What will it take for Ballmer to admit that the GM/Coach Doc experiment has failed?

[MartinToVaught]

yup. at least he didn't give his own son a large contract.

He tried to trade for his son at least twice, but the talks fell through and Indiana ended up acquiring him instead:

The Warriors received forward Al Harrington, swingman Stephen Jackson, forward Josh Powell and guard Sarunas Jasikevicius in a trade that disappointed some Clippers officials. Coach Mike Dunleavy had hoped to acquire his eldest son, team sources said, believing the former Duke All-American and third overall pick in the 2002 draft would have been a good fit because of his shooting range and high basketball IQ.

Last summer, the Warriors and Clippers were involved in discussions about a potential three-team deal that would have brought Dunleavy, in the first year of a five-year, $45-million contract, to Los Angeles, sources said. Because of salary-cap rules, a Dunleavy-Cuttino Mobley trade would have worked best for the Clippers, but the Warriors apparently weren't interested in that proposal.

http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jan/18/sports/sp-cliprep18

[MartinToVaught]

pretty sure i wasn't posting here during the mike dunleavy years, but my previous board transformed itself into a really toxic place that loved, more than anything, to hate dunleavy.

it's unfortunate too because i thought he did a lot to convince sterling to start changing his ways, one of them being to build the practice facility in playa del rey. imo he never really got credit he deserved from a lot of fans.

Changing Sterling's attitude on some things was the only positive impact MDSr made on this franchise. He was an awful coach and an awful GM, and his ego was as big as Doc's.

[k-lynch201]

Doc called you guys a legacy? What legacy? Getting ousted in round 2 or sooner 5 years in a row is a legacy?

At least the franchise is contending and you have arguable the best C in the league, but Paul has never even been to a conference finals, thats pretty sad, Dwight Howard led a less talented team to the finals.

Its going to be a painful road without some changes, Mavs fans know...mediocrity sucks. Best of luck this summer Clipperland.

[nickhx2]

lol what a clown

[Roscoe Sheed]

Doc called you guys a legacy? What legacy? Getting ousted in round 2 or sooner 5 years in a row is a legacy?

At least the franchise is contending and you have arguable the best C in the league, but Paul has never even been to a conference finals, thats pretty sad, Dwight Howard led a less talented team to the finals.

Its going to be a painful road without some changes, Mavs fans know...mediocrity sucks. Best of luck this summer Clipperland.

DJ is a good center but not the best. There are at least 3 centers better or as good as him

[Ranma]

I'm going to preface this post by stating I'm not saying that Vinny Del Negro would have gotten us over the hump towards a championship title. It was always clear to me that VDN was a stopgap coach before we could find someone better. Doc Rivers qualified as such a coach, but I thought he was overrated and not worth giving up a first-round pick and front-office powers. I was actually hoping for Stan Van Gundy, personally. I would have most definitely liked Brad Stevens but thought he was entrenched at Butler or at least the college scene as I was pulling for my alma mater, UCLA, to approach him at the time. I've previously mentioned Dennis Lindsey and Mike Budenholzer as a GM-coach combo as a more preferred opton since they were experienced from the Spurs organization.

Yes, I know SVG took a role of coach-GM in Detroit, but I suspect he only did so because Doc was given such an opportunity with the Clippers. I suspect he'd have been content with coaching Chris Paul and Blake Griffin with Neil Olshey armed with assets like DeAndre Jordan, Eric Bledsoe, and first-round picks. The question is more of whether he would have tolerated Donald T. Sterling as an owner.

What I'm proposing is that while Vinny would have led us to postseason failures himself, we'd at least have better draft picks and likely better players with Olshey doing the wheeling and dealing. However, Olshey jumped ship to Portland since Sterling didn't have the foresight to pony up the money necessary to secure him or even recognize him as our long-term GM. Even with another GM other than Doc, we likely would have some young players making improvements to help this team.

DJ would likely not have been as good a player that he is now, but we'd still be better off with at least some young players adding to our team and learning from experience and playing time. At the very least, we'd have more players to trade as assets. Doc Rivers has set records for postseason futility and hasn't gotten us beyond the second round of the playoffs despite the fanfare and expectations upon his arrival.

