LA Clippers early offseason in review (HW/bondom34/dbrandon/Slava)

[nickhx2]

lol people still going on about that huh, ok

trade blake i guess

[og15]

Lawrence Frank has been moved to the front office and he will be taking a lot of that out of Doc's hands. You can learn more about it from the Redick podcast with Frank.

For the market, Wesley Johnson's contract was fine. There was a question of whether Johnson was better last season and I will say this, I don't think I've seem him commit to and be as impactful on defense any season in his career as he was last season.

He's still no stopper and his lateral quickness still doesn't really impress, but he really used his length and jumping very well on defense last season. He was here then I expected, I'll say that.

I'm not huge on Speights because of the defense part like a lot of you guys mentioned, not to mention his inefficient nature, so I like the Bass signing to balance it out. Still, there are a lot of players and vets needing minutes without enough minutes available, so that's going to be interesting.

[og15]

Ummmmm.....how does the 2nd seed belong to the Clippers? Are they even better than the Spurs? They certainly could be, but they aren't for certain. First, they need to have everyone healthy. That is no lock. They need to see no drop off from their guys, because it seems unlikely any of them will improve at this point in their careers.

I'd take San Antonio at this point, but not by a wide margin or anything.

And I agree with HW's general premise. The grade for this year is pretty good. The long term grade? Not very good at all.

Also, kudos to Jamal Crawford. I know for a fact the original offer he got from LA was insulting. Very insulting. Like unless you think he sucks so bad he should be out of the league insulting. Then he got an offer from Philadelphia for over $20 million and all of a sudden LA stepped up with the offer he eventually signed. So good on him for playing it well and getting more money and staying where he wanted.

I believe the offer was insulting because the team offered him a one year deal for I believe the same per year amount. So in terms of the one year amount, it was not bad, but he obviously wanted something more long term. It's a gamble to give a multi-year contract even with the non-guarantees for a now 36 year old who will be 37 years old close to the end of the season, has been gradually declining in efficiency the past three seasons, and who does a lot of scoring from isolation.

How so? What did the Clippers do to go from 14 games worse than the Spurs to overwhelming favorite over the Spurs?

Healthy Blake + Retired Duncan closes that gap significantly. I wouldn't say the 2nd belongs to either, but I won't be shocked if LAC edges them out. For now I listed SAS at 58 wins, and after having LAC also at 58 I went ahead and bumped them to 60 before posting it yesterday.

Idk. I don't think Duncan is worth 9 games, especially considering his regression to 25 minutes of good rim protector, solid passing, and not much else. His replacement and the much needed injection of youth to the Spurs should be able to replace his production even if the defense is worse. Plus, the clippers were not significantly better or worse with Griffin last year, I don't know if just having him back adds 7 wins to the Clippers. If they were to win 58 games than that would be the best season in this Clipper core's era. I think alot would have to go right for them to be better than they ever were.

Last year was probably the best depth / balance (offense and defense) the Clippers had had since Paul joined, but it took Doc a while to weed out guys like Josh Smith and also use Aldrich, then Blake missing a large part of the season didn't help. The Clippers won 57 games in 13-14, and that season Jared Dudley played the whole year with injury issues, Barnes the other SF also missed time, Paul missed 20 games, and then Redick missed most of the season (47 missed games). For the amount of injury the team had, 57 wins was very good, and if healthier, I never say "healthy" in the overall sense, because almost everyone gets banged up somewhat, but you can get banged up a little and you can get banged up a lot.

If they had for example, 72 games from Paul instead of 62, 75 games from Redick instead of 35, 70 games from Barnes instead of 63, and Dudley not limping around for the 74 games he played, that's a lot of extra player games / health where we could have seen that team win 59-60 games, 2-3 more wins.

This current team is more balanced than that team, both from Blake/DJ improving, and due to having better defensive potential, and they actually have more depth. That team wasn't bad with depth at the PG-SF, it was the other positions that were the issue, or even just having one nice backup PF/C for most of the season. The main bench guys were Collison/Crawford/(Barnes or Dudley). For most of the season, the main bench big was Ryan Hollins until Glen Davis was added later for about 20 games, and he was a decent enough option as a two postiion backup, so that's not bad.

