The Undefeated: Doc Rivers believes Clippers needed to shake up roster

[mkwest]

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Getting something in return for Chris Paul....

That was huge for us. But that was huge for him, too. It wasn’t like they were doing us a favor. One of the things that [Clippers executive vice president of basketball operations] Lawrence [Frank] said was that, ‘We were very light on our feet going into free agency.’ We knew exactly what was going to happen. We showed everybody the game plan. Other than getting [one other major trade] that would have taken us to a whole different level, we’ve gotten exactly what we wanted to get this summer.

Selling Blake on Re-signing with the Clippers

We showed him the model. We were prepared. We showed Blake the model exactly how it would look with Chris and without Chris. And Blake liked both. That’s why he signed. And Blake wants to be here. Blake started with the Clippers, and he wants to be a Clipper. He wants to end his career as a Clipper.

For me, that tells me our franchise is doing something right. When is the last time a guy said he wants to be a Clipper? And we have a great one. And I think that’s really cool.

The negative "chatter" regarding the "LA Pioneers shirt" with the likes of MLK Jr., Ali, JFK, Einstein, etc.

It’s a story that no one knows about. Those T-shirts are phenomenal. They really are. It wasn’t for anybody else. Those T-shirts have a special meaning to us. The players know exactly what they mean. Anyone else, we really don’t give a s— if they know what they mean or not.

[Ranma]

I'm surprised no one here mentioned it before, but below is the T-shirt graphic used during Blake Griffin's recruitment meeting. I actually like the design itself, but the sentiment and message is over-the-top. Like Ballmer's "hardcore" mantra, it comes off as overly contrived without actions backing it up IMO.

[esqtvd]

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The negative "chatter" regarding the "LA Pioneers shirt" with the likes of MLK Jr., Ali, JFK, Einstein, etc.

It’s a story that no one knows about. Those T-shirts are phenomenal. They really are. It wasn’t for anybody else. Those T-shirts have a special meaning to us. The players know exactly what they mean. Anyone else, we really don’t give a s— if they know what they mean or not.

Yeah, this is cool, a team in-joke. Adding Blake later was just part of the joke.

We know exactly what they mean. I wore that shirt all [season] without Blake and no one even noticed it. We put other guys on there at times. We moved guys around. I have shirts with other guys’ pictures on it. There is a special meaning for our team, and we’re glad that we just know.

Would you like to explain it?

Oh, no. It’s ours. We’re keeping it.

Doc's as PC as they come. If he's in on the joke it makes anyone who's acting offended look pretty tiresome.

[Quake Griffin]

Thought dude was talking about keeping the whole gang together? How he knew the media has written that the team needs to be blown up etc etc?

lol


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[MartinToVaught]

More BS from Doc. Fact is, if he was still in charge, he'd have given CP3 the fifth year and run the exact same team back again for more money. It was only a couple months ago that he was comparing our old team to the Stockton/Malone Jazz to justify clinging to the treadmill.

[JGOJustin]

Roster did need a shake up, but I would have kept Chris and gave him that 5th year.

To me, Redick, and Crawford were the "shake ups" that I would have done. Traded Jamal away, let JJ walk, and retool around the big 3. Paul is still incredible, and if the goal is a championship, then you're closer with him on the team.

That being said, as a fan I'd want Chris back but as a GM that decision is a not tougher.

[og15]

As much as I get on Doc about being a snake oil salesman, I don't think this is actually disingenuous this time. Even Doc couldn't justify bringing back the exact same roster without some "drastic" change. I believe they had a plan for shaking up the roster that included Paul, which was likely going to be something related to Carmelo, though it might have been something different, but moving on from Redick and trading Jamal, two of the teams top 6 guys in minutes were definitely changes that would likely have been made no matter what Paul's decision was. Also maybe if Paul had stayed they make a change as it relates to DeAndre Jordan. Of course Paul deciding he wanted to leave and both sides coming to that agreement forced a different shake up, and in the end, it is good. Sometimes your hand needs to be forced, but I think the issue here is that what Doc considered a shake up might have been different from what others are thinking of when they talk about a shake up.

[clips4ever]

Roster did need a shake up, but I would have kept Chris and gave him that 5th year.