In the end, Doc not only didn't improve upon what Del Negro has accomplished for the Clippers as coach, but has also left us in a worse position than when he arrived. Not only have we not made any progress in the playoffs, but we're now lacking in present as well as future assets to try to improve this team. Thanks for nothing, Doc.

[madmaxmedia]

Yeah, my sentiments exactly. Whatever his failings as a coach, his performance as a GM has been much worse and has put us in a dead-end situation. Basically all Doc the GM has done is try to facilitate Doc the Coach, future be damned.

Even when we sign a free agent at little cost or risk (Lance), we end up giving up a 1st round pick to exchange him for a tired vet who ends up playing worse.

Amin Elhassan was talking about this in the morning. He said the Warriors have a couple of young guys who are playing significant bench minutes for them because they found and developed them. But that's impossible for the Clippers because they are horrible at doing this, which is why we end up in the situation we are in, which is spending more money every year for gradually diminishing returns with no way out unless we blow up the team or get lucky somehow (by lucky I mean acquiring more over-the-hill players like Carmelo.)

[JGOJustin]

The Doc Rivers 'bad GM' thing has been overblown.

Has he been great? No.

But has he been awful / bad? Not close.

People don't realize that filling out a roster when you have 3 players taking up basically the entire cap is hard. Finding marginal talent that can actually help you is hard. Finding talent at the end of the first or second round that can actually help you win now is hard man.

To that point, Getting ray felton, Cole Aldrdge, Mo Speights, Luc Mbah Amoute, for vet minimum / cheap deals are awesome plays. Flipping a late draft pick for a lotto pick who's young (Austin Rivers) is an awesome play. That's good work as a GM.

Where he's bad at is his scouting of the D-League as well as who he actually drafts when he does have a pick(s).

That boils down to an average GM, which I think Doc is. People are being overtly critical of a position that is notoriously hard.

[og15]

The Doc Rivers 'bad GM' thing has been overblown.

Has he been great? No.

But has he been awful / bad? Not close.

People don't realize that filling out a roster when you have 3 players taking up basically the entire cap is hard. Finding marginal talent that can actually help you is hard. Finding talent at the end of the first or second round that can actually help you win now is hard man.

To that point, Getting ray felton, Cole Aldrdge, Mo Speights, Luc Mbah Amoute, for vet minimum / cheap deals are awesome plays. Flipping a late draft pick for a lotto pick who's young (Austin Rivers) is an awesome play. That's good work as a GM.

Where he's bad at is his scouting of the D-League as well as who he actually drafts when he does have a pick(s).

That boils down to an average GM, which I think Doc is. People are being overtly critical of a position that is notoriously hard.

It's not easy, yes, but this isn't something limited to the Clippers, other teams have this issue too, but people are more annoyed at the wasted assets and short sighted moves. I agree, they've done a great job with minimum players, Luc, Cole, Speights, Felton, and even trading for Austin was good, but that gets over-ridden by the other moves.

--Screwing up the cap understanding and wasting a first round pick and a decent asset in Dudley just go clear cap space.
--Drafting CJ Wilcox, an old 6'4 SG who is a shooter and offense only when you already have Redick and Crawford (better off trading the pick)
--Giving the MLE to Hawes knowing he's slow footed, but wanting him to play hedge and recover defense.
--Using a first round pick and Matt Barnes to dump Hawes and acquire Lance Stephenson
--Acquiring Lance Stephenson while having Rivers and Crawford on the team, three players that obviously can't all work, which was something I an many others said in real time, this isn't hindsight.
--Acquiring Stephenson with no plan to move Crawford and change the team dynamic
--Trading Stephenson along with another 1st round pick for a 30 game rental of Jeff Green

All of those trades and moves add up. If Doc wasn't so obsessed with getting a stretch big man that he didn't ignore the other areas of Hawes game and went after another player. I liked the Hawes signing, but I had also been preaching for the team to stop playing hedge and recover because it was too tiring and the wings are too small to play as help defenders in the paint on the rotations. So I was assuming there would be a change to the defensive schemes. The players I liked in free agency were Shaun Livingston (MLE), Trevor Ariza (4 years / $32 million), Thabo Sefolosha (3 years / $12 million), James Johnson (2 years / $5 million), Al Farouq Aminu (minimum), Paul Pierce (2 years / $11 million), Patrick Patterson (3 years / $18 million), Ed Davis (minimum), PJ Tucker (3 years / $16.5 million), Jason Smith as the shooting big (1 year / $3.3 million)

Ariza obviously out of the price range, though a sign and trade could have been worked out. If the Clippers got someone different, the team has depth for a couple of seasons at a position. You would then keep the pick you used in the Hawes trade. You would then keep the pick you used in the Green trade. Having two extra future draft picks to trade increases the options the Clippers would have had in the trade market. So it all ties together to make the total worse than even just the isolated events.