Matt Barnes is the main loss in comparison to the 13-14 team as neither Luc or Johnson give enough balance of offense / defense like Barnes did even if he was not great at either. If those two guys could be merged into one player, it would be great.

Still, on the bench now it is Felton/Rivers/Crawford/Johnson/Bass/Speights. A lot of players, especially since I'm not even including Pierce and Anderson, maybe the Clippers will run an 11 man rotation or something, we'll see, but it's a good amount of options and depth that if they can maintain decent health, so 70+ games for Paul/Griffin/Redick, and DJ we're never worried about his health, then at SF you have Luc/Johnson/Anderson who can all bring similar overall impact, so if one misses some time it won't be detrimental, just plug in. At backup PG with Felton/Rivers, also if one misses some time, you can survive. At backup big, you have both Speights/Bass and some options to alter the lineups (go small) if one misses time, and maybe it opens an opportunity for B.Johnson. Lastly at backup SG, if Crawford misses time, Rivers can play SG, Anderson can play there, you can give Speights more scoring responsibility with the bench if you want to do that, etc...

So as long as the players don't drop like flies or anything (eg: Cousins doesn't hurt Redick and make him miss most of the season), this team should potentially win the most games in franchise history.

[og15]

I didn't address the SA vs LAC record part, but in terms of SA vs LAC in the regular season it will be up to who is healthier and who can be more consistent. SA year after year shows a lot of consistency which prevents them from losing more "easy" games then they should, and in terms of achieving a great record, that always helps. I certainly believe that SA could win more regular season games than LAC even though LAC might be a just as difficult or even more difficult to matchup against in the playoffs.

The 2nd seed would be nice for the Clippers though, but there's a high likelihood that the Clippers and Spurs are #2 and #3 and meet each other in the 2nd round assuming they get past whomever ends up at #6 and #7. I actually don't mind the matchup vs the Spurs, Paul tends to play well against them, and Gasol will not enjoy guarding the pick and roll.

Kawhi will get his, but Luc is a good defender to throw at him, and even Johnson can survive in terms of not getting destroyed.

DJ will probably end up guarding Aldridge with Blake on Pau in such a matchup and the goal will not be shutting Aldridge down, but making him take those contested fade away and if he has 9/20 nights for example, you can live with that

[Smitty731]

Ummmmm.....how does the 2nd seed belong to the Clippers? Are they even better than the Spurs? They certainly could be, but they aren't for certain. First, they need to have everyone healthy. That is no lock. They need to see no drop off from their guys, because it seems unlikely any of them will improve at this point in their careers.

I'd take San Antonio at this point, but not by a wide margin or anything.

And I agree with HW's general premise. The grade for this year is pretty good. The long term grade? Not very good at all.

Also, kudos to Jamal Crawford. I know for a fact the original offer he got from LA was insulting. Very insulting. Like unless you think he sucks so bad he should be out of the league insulting. Then he got an offer from Philadelphia for over $20 million and all of a sudden LA stepped up with the offer he eventually signed. So good on him for playing it well and getting more money and staying where he wanted.

I believe the offer was insulting because the team offered him a one year deal for I believe the same per year amount. So in terms of the one year amount, it was not bad, but he obviously wanted something more long term. It's a gamble to give a multi-year contract even with the non-guarantees for a now 36 year old who will be 37 years old close to the end of the season, has been gradually declining in efficiency the past three seasons, and who does a lot of scoring from isolation.

It wasn't. I have on very good sources that they offered him 2 years at no more than $6 million per year. When he balked, they offered him 1 year at the equivalent to the Taxpayer MLE. Crawford was all but gone to Philadelphia before the Clippers came back to him with the deal he signed.

[Gus Fring]

Healthy Blake + Retired Duncan closes that gap significantly. I wouldn't say the 2nd belongs to either, but I won't be shocked if LAC edges them out. For now I listed SAS at 58 wins, and after having LAC also at 58 I went ahead and bumped them to 60 before posting it yesterday.

Idk. I don't think Duncan is worth 9 games, especially considering his regression to 25 minutes of good rim protector, solid passing, and not much else. His replacement and the much needed injection of youth to the Spurs should be able to replace his production even if the defense is worse. Plus, the clippers were not significantly better or worse with Griffin last year, I don't know if just having him back adds 7 wins to the Clippers. If they were to win 58 games than that would be the best season in this Clipper core's era. I think alot would have to go right for them to be better than they ever were.

