Current Depth Chart

[illastrate]

My problem with him is it seemed like his "role" was to stand on the three point line and shoot it. He's not JJ, he should have been moving more. If he can't do that anymore, then it's time for him to go.

The way Doc relegated him to strictly a 3pt shooter was awful. Pierce is a smart player with a post game and a unique driving ability and Doc failed to optimize his skillset. Just seeing what he did months prior in Washington and what he became with the Clips drove me crazy.

[exculpatory]

My problem with him is it seemed like his "role" was to stand on the three point line and shoot it. He's not JJ, he should have been moving more. If he can't do that anymore, then it's time for him to go.

The way Doc relegated him to strictly a 3pt shooter was awful. Pierce is a smart player with a post game and a unique driving ability and Doc failed to optimize his skillset. Just seeing what he did months prior in Washington and what he became with the Clips drove me crazy.

THIS! **** spot on!

Paul shot the freaking lights out from EVERYWHERE for the Wizards at age 37 - and was a freaking clutch beast in the 2015 POs.
There is a freaking reason he has scored 26,316 points - SIXTEENTH ALL TIME!
Last year was an aberration at age 38.
Even at age 39 this coming season, he WILL be a very valuable asset in limited minutes for whoever he plays for.

[nickhx2]

your statement based on what factual evidence

i respect your fandom of the player but pierce wasn't out of shape and he cannot reverse time. pierce could have done a little more with different usage, sure, but there are some things he is just not getting back.

[og15]

My problem with him is it seemed like his "role" was to stand on the three point line and shoot it. He's not JJ, he should have been moving more. If he can't do that anymore, then it's time for him to go.

The way Doc relegated him to strictly a 3pt shooter was awful. Pierce is a smart player with a post game and a unique driving ability and Doc failed to optimize his skillset. Just seeing what he did months prior in Washington and what he became with the Clips drove me crazy.

Does the offense have room for Pierce to utilize his post game much? With the starters the best way he could utilize it is on switches or against mismatches, he got those. Running sets to get him in the post though, if Griffin is on the floor, it's a bit weird to be displacing Blake to the perimeter to put Pierce in the mid-post.

With the bench it seems like it would make sense, but remember that Pierce was playing PF most of the time, and at PF, Pierce's advantage is not posting up (also not even sure he has the quickness advantage there anymore)

Pierce can be utilized in mid-post if you play him at SF, but if you play him at SF, it is a problem defensively, and this is where the issue comes about.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc-0c4QhtaE[/youtube]

Look at the first three plays in this highlight video. Pierce was not moving like that as a Clipper. He also shot much better than 40.7% FG inside 3 feet in 14-15. Also we have to acknowledge that Pierce was very quick on the trigger from 3PT range. Situations where he would have put the ball on the floor as a Wizard, he would just shoot up the 3PT shot.

[illastrate]

My problem with him is it seemed like his "role" was to stand on the three point line and shoot it. He's not JJ, he should have been moving more. If he can't do that anymore, then it's time for him to go.

The way Doc relegated him to strictly a 3pt shooter was awful. Pierce is a smart player with a post game and a unique driving ability and Doc failed to optimize his skillset. Just seeing what he did months prior in Washington and what he became with the Clips drove me crazy.

Does the offense have room for Pierce to utilize his post game much? With the starters the best way he could utilize it is on switches or against mismatches, he got those. Running sets to get him in the post though, if Griffin is on the floor, it's a bit weird to be displacing Blake to the perimeter to put Pierce in the mid-post.

With the bench it seems like it would make sense, but remember that Pierce was playing PF most of the time, and at PF, Pierce's advantage is not posting up (also not even sure he has the quickness advantage there anymore)

Pierce can be utilized in mid-post if you play him at SF, but if you play him at SF, it is a problem defensively, and this is where the issue comes about.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc-0c4QhtaE[/youtube]

Look at the first three plays in this highlight video. Pierce was not moving like that as a Clipper. He also shot much better than 40.7% FG inside 3 feet in 14-15. Also we have to acknowledge that Pierce was very quick on the trigger from 3PT range. Situations where he would have put the ball on the floor as a Wizard, he would just shoot up the 3PT shot.