[Quake Griffin]

The Doc Rivers 'bad GM' thing has been overblown.

Has he been great? No.

But has he been awful / bad? Not close.

People don't realize that filling out a roster when you have 3 players taking up basically the entire cap is hard. Finding marginal talent that can actually help you is hard. Finding talent at the end of the first or second round that can actually help you win now is hard man.

To that point, Getting ray felton, Cole Aldrdge, Mo Speights, Luc Mbah Amoute, for vet minimum / cheap deals are awesome plays. Flipping a late draft pick for a lotto pick who's young (Austin Rivers) is an awesome play. That's good work as a GM.

Where he's bad at is his scouting of the D-League as well as who he actually drafts when he does have a pick(s).

That boils down to an average GM, which I think Doc is. People are being overtly critical of a position that is notoriously hard.

It's not easy, yes, but this isn't something limited to the Clippers, other teams have this issue too, but people are more annoyed at the wasted assets and short sighted moves. I agree, they've done a great job with minimum players, Luc, Cole, Speights, Felton, and even trading for Austin was good, but that gets over-ridden by the other moves.

--Screwing up the cap understanding and wasting a first round pick and a decent asset in Dudley just go clear cap space.
--Drafting CJ Wilcox, an old 6'4 SG who is a shooter and offense only when you already have Redick and Crawford (better off trading the pick)
--Giving the MLE to Hawes knowing he's slow footed, but wanting him to play hedge and recover defense.
--Using a first round pick and Matt Barnes to dump Hawes and acquire Lance Stephenson
--Acquiring Lance Stephenson while having Rivers and Crawford on the team, three players that obviously can't all work, which was something I an many others said in real time, this isn't hindsight.
--Acquiring Stephenson with no plan to move Crawford and change the team dynamic
--Trading Stephenson along with another 1st round pick for a 30 game rental of Jeff Green

All of those trades and moves add up. If Doc wasn't so obsessed with getting a stretch big man that he didn't ignore the other areas of Hawes game and went after another player. I liked the Hawes signing, but I had also been preaching for the team to stop playing hedge and recover because it was too tiring and the wings are too small to play as help defenders in the paint on the rotations. So I was assuming there would be a change to the defensive schemes. The players I liked in free agency were Shaun Livingston (MLE), Trevor Ariza (4 years / $32 million), Thabo Sefolosha (3 years / $12 million), James Johnson (2 years / $5 million), Al Farouq Aminu (minimum), Paul Pierce (2 years / $11 million), Patrick Patterson (3 years / $18 million), Ed Davis (minimum), PJ Tucker (3 years / $16.5 million), Jason Smith as the shooting big (1 year / $3.3 million)

Ariza obviously out of the price range, though a sign and trade could have been worked out. If the Clippers got someone different, the team has depth for a couple of seasons at a position. You would then keep the pick you used in the Hawes trade. You would then keep the pick you used in the Green trade. Having two extra future draft picks to trade increases the options the Clippers would have had in the trade market. So it all ties together to make the total worse than even just the isolated events.

****! This post just made me

Emphasis on "this isn't hindsight."


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

[MartinToVaught]

By the way, just because GMing is hard doesn't mean there's any excuse for how badly Doc has mismanaged our assets. He insisted on getting full control over personnel even though he wasn't qualified at all. He demanded that responsibility. And the fact that he's used it recklessly with no regard for the CBA or the future of this franchise is his own fault and worthy of criticism.

When people praise him for minimum-salary signings, that's just reaching. We're a playoff team in LA. Of course we're going to get veterans for cheap. Any GM could do that here. When was the last time any of those signings moved the needle in any significant way? They certainly don't even begin to make up for Doc bungling every important decision since he took over.

[TucsonClip]

The Doc Rivers 'bad GM' thing has been overblown.