Last year was probably the best depth / balance (offense and defense) the Clippers had had since Paul joined, but it took Doc a while to weed out guys like Josh Smith and also use Aldrich, then Blake missing a large part of the season didn't help. The Clippers won 57 games in 13-14, and that season Jared Dudley played the whole year with injury issues, Barnes the other SF also missed time, Paul missed 20 games, and then Redick missed most of the season (47 missed games). For the amount of injury the team had, 57 wins was very good, and if healthier, I never say "healthy" in the overall sense, because almost everyone gets banged up somewhat, but you can get banged up a little and you can get banged up a lot.

If they had for example, 72 games from Paul instead of 62, 75 games from Redick instead of 35, 70 games from Barnes instead of 63, and Dudley not limping around for the 74 games he played, that's a lot of extra player games / health where we could have seen that team win 59-60 games, 2-3 more wins.

This current team is more balanced than that team, both from Blake/DJ improving, and due to having better defensive potential, and they actually have more depth. That team wasn't bad with depth at the PG-SF, it was the other positions that were the issue, or even just having one nice backup PF/C for most of the season. The main bench guys were Collison/Crawford/(Barnes or Dudley). For most of the season, the main bench big was Ryan Hollins until Glen Davis was added later for about 20 games, and he was a decent enough option as a two postiion backup, so that's not bad.

Matt Barnes is the main loss in comparison to the 13-14 team as neither Luc or Johnson give enough balance of offense / defense like Barnes did even if he was not great at either. If those two guys could be merged into one player, it would be great.

Still, on the bench now it is Felton/Rivers/Crawford/Johnson/Bass/Speights. A lot of players, especially since I'm not even including Pierce and Anderson, maybe the Clippers will run an 11 man rotation or something, we'll see, but it's a good amount of options and depth that if they can maintain decent health, so 70+ games for Paul/Griffin/Redick, and DJ we're never worried about his health, then at SF you have Luc/Johnson/Anderson who can all bring similar overall impact, so if one misses some time it won't be detrimental, just plug in. At backup PG with Felton/Rivers, also if one misses some time, you can survive. At backup big, you have both Speights/Bass and some options to alter the lineups (go small) if one misses time, and maybe it opens an opportunity for B.Johnson. Lastly at backup SG, if Crawford misses time, Rivers can play SG, Anderson can play there, you can give Speights more scoring responsibility with the bench if you want to do that, etc...

So as long as the players don't drop like flies or anything (eg: Cousins doesn't hurt Redick and make him miss most of the season), this team should potentially win the most games in franchise history.

So to me it seems that the Clippers for whatever reason have had trouble getting to 58 wins over the years. The Spurs on the other hand have gotten to at least 58 wins 4 of the last 6 seasons and one of those seasons they didn't get it was the lockout year. All I'm saying is that I wouldn't bet on the Clippers, who have never gotten to 58 wins, to finish above another team who usually gets to at least 58 wins and would have to be 10 games worse than last year to not get 58 wins. It's not impossible, but alot would have to go right for the Clippers and wrong for the Spurs just for the Clippers to finish a game ahead.

[Mich3006]

Love that PO for Austin Rivers in his contract year...

[Wammy Giveaway]

It's not impossible, but a lot would have to go right for the Clippers and wrong for the Spurs just for the Clippers to finish a game ahead.

And that is one of the reasons why I mentioned "good behavior" as one of their requirements to making the western conference finals. The Clippers seem to be in the media for all the wrong reasons. Every time they seem to do something impressive in hopes of getting good press, the trend reverses into the negative. Look at these:

1. Overcoming the Donald Sterling scandal, defeating the Warriors in a playoff series... then the Thunder controversy happened.
2. Overcoming the San Antonio Spurs in the 1st round... only to suffer a horrendous 3-1 collapse to the Rockets.
3. Overcoming the loss of Blake Griffin to injury mid-season... only to hear of a scandal that carried over into the 1st round loss to the Blazers.