To me, Redick, and Crawford were the "shake ups" that I would have done. Traded Jamal away, let JJ walk, and retool around the big 3. Paul is still incredible, and if the goal is a championship, then you're closer with him on the team.

That being said, as a fan I'd want Chris back but as a GM that decision is a not tougher.

Come on man giving CP that much money until he's 37 is just ridiculous. Completely handicaps our team for the future and there's not really much to go up from there. Now that we did that trade, we have the perfect balance of the present and the future, present being Gallo, Blake, DJ, Pat Bev while future being Dekker, Harrell, Johnson and even Evans and Thornwell later on. Now that there is no Crawford or Pierce Doc is forced to play those young guys. Spot on off season so far.

[JGOJustin]

Roster did need a shake up, but I would have kept Chris and gave him that 5th year.

To me, Redick, and Crawford were the "shake ups" that I would have done. Traded Jamal away, let JJ walk, and retool around the big 3. Paul is still incredible, and if the goal is a championship, then you're closer with him on the team.

That being said, as a fan I'd want Chris back but as a GM that decision is a not tougher.

Come on man giving CP that much money until he's 37 is just ridiculous. Completely handicaps our team for the future and there's not really much to go up from there. Now that we did that trade, we have the perfect balance of the present and the future, present being Gallo, Blake, DJ, Pat Bev while future being Dekker, Harrell, Johnson and even Evans and Thornwell later on. Now that there is no Crawford or Pierce Doc is forced to play those young guys. Spot on off season so far.

Again, while this is great logic, as long as CP doesn't decline, (Which is a valid concern, even though he's shown no signs of doing so) the team is "closer" to a ring with him here as opposed to not. What i'm saying I guess, is that I can see it both ways. It isn't ideal to give him a deal like such, it's kind of the nature of the business if you're trying to win a chip. There's no guarantee that our roster now, and in the coming years will be as good as it was with CP.

[Ranma]

I've notably argued against giving Chris Paul that 5th year, while acknowledging if push came to shove, I'd likely acquiesce. I was less agreeable to including a no-trade clause in that case. Based on the signals of the Jerry West introduction press conference, I thought DeAndre Jordan was the key piece of the shakeup. It was a forgone conclusion that J.J. Redick would be gone given his anticipated price tag and our salary-cap limitations. We all wanted Jamal Crawford gone but Doc had been trying to deal him away for years and even backed away from that to quell a slight players revolt. It's funny because with Jamal's team option being only guaranteed for $3 million for 2018-19 and Ballmer's ability and willingness to cover such cash, his contract became an attractive expiring asset in effect. His play on the court, of course, was a different matter.

In hindsight, I noticed how West referred to him being a fan of Chris Paul but then saying something along the lines of "I know they (the organization) like him quite a bit", but at the time, he also didn't include DeAndre Jordan in the discussion of retaining key players other than to say something about not wanting to lose assets for nothing. Despite Lawrence Frank's denials, it was reported that the team was indeed shopping Jordan around.

og15 is right in that we were headed for a shake-up of some kind, anyway. As was pointed out, even Doc made such statements during the season, but the Chris Paul trade demand possibly forced the Clippers into pivoting in a certain direction when it was already charting a different course. Blake Griffin was also taking meetings with other teams before we suddenly agreed to give him that 5th year on his max deal, so it can be argued that the team was also prepared to possibly lose him instead of Paul.

It seems obvious to me that CP3's decision was the catalyst that prompted the organization to do a course correction or follow-through on its plan already in place to shake up the roster.

[og15]

Roster did need a shake up, but I would have kept Chris and gave him that 5th year.

To me, Redick, and Crawford were the "shake ups" that I would have done. Traded Jamal away, let JJ walk, and retool around the big 3. Paul is still incredible, and if the goal is a championship, then you're closer with him on the team.

That being said, as a fan I'd want Chris back but as a GM that decision is a not tougher.

Come on man giving CP that much money until he's 37 is just ridiculous. Completely handicaps our team for the future and there's not really much to go up from there. Now that we did that trade, we have the perfect balance of the present and the future, present being Gallo, Blake, DJ, Pat Bev while future being Dekker, Harrell, Johnson and even Evans and Thornwell later on. Now that there is no Crawford or Pierce Doc is forced to play those young guys. Spot on off season so far.