Has he been great? No.

But has he been awful / bad? Not close.

People don't realize that filling out a roster when you have 3 players taking up basically the entire cap is hard. Finding marginal talent that can actually help you is hard. Finding talent at the end of the first or second round that can actually help you win now is hard man.

To that point, Getting ray felton, Cole Aldrdge, Mo Speights, Luc Mbah Amoute, for vet minimum / cheap deals are awesome plays. Flipping a late draft pick for a lotto pick who's young (Austin Rivers) is an awesome play. That's good work as a GM.

Where he's bad at is his scouting of the D-League as well as who he actually drafts when he does have a pick(s).

That boils down to an average GM, which I think Doc is. People are being overtly critical of a position that is notoriously hard.

It's not easy, yes, but this isn't something limited to the Clippers, other teams have this issue too, but people are more annoyed at the wasted assets and short sighted moves. I agree, they've done a great job with minimum players, Luc, Cole, Speights, Felton, and even trading for Austin was good, but that gets over-ridden by the other moves.

--Screwing up the cap understanding and wasting a first round pick and a decent asset in Dudley just go clear cap space.
--Drafting CJ Wilcox, an old 6'4 SG who is a shooter and offense only when you already have Redick and Crawford (better off trading the pick)
--Giving the MLE to Hawes knowing he's slow footed, but wanting him to play hedge and recover defense.
--Using a first round pick and Matt Barnes to dump Hawes and acquire Lance Stephenson
--Acquiring Lance Stephenson while having Rivers and Crawford on the team, three players that obviously can't all work, which was something I an many others said in real time, this isn't hindsight.
--Acquiring Stephenson with no plan to move Crawford and change the team dynamic
--Trading Stephenson along with another 1st round pick for a 30 game rental of Jeff Green

All of those trades and moves add up. If Doc wasn't so obsessed with getting a stretch big man that he didn't ignore the other areas of Hawes game and went after another player. I liked the Hawes signing, but I had also been preaching for the team to stop playing hedge and recover because it was too tiring and the wings are too small to play as help defenders in the paint on the rotations. So I was assuming there would be a change to the defensive schemes. The players I liked in free agency were Shaun Livingston (MLE), Trevor Ariza (4 years / $32 million), Thabo Sefolosha (3 years / $12 million), James Johnson (2 years / $5 million), Al Farouq Aminu (minimum), Paul Pierce (2 years / $11 million), Patrick Patterson (3 years / $18 million), Ed Davis (minimum), PJ Tucker (3 years / $16.5 million), Jason Smith as the shooting big (1 year / $3.3 million)

Ariza obviously out of the price range, though a sign and trade could have been worked out. If the Clippers got someone different, the team has depth for a couple of seasons at a position. You would then keep the pick you used in the Hawes trade. You would then keep the pick you used in the Green trade. Having two extra future draft picks to trade increases the options the Clippers would have had in the trade market. So it all ties together to make the total worse than even just the isolated events.

I wont go into detail, because og did a great job already. However, I will say if you are the GM and you dont utilize EVERY opportunity, asset, and avenue to find role players/developmental guys who can either fit your system or improve upon it, then that is another detriment to the franchise and a red mark on your resume.

That is another problem with Doc. Look at the guys he has signed. Look where he gets his players from. He limits himself to guys "he knows" or guys he has seen up close. I dont think he has ever signed a guy out of the D-League, perhaps Cuningham in camp? He limits himself to what he knows and wont step outside his own box.

[og15]

He signed Jordan Hamilton, but the problem like you alluded to isn't that he never looked at the D-League, the problem is that we didn't sign enough of those guys in favor of going with older players who had zero potential and/or barely played and didn't have any impact. If a player is going to barely play, then it's better having a young guy who can develop into something than a 30+ year old guy who has reached his maximum production and/or is on the decline. The problem is that too often Doc went with the old over the young. Was Ingles necessarily better than Hedo in 14-15? No, but Hedo was 35 years old and on his last legs while Ingles was 27 years old. Was Lance necessarily "better" than Crawford? Some would argue yes, but his 14-15 season was horrible, and Crawford was definitely better, but Lance was 25 years old while Jamal was 35 years old.