The Clippers are simply guilty of wanting attention so desperately. They just want to be loved by somebody besides their fans. After all, they've been the perennial losers ever since they were owned by Donald Sterling, who helped Dr. Jerry Buss in buying the Lakers, which makes the Clippers a cursed team. The Spurs never do anything to get the attention of the media, good or bad. All they worry about is what their game means to the franchise and to their community. The players are well aware that they can be own worst enemy, so instead of playing for themselves, they play for each other for something bigger, and unbeknownst to them, it's usually been for the good of humanity. Take the 2014 championship, for example, which was won in the same year of the Donald Sterling scandal.

If the Clippers can just go about business as a basketball team, doing good for a change, and not do anything that would shame or embarrass themselves or the franchise, then they'll experience good fortune.

[Mylie10]

Marreese Speights per 36 numbers last season;

22 points, 10 rebounds, nearly 3 assists, and a block and a half. Those are great per minutes numbers. Value per dollar is through the roof. And he was beginning to really shoot the Hell out of the 3 ball. I think he was shooting 40 percent towards the end of the year. Also shoots free throws at 82 %.

[Johnstarks]

Context is important for speights though. He is the biggest gunner you'll ever see. 17 fga from 2s per 36?! Good lord... and hit a horrific 44%

He just comes in and guns long 2s he's pretty awful offensively. If he sticks to shooting the 3s he could find a niche in this league, otherwise his niche is gonna be end of the bench, vet minimum guy.

[TinmanZBoy]

Ummmmm.....how does the 2nd seed belong to the Clippers? Are they even better than the Spurs? They certainly could be, but they aren't for certain. First, they need to have everyone healthy. That is no lock. They need to see no drop off from their guys, because it seems unlikely any of them will improve at this point in their careers.

I'd take San Antonio at this point, but not by a wide margin or anything.

And I agree with HW's general premise. The grade for this year is pretty good. The long term grade? Not very good at all.

Also, kudos to Jamal Crawford. I know for a fact the original offer he got from LA was insulting. Very insulting. Like unless you think he sucks so bad he should be out of the league insulting. Then he got an offer from Philadelphia for over $20 million and all of a sudden LA stepped up with the offer he eventually signed. So good on him for playing it well and getting more money and staying where he wanted.

I believe the offer was insulting because the team offered him a one year deal for I believe the same per year amount. So in terms of the one year amount, it was not bad, but he obviously wanted something more long term. It's a gamble to give a multi-year contract even with the non-guarantees for a now 36 year old who will be 37 years old close to the end of the season, has been gradually declining in efficiency the past three seasons, and who does a lot of scoring from isolation.

It wasn't. I have on very good sources that they offered him 2 years at no more than $6 million per year. When he balked, they offered him 1 year at the equivalent to the Taxpayer MLE. Crawford was all but gone to Philadelphia before the Clippers came back to him with the deal he signed.

why the clippers did that? they should let Jamal go after they retained Austin... these two just don't have the synergy on court, Jamal is ball dominant iso player, Austin needs the ball in his hand to be a viable player... Jamal's presence hinders Austin's development...

[QRich3]

why the clippers did that? they should let Jamal go after they retained Austin... these two just don't have the synergy on court, Jamal is ball dominant iso player, Austin needs the ball in his hand to be a viable player... Jamal's presence hinders Austin's development...

Apparently there was a lot of pressure from the rest of the players on the roster to keep Jamal, and they caved cause having players discontent when 3/5 of your starting line up is about to hit FA is not a great idea. I disagree that Austin needs the ball in his hands though, I wanted Crawford gone cause he hurts the team on both ends, but Austin's ideal development would come playing next to a good playmaking PG imo, as we saw last year with Pablo. But yeah, playing next to Jamal completely kills Austin's development.

[og15]

Marreese Speights per 36 numbers last season;

22 points, 10 rebounds, nearly 3 assists, and a block and a half. Those are great per minutes numbers. Value per dollar is through the roof. And he was beginning to really shoot the Hell out of the 3 ball. I think he was shooting 40 percent towards the end of the year. Also shoots free throws at 82 %.

Yea, but what about efficiency? What about defense and rim protection? The Clippers will be running him as a backup C, so while he can score and he can rebound, that doesn't necessarily mean he'll be a great impact player. Of course no complaints at the minimum, so the value per dollar is great, a guy who can get hot and score in bunches is so nice to have on the bench and use as needed, but I question whether Speights can be a guy to rely on night in and night out as a consistent backup like for example Cole Aldrich was.