Again, while this is great logic, as long as CP doesn't decline, (Which is a valid concern, even though he's shown no signs of doing so) the team is "closer" to a ring with him here as opposed to not. What i'm saying I guess, is that I can see it both ways. It isn't ideal to give him a deal like such, it's kind of the nature of the business if you're trying to win a chip. There's no guarantee that our roster now, and in the coming years will be as good as it was with CP.

Let's add to that just a little bit, the team is closer to a ring if they brought Paul back, AND made other moves similar to the moves they made this off-season. If they brought Paul back and still had the defense only SF's who during the playoffs got ignored on offense, and still gave Jamal the 5th most minutes on the team and relied on him, etc, etc. Sure, the team is still better, but it certainly is not a good trajectory to actually making any significant push towards winning it all.

Now, I did have the expectation that they would make more moves than just signing Paul and bringing everyone back if he stayed, Redick coming back just didn't make financial sense at his price. They might have gone after Carmelo, but maybe they go after Gallo still somehow as it doesn't look like Denver made much of an effort to re-sign him. It was mentioned that they showed Blake both the projections with and without Paul and he was agreeable to both scenarios, but in the end it happened how it happened and we'll just have to move forward from it.

Paul leaving from his perspective makes sense. We love Blake, and he's our guy, and I'm going to put homer glasses on and say he will play 70+ games moving forward, but let's just be real here, the past is the best predictor of the future, so it's understandable for people to not expect that. Paul hasn't actually had a second star with him for the majority of the last two seasons. 15-16, Paul got injured in the playoffs, so fine, can't really complain much there, but that regular season, he was the one that carried the team to 53 wins, and they could have won 54-55 games if Doc didn't put in some scheduled DNP-Rest at the end of the season. This past season, regular season he got injured, sure, but Blake missed just as many games, and 2.5 games into the playoffs he was the lone star again.

I don't think people are putting the puzzle pieces together on this aspect, but James Harden has averaged 81 games / season over the last three seasons and has not missed a playoff game. It's not all about talent, it's likely a lot about the fact that even if the Clippers did offer that 5th year, and who knows, maybe it was on the table, maybe they were asking him to take a little less and get year 5. Even if they could have come to a contract situation that would work both ways, there's still a much higher chance of him having to carry the team in the regular season and/or playoffs by himself playing with Blake, while at least historically, with Harden, he will almost surely have his other star player with him basically all season. This is also with him knowing that he has had some injury issues, and Harden's health means even if he goes down he has a guy that can win at a 55 win pace without him on the floor. So when him and Doc and everyone else is saying "he wanted to play with Harden", I don't think people are connecting the dots as it relates to health.

[JGOJustin]

Well the thing with me is that,

I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water. The Clippers even last year, were still spectacular when healthy. What you needed help with, was the surrounding parts of the big 3. Those 3 were fine.

Having Jamal Crawford and Redick being so important to our rotation? Not fine. Having Luc playing starter's minutes? Not fine.

The issue is, is that I genuinely don't know how we could have upgraded these areas of concern if we bring CP back. BUT, all in all, if the goal is a championship, then I probably do bring him back because he's just overwhelmingly good and try and get creative in FA.

[og15]

Well the thing with me is that,

I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water. The Clippers even last year, were still spectacular when healthy. What you needed help with, was the surrounding parts of the big 3. Those 3 were fine.

Having Jamal Crawford and Redick being so important to our rotation? Not fine. Having Luc playing starter's minutes? Not fine.

The issue is, is that I genuinely don't know how we could have upgraded these areas of concern if we bring CP back. BUT, all in all, if the goal is a championship, then I probably do bring him back because he's just overwhelmingly good and try and get creative in FA.

Well based on the outcome now, we know that the Clippers offered a plan that was very likely much more than just "we'll bring everyone back and see what happens". We don't know exactly what the plan was if Paul stayed, but they obviously had something, and they proposed it to Paul and Paul made the decision that it was time to go a different direction. The important thing you said there is "if healthy". Paul has had his own issues with health, but the last three seasons he's been far more healthy than Griffin. In all the interviews, he keeps saying "Harden will help me too", and the reality is that a primary reason he likely wanted to try a different route is that sure, if healthy they can do this or that in the regular season, and position themselves for this or that in the post-season, but he's 32 years old, he doesn't have the luxury of many more seasons playing at a similar level. If there's a significant injury again next season to Blake, RS or worse, post-season, that is a big deal, and how many more years can he wait for a healthy team? All I see is a situation where he's taking the more sure route when it comes to health and having help from his co-star, and that's fine, that's a decision he is allowed to make. That's a decision that even made many Clippers fans happy, and that's a decision that has at least forced the hand of the front office.