Having Hedo's greater experience and consistency helps marginally, but that wasn't going to be the difference between your success in 14-15 vs not succeeding and it makes you have a lower future ceiling. I know there were some hard cap and salary cap issues related to the whole Ingles situation too, but that's the reality. Going with the status quo of Jamal leading the bench was familiar and it's fine, but that wasn't going to be the determining factor in your post-season success, and it limits your future ceiling.

Also Doc's constant complains about "oh the roster made it hard", etc, etc is exactly the highlight of the fact that he didn't have any GM experience. No GM in the league is complaining that Paul/Griffin/Jordan are taking up too much of their cap space. Whenever you have players who can win you 55+ games, they will likely take up most if your cap space. The other GM's would actually be salivating at how they can use the MLE, minimum contracts, draft picks (keeping or trading), and all their other assets, Dudley making $4-5 million, Jamal making $5-6 million, Barnes making $3-4 million, and even Redick making $7-8 million. Those are great assets for team building, so every time Doc complained about his lot, I wanted to smack him on the head.

[nickhx2]

Pretty much everything's been covered in the above posts, so i'm glad i don't have to do my word vomit thing on how terrible doc is. I want to point out that for me, the issue isn't so much the hits or misses in a vacuum, because that's not what a good GM is about. The issue is what tuscon said, when you don't utilize every single avenue of improvement, and instead keep mortgaging the future to reap marginal benefits, you're forcing your window shut far earlier than you would have.

Look at how doc approached youth and drafts overall. Think how much better this team would've been if we had kept ALL our draft picks. Didn't burn the first rounder to get rid of dudley, (who was a guy who very well could have been our glue guy had he been allowed to get healthy but that's besides the point). Actually used our draft picks to address needs or at least BPA instead of burning them on guys like wilcox (????). Didn't trade another first rounder and someone who might actually get better in lance for the biggest trashcan in the league, aka jeff green. Kept searching for younger talent because you know you have guys who are going to be aging. All that stuff adds up, because all it takes is hitting on just one or two of those guys to turn a 3 star roster into a 3 star roster + depth.

So instead of the garbo and horribly imbalanced bench we had this past season, we might actually have had playable guys who could have stepped up in the playoffs. Instead of praying that austin rivers is going to take it to the next level, and boy you better believe he's gonna be our last true hope with jj likely to go, we could be thinking about how rivers/brogdon/whoever might all be ready to contribute the next year.

All of doc's miscues added up and that's why this team is where it's at right now. You can't really blow it up because that's a stupid move, but there is so little room for forward progress and that's all on doc.

[JGOJustin]

Also too, for all of Doc's screws ups,

factually he built a roster that was up 20 in a closeout game in Game 6 against the Houston Rockets at home.

He factually built a team that should of beat the Thunder, Beat a really good Warriors team, Beat the Spurs, etc. He can't be that bad.

He factually has built a team that despite having one of, if not both of his best two players injured every year, they still manage to win 50+ wins. That's impressive.

In my personal opinion, ALL of you guys have made valid critiques of Doc as a GM and as a coach. But, if you look deep enough, EVERY gm has these transgressions. You're not going to find a team that makes the perfect moves. Fact of the matter is, is that we have a core that when healthy is reallyyy good.

So I guess my point is that, the Clippers being injured in the regular season, and having their best players having major injuries EVERY year that he's been at the helm has been a bigger culprit than doc's trangressions as a GM. Roster construction has little to do with Blake and CP having to miss regular season time, which causes losses, which forces a domino effect that doesn't allow for you to get higher than a fourth seed.

That's the name of the game. Blame. When we don't win, we have to blame someone, so I get it. But injuries in the regular season > Doc's ineptness as a gm. If we're winning 50+ games with Blake and / or CP missing time every year, then I have to believe that the rosters he's putting together year in and year out can't be that bad, and that injuries more than anything else have had the more dire effect on the outcomes of Clipper seasons under Doc.