I know father time is undefeated, but it's hard for me to process that he completely lost his game in 6 months. He was hitting big shots and had nifty moves in May and all of a sudden, he's dead weight in November? The lack of post game at PF makes sense, but he should still be able to curl and come off screens.

[og15]

He certainly should, and he should also still be able to shoot better than 31% 3PT total, and MUCH, MUCH better than 29.0% on open 3PT shots, especially when he just shot 45.9% 3PT the previous season on open 3PT shots.

Him and Vince Carter had very, very similar declines in just a couple of months, down to the hitting big shots in the playoffs part. Vince being a year older had his from 13-14 to 14-15. I think it is possible for him to bounce back offensively, maybe I'm being naieve in that thought, but of course where to put him on defense is still an issue.

Father time strikes quickly though. Look at Duncan from 14-15 to 15-16, especially in the playoffs, it's night and day almost.

This is also what scares me about Jamal Crawford. He could actually come in next season and just be a high volume 50% TS guy.

13-14: 22.0 pts/36 | .556 TS% | 110 Ortg
14-15: 21.4 pts/36 | .532 TS% | 106 Ortg
15-16: 19.0 pts/36 | .529 TS% | 104 Ortg

His decline is gradual and a little less noticable, but it is there. Hopefully it doesn't continue next season. I don't want to see 18.0 pts/36 on 51% TS with a 102 Ortg or something like that. It would be very disappointing to be paying $14 million/year for that.

[Don Tommy]

He actually had some moments, inside the three point line, where it was the old PP. It came in stretches but he hit his weird turn around jumper a few times. I wish Doc would understand PP isn't the same player he was in 08. Jordan's game changed, Kobe changed his... both became more jump shooters... but not exclusively. If we had more action, more cutting, more movement in general, our shooters will be that much more open.

[QRich3]

He actually had some moments, inside the three point line, where it was the old PP. It came in stretches but he hit his weird turn around jumper a few times. I wish Doc would understand PP isn't the same player he was in 08. Jordan's game changed, Kobe changed his... both became more jump shooters... but not exclusively. If we had more action, more cutting, more movement in general, our shooters will be that much more open.

I don't know, I thought we had pretty good ball movement last year and that helped a lot in overachieving without Blake. The numbers back it up too, according to NBA.com stats we shot one out of every 5 shots wide open (with the closest defender being 6+feet away), that's 7th best in the league slightly over the Warriors and slightly behind the Cavs. Then we shot 31% of our shots with the closest defender being 4-6 feet from the shooter, most in the whole league in this distance, which means we are one of the teams who shot less contested shots (2nd behind only the Mavericks).

og already touched on this earlier, but Pierce was open in 59,4% of the shots he took, and he still only made 35% of those shots. He was just bad and there was no way to game plan around that that, the only way to hide it was to sit his ass on the bench, sad as it sounds. For some reason, opposing teams still respected him enough not to leave him wide open, so he still somehow worked as a decoy for spacing, but I don't think that's gonna continue this year. Hopefully he's out of the rotation altogether and we don't have to suffer through watching that again.

I also think that his play in Washington was overstated because of making a couple clutch shots in the postseason, he was decent (certainly better than what he's been here), but not really that great. The decline was already happening and it of course we had the luck that it got the steepest when he came here.

[Don Tommy]

I should have mentioned I was talking more about the bench play. This goes back to our anti - Jamal rants, where too often the bench (and even the starters) just watched. That was where i wanted more movement and more passing

[og15]

Well the bench has been the iso / pick and roll usually looking to score Jamal show for a while with the backup option of iso or pick and roll with Austin Rivers looking to score. It was alleviated a little bit last season with Pablo, and it could be this season with Felton if Doc can figure out a lineup combination that makes sense. Essentially with Jamal and Rivers the team realistically has two backup SG's because Austin is just not a PG.

So we're paying like $26 million for the backup SG position in reality.

[illastrate]

Bump for updated roster.