The consistency will be more important if he's going to be a regular rotation player as opposed to just a guy you test out, get a feel for how he's doing the night then play him or bench him based on that.

[og15]

why the clippers did that? they should let Jamal go after they retained Austin... these two just don't have the synergy on court, Jamal is ball dominant iso player, Austin needs the ball in his hand to be a viable player... Jamal's presence hinders Austin's development...

Apparently there was a lot of pressure from the rest of the players on the roster to keep Jamal, and they caved cause having players discontent when 3/5 of your starting line up is about to hit FA is not a great idea. I disagree that Austin needs the ball in his hands though, I wanted Crawford gone cause he hurts the team on both ends, but Austin's ideal development would come playing next to a good playmaking PG imo, as we saw last year with Pablo. But yeah, playing next to Jamal completely kills Austin's development.

I don't think I would say that Jamal "hinders" Austin, but I'm just not convinced that they are a beer good pairing, and I'm not a fan of the lineup imbalances that having both of them on the team tends to cause.

There's a reason Frank and Doc still went after Felton, and it is because they know Austin is a combo guard, and more to the SG than PG. He's closer to a guy like Avery Bradley than any guy who plays PG. So this means you have to do some lineup gymnastics to get minutes for all three guys and then for a guy like Wesley Johnson who as of now is the backup SF until further notice.

[BullyKing]

Ummmmm.....how does the 2nd seed belong to the Clippers? Are they even better than the Spurs? They certainly could be, but they aren't for certain. First, they need to have everyone healthy. That is no lock. They need to see no drop off from their guys, because it seems unlikely any of them will improve at this point in their careers.

I'd take San Antonio at this point, but not by a wide margin or anything.

And I agree with HW's general premise. The grade for this year is pretty good. The long term grade? Not very good at all.

Also, kudos to Jamal Crawford. I know for a fact the original offer he got from LA was insulting. Very insulting. Like unless you think he sucks so bad he should be out of the league insulting. Then he got an offer from Philadelphia for over $20 million and all of a sudden LA stepped up with the offer he eventually signed. So good on him for playing it well and getting more money and staying where he wanted.

I believe the offer was insulting because the team offered him a one year deal for I believe the same per year amount. So in terms of the one year amount, it was not bad, but he obviously wanted something more long term. It's a gamble to give a multi-year contract even with the non-guarantees for a now 36 year old who will be 37 years old close to the end of the season, has been gradually declining in efficiency the past three seasons, and who does a lot of scoring from isolation.

It wasn't. I have on very good sources that they offered him 2 years at no more than $6 million per year. When he balked, they offered him 1 year at the equivalent to the Taxpayer MLE. Crawford was all but gone to Philadelphia before the Clippers came back to him with the deal he signed.

Smitty, did you hear anything on the length of the deal that Philly offered? I'm trying to get a sense of how much of Colangelo's success this offseason was due to failed attempts at awful moves. Locking up Crawford on a 3 year deal would have been that.

[Smitty731]

I believe the offer was insulting because the team offered him a one year deal for I believe the same per year amount. So in terms of the one year amount, it was not bad, but he obviously wanted something more long term. It's a gamble to give a multi-year contract even with the non-guarantees for a now 36 year old who will be 37 years old close to the end of the season, has been gradually declining in efficiency the past three seasons, and who does a lot of scoring from isolation.

It wasn't. I have on very good sources that they offered him 2 years at no more than $6 million per year. When he balked, they offered him 1 year at the equivalent to the Taxpayer MLE. Crawford was all but gone to Philadelphia before the Clippers came back to him with the deal he signed.

Smitty, did you hear anything on the length of the deal that Philly offered? I'm trying to get a sense of how much of Colangelo's success this offseason was due to failed attempts at awful moves. Locking up Crawford on a 3 year deal would have been that.

1 year of $20+ was the last credible report. The idea from Philadelphia was to pay him a ton, give them a solid guard for a year and evaluate at the end of the season if he would be a part of the future there.

[QRich3]

I don't think I would say that Jamal "hinders" Austin, but I'm just not convinced that they are a beer good pairing, and I'm not a fan of the lineup imbalances that having both of them on the team tends to cause.

