of the year Jamal Crawford", and all of us know that this means nothing for winning in the post-season. In addition people don't care about defense when they consider a teams talent, even offensively they just think of PPG, not even whether guys are efficient offensive players. Until this season the Clippers have not had the consistent defensive acumen needed to give yourself the best chance in the post-season and the defensive struggles have never been because of Paul not pulling his weight on the defensive end.