[esqtvd]

Well the thing with me is that,

I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water. The Clippers even last year, were still spectacular when healthy. What you needed help with, was the surrounding parts of the big 3. Those 3 were fine.

Having Jamal Crawford and Redick being so important to our rotation? Not fine. Having Luc playing starter's minutes? Not fine.

The issue is, is that I genuinely don't know how we could have upgraded these areas of concern if we bring CP back. BUT, all in all, if the goal is a championship, then I probably do bring him back because he's just overwhelmingly good and try and get creative in FA.

Well based on the outcome now, we know that the Clippers offered a plan that was very likely much more than just "we'll bring everyone back and see what happens". We don't know exactly what the plan was if Paul stayed, but they obviously had something, and they proposed it to Paul and Paul made the decision that it was time to go a different direction. The important thing you said there is "if healthy". Paul has had his own issues with health, but the last three seasons he's been far more healthy than Griffin. In all the interviews, he keeps saying "Harden will help me too", and the reality is that a primary reason he likely wanted to try a different route is that sure, if healthy they can do this or that in the regular season, and position themselves for this or that in the post-season, but he's 32 years old, he doesn't have the luxury of many more seasons playing at a similar level. If there's a significant injury again next season to Blake, RS or worse, post-season, that is a big deal, and how many more years can he wait for a healthy team? All I see is a situation where he's taking the more sure route when it comes to health and having help from his co-star, and that's fine, that's a decision he is allowed to make. That's a decision that even made many Clippers fans happy, and that's a decision that has at least forced the hand of the front office.

I wonder if Chris had agreed to stay, whether the Clips would have offered Blake the full max. After CP bailed, you're looking at the abyss, so you don't chisel around the edges, you give Blake the full-on love bomb and keep him off the open market. But with CP in the stable, maybe you try to make a smarter deal, and if Blake leaves, so be it--you have the money to re-shuffle the deck around Chris.

[FTR, Stockton and Nash were highly effective through age 35+. I was never worried about maxxing Chris. Blake is a bigger risk.]

Frankly, I was quite ready to see DJ go last summer and start the "re-tool". You just don't need a center soaking up max $$, esp this one. But Blake and JJ made a big push, and once DJ came crawling back, you just couldn't turn your back on him and still pretend it's a family.

But I suspect Doc and CP were But what could Doc do? DJ called Doc's family! And CP was being painted as the reason DJ wanted to leave in the first place! And DJ's mother!

So, in the end Chris bailed. None of this was of his making. And I'm sure in his heart of hearts, Doc would rather have Chris instead of Blake and DJ [and of course JJ]. But today's NBA has a lot of junior high in it, and this is how it all played out.

Gotta add in closing, James Harden's transformation into Oscar Robertson was stunning. If I'm Chris, a natural Butch Cassidy, I'm thinking maybe I've finally found my Sundance. And if they can knock off the Dubs together, that's everything Durant didn't do.

[illastrate]

As much as I get on Doc about being a snake oil salesman, I don't think this is actually disingenuous this time. Even Doc couldn't justify bringing back the exact same roster without some "drastic" change. I believe they had a plan for shaking up the roster that included Paul, which was likely going to be something related to Carmelo, though it might have been something different, but moving on from Redick and trading Jamal, two of the teams top 6 guys in minutes were definitely changes that would likely have been made no matter what Paul's decision was. Also maybe if Paul had stayed they make a change as it relates to DeAndre Jordan. Of course Paul deciding he wanted to leave and both sides coming to that agreement forced a different shake up, and in the end, it is good. Sometimes your hand needs to be forced, but I think the issue here is that what Doc considered a shake up might have been different from what others are thinking of when they talk about a shake up.

Doc was prepared to bring back CP, and the shakeup in this case would've been one involved Melo and not much else. Depth still would've been an issue. They wouldn't have a 1st to nab Gallo. The return from Houston really was a blessing in disguise. Hell, they almost got Bradley as well, which would've made it an A+ summer given the circumstances.