What are your guys thoughts on Austin Rivers?

[nickhx2]

i think there was but at a certain point it became pretty clear that keeping all of jordan, blake, paul, and redick would be ridiculously expensive because of tax penalties. we might have tried to keep jj, but once paul was gone that was it for jj as well. it certainly didn't help that joe ingles ruined him on both ends in the playoffs.

JJ was never being kept. In his podcast and the video he made, he said the Clippers did not contact him all free agency until he got his "break up" call from Lawrence Frank. JJ also kind of said he assumed this would happen after both Jamal and Austin were brought back and he realized that the team probably didn't want to put like $40 million into 3 SG's.

___

Austin is a mediocre player who went from a terrible finisher and useless outside shooter to an actually pretty decent finisher, and above average 3PT shooter. He's a little small at SG, but more so strength wise. He's only 6'4, but he has good length, so he can keep up in that regard. He also started competing on defense his last season with New Orleans and into being a Clipper, so while he still has faults there, he competes on that end.

I can't agree with the China comments, the reason is that I've seen worse lottery picks (even non lottery picks) get multiple chances while not producing any better at the same stage. That is one thing about the NBA, if you are a lottery pick, you will get a good amount of chances before you get tossed out. Some lottery bound team with availability will pick up a guy like Austin in the waiver wire, or whatever for cheap. A team like Philly or even the Knicks, and he would be able to tag on for the minimum. Look, Wesley Johnson has survived through the NBA on having physical tools and being a former lottery pick. Jimmer Fredette kept getting chances over and over. Thomas Robinson, picked up over and over again. Even if he went to the D-League, he would destroy the D-League, then someone would pick him up, so I don't really think there's any value in hanging on to the whole "he would be in China" thing. There are just easily worse players in the NBA who are even older. The combination of age and pick status would easily have kept Austin in the NBA.

yeah i more mean the assumed thing was to keep them, but at some point the reality of roster construction did hit the team and it was untenable. as far as the other thing, i guess it speaks for itself, but i was more thinking they at least reconsider if chris paul stays.

[nickhx2]

lol nick killed the thread just as it started

Fully agree with his assessment, down to the annoying personality, and I will say he greatly regressed on defense last year, just as he was improving on offense. He was a lot lazier and disinterested on that end, but I'm cool with it cause he was still making improvements where he was weaker (shooting, off ball awareness). But he can play very good defense in stretches, so it's just a matter of putting it all together consistently, which I don't doubt he will, seeing his workrate and how he's progressed so far.

About his advanced stats... most people don't understand how to read advanced stats and think a negative number means he's just a bad player, and it doesn't really work like that. Boxscore "advanced stats" (VORP, BPM, PER and the sort) are not very useful for me cause they're more focused on showing productivity than quality. And even then, they only measure a bunch of areas that are only a small part of the game. Adjusted +/- stats can be very useful, but using them as a hard ranking of the quality of the players is equally useless. They tend to show how well a team performs when a player is on the court, so they're very influenced by said player's role. That's why, even in stats that adjust for teammates and opponents, you have guys like Javale McGee go from one of the one the worst players in the league to one of the best in one year, as soon as he has a defined role on a good team. Or Jae Crowder go from bottom of the league, to middle pack, to top ten in the whole league, as he gets comfortable with his role.

Austin has a bunch of defined above average qualities in some of the most important aspects of the game, but with Jamal and Redick here, he hasn't had a defined role that suits his skills. So, becoming a good player according to those stats is just a matter of time to put it together and having an properly established role. It's hard to argue anything about him with someone that can't see that. And usually, guys who even use the word "nepotism" are more interested in drama than basketball anyway, so not even worth it.

Now about his role on the current Clippers, I would've loved him as the bench SG if we had made the Lou Williams for Avery Bradley trade, how great would that have been. But as is, with Lou on the roster, I'd trade him for a guy that can play the role we need with the starters, the role Bradley would've played. I'm not comfortable with our SG rotation being Rivers and Williams. Even when he's one the few good young players we have. I go back and forth with the idea of trading him for Courtney Lee, as Austin should be a better asset being young and safe to keep improving, and Lee has a longer and more expensive contract than I like. But the fit would be so much better.

oh yeah he definitely regressed on D compared to his previous year but on balance it was worth the other areas of his game improving, so i'm with you there.

i think your part on advanced metrics wrt to austin pretty much captures all the issues with that. everything requires context, but then you have more than a few knuckleheads who can't see the forest for the trees. in the right place and in the right role he'd look a lot better than as a guy having to share offensive touches with crawford and defensive space with crawford/pierce, while playing undersized and out of position.

but ya, people will quote advanced stats to look bad while having barely seen him play or knowing the context. or like the case of a guy on GB, quote his record as a starter compared to chris paul's record as a starter lol...


did wanna add one thing: this whole business about austin rivers being out of the league or not having a chance without his dad? one of the most absurd and ridiculous things that is repeated about him. og captured all of why already, but imo move on from it because it's just so wildly illogical. if you're gonna hate on austin rivers hate him because you don't like his personality or his haircut or the way he speaks. but not because he was given a second life, so to speak. this is the NBA where people get MULTIPLE chances to come back and sometimes they actually do.

[og15]

i think there was but at a certain point it became pretty clear that keeping all of jordan, blake, paul, and redick would be ridiculously expensive because of tax penalties. we might have tried to keep jj, but once paul was gone that was it for jj as well. it certainly didn't help that joe ingles ruined him on both ends in the playoffs.

JJ was never being kept. In his podcast and the video he made, he said the Clippers did not contact him all free agency until he got his "break up" call from Lawrence Frank. JJ also kind of said he assumed this would happen after both Jamal and Austin were brought back and he realized that the team probably didn't want to put like $40 million into 3 SG's.

___

Austin is a mediocre player who went from a terrible finisher and useless outside shooter to an actually pretty decent finisher, and above average 3PT shooter. He's a little small at SG, but more