[nickhx2]

If you wanna say he coached a team to series wins, that's fair. But it wasn't because he "built" those rosters, because that's not a fair assessment, or factual, as you say. You are trying to make it sound like it's inarguable that he constructed these teams, when in reality he didn't factually build anything. He inherited a team with 3 stars and a lot of surrounding talent and made moves off of that ever since. And since his inheritance, he's found ways to erode the surrounding depth, talent, and resources of the team to put it where it's at right now. A good GM supports his stars and finds ways to prop them up with appropriate talent via draft, free agency, scouting, trades, etc, and they use all options available to add to the team. Doc doesn't find ways to keep adding to the team year in and year out. Instead, he willingly lights his options on fire for shortsighted reasons. That's the whole point of why he's garbage: he's not only squandered the team's current options to improve, but in ways that you can't fix and ways that hurt the team short term and long term.

Even if you think the rest of his moves were good, all you have to do is look at the monumental blunder that was the dudley thing. That's one extra draft pick we didn't throw away to trade him, then also extra cap space we could have used because we weren't forced to waive/stretch the contracts of the guys from milwaukee in a critical year. We don't have hawes, who was putrid here and his MLE could've been used on someone who would have made the difference in the houston series. The following year we don't have to trade for lance stephenson, who eventually was traded along with another draft pick to acquire jeff green, who was meant to be the SF that dudley could have been all along. And even if dudley stayed but washed out, the amount of resources available to the team would have been so much stronger, but instead the team is STILL being affected by dudley thing years later.


Moreover, you're going further than that and trying to give him credit for almost beating teams we should've beaten to begin with lol. What??? I mean, if you want to frame it that way and say he "built" those rosters, then you can say he built a roster that sputtered out against OKC when we should have won. Or that he built a roster that ran out of gas against houston and peaked for 3 full games and 3 quarters. I'm just pointing out the flawed logic there, but if you really want to get into it his roster movements the houston year were absolutely atrocious as the team basically was playing a functional 6 man rotation in the playoffs.

We're talking about what a good vs average vs bad GM is. At the end of every season the outlook for this clippers team has looked worse and worse because its resources keep being used up and options at roster building keep dissipating as the core gets older. I would expect an average GM to make both good moves and bad moves but generally net positive at the end of each season. Or another way to look at it is an average GM should at least preserve a team's competitive window for as long as naturally possible by not doing anything to screw with the core or to make things worse on the core. But if you look at what doc has done, he's artificially been closing the window on this team's core because his overall moves are net negative all added up, and that's why he's a bad GM.

[MartinToVaught]

In my personal opinion, ALL of you guys have made valid critiques of Doc as a GM and as a coach. But, if you look deep enough, EVERY gm has these transgressions. You're not going to find a team that makes the perfect moves.

No, but other GMs have good moves to point to as well. Doc ONLY has the "transgressions." He has not made a single good draft pick or won any trades in his whole time here.

[QRich3]

I agree with every point of nick's post, fully.

But I can't seriously discuss anything about Doc with anyone that can't give him credit for stuff like finding Luc outta nowhere and converting into a capable starter with positive impact, or developing Blake, Austin, and specially DJ into much better players than they were before him, etc.

The bad outweighs the good, that's for sure, but to have any sort of decent discussion, you have to at least try to take that stuff into account. Otherwise it becomes cartoonish whining and screaming with not a lot of substance to it. And I get sports fandom is emotional and all that, but if that's all that happens in a message board, it becomes dead.

[nickhx2]

I agree with every point of nick's post, fully.

But I can't seriously discuss anything about Doc with anyone that can't give him credit for stuff like finding Luc outta nowhere and converting into a capable starter with positive impact, or developing Blake, Austin, and specially DJ into much better players than they were before him, etc.

The bad outweighs the good, that's for sure, but to have any sort of decent discussion, you have to at least try to take that stuff into account. Otherwise it becomes cartoonish whining and screaming with not a lot of substance to it. And I get sports fandom is emotional and all that, but if that's all that happens in a message board, it becomes dead.

I think it's important to separate doc the GM from doc the coach when discussing him, even though in reality the whole picture is blurred and a lot more complex of a subject. Plus he's actually still one actual human being, not two entities. But I think if I had to simplify it, it'd be easier for me to say that doc the gm has done more bad than good, and doc the coach has done more good than bad. Though again, it's definitely more complex than any generalizations provided.

[og15]

Haven't we been singing the Doc the GM vs Doc the coach tune since the 14-15 season. Doc the GM has been handicapping Doc the coach for some time, and if Doc the GM wasn't in the way of Doc the coach he would have actually given himself and the team a better chance of success.