There's a reason Frank and Doc still went after Felton, and it is because they know Austin is a combo guard, and more to the SG than PG. He's closer to a guy like Avery Bradley than any guy who plays PG. So this means you have to do some lineup gymnastics to get minutes for all three guys and then for a guy like Wesley Johnson who as of now is the backup SF until further notice.

I think one kind of causes the other. If he doesn't get to do the things he can be successful at, if he doesn't get the ball at the spots that'd help him perform well, he'll never get the confidence necessary to improve significantly. He can improve his shooting, ballhandling, etc. on practice, but if he keeps playing in an unstructured unit where every other possession ends up in an isolation after a broken play, he'll have a hard time learning to do the things that can make him a good NBA player.

Stylistically, Bradley is a pretty spot on comparison, yeah. Obviously Bradley is a better player on both ends, but if Austin was used the same way Stevens uses Bradley, he'd improve quite a bit I think.

[BullyKing]

It wasn't. I have on very good sources that they offered him 2 years at no more than $6 million per year. When he balked, they offered him 1 year at the equivalent to the Taxpayer MLE. Crawford was all but gone to Philadelphia before the Clippers came back to him with the deal he signed.

Smitty, did you hear anything on the length of the deal that Philly offered? I'm trying to get a sense of how much of Colangelo's success this offseason was due to failed attempts at awful moves. Locking up Crawford on a 3 year deal would have been that.

1 year of $20+ was the last credible report. The idea from Philadelphia was to pay him a ton, give them a solid guard for a year and evaluate at the end of the season if he would be a part of the future there.

Ok, thanks Smitty, I guess that would have been fine. Though I don't really know why you'd need a year to figure out whether a 36 year old guard was part of the future.

[Mylie10]

Marreese Speights per 36 numbers last season;

22 points, 10 rebounds, nearly 3 assists, and a block and a half. Those are great per minutes numbers. Value per dollar is through the roof. And he was beginning to really shoot the Hell out of the 3 ball. I think he was shooting 40 percent towards the end of the year. Also shoots free throws at 82 %.

Yea, but what about efficiency? What about defense and rim protection? The Clippers will be running him as a backup C, so while he can score and he can rebound, that doesn't necessarily mean he'll be a great impact player. Of course no complaints at the minimum, so the value per dollar is great, a guy who can get hot and score in bunches is so nice to have on the bench and use as needed, but I question whether Speights can be a guy to rely on night in and night out as a consistent backup like for example Cole Aldrich was.

The consistency will be more important if he's going to be a regular rotation player as opposed to just a guy you test out, get a feel for how he's doing the night then play him or bench him based on that.

I think what you'll find with Speights is that he'll either really be on, or not so much. He did block shots at a rate of 1.5 per 36, so that's not the worst number you could find from a minimum contract guy. And he is known for taking charges (which can be maddening), but when it works will be helpful.

He rebounds at a good rate as well, which helps defensively.

As far as efficiency. He did struggle a bit from the midrange last season, but he increased his percentage from 3, and it will be more a part of his offense going forward. He really is an elite shooter from certain spots. He's just not the best finisher in the world. The previous year he shot nearly 50% overall. That's pretty good considering where he gets his shots from. Last season his minutes were inconsistent, and it affected him negatively. For you guys, he should have a much more consistent role based on necessity, and his minutes should increase. So I expect his efficiency to improve over last season.

He's still a high level free throw shooter, and with more minutes should find himself shooting more free throws. 22 points per 36 minutes is damned good. And when you facotr in the cost, its an amazing pickup. Anyone knocking him should be smashed.

[Mylie10]

Context is important for speights though. He is the biggest gunner you'll ever see. 17 fga from 2s per 36?! Good lord... and hit a horrific 44%

He just comes in and guns long 2s he's pretty awful offensively. If he sticks to shooting the 3s he could find a niche in this league, otherwise his niche is gonna be end of the bench, vet minimum guy.

No. I watched every game he played and you're just off. He didn't shoot it well from midrange, but part of that requires getting him the ball in the right spots. He will not be an end of bench guy, he is going to play a very important role for the Clips when you look at their depth chart. Also a strong rebounder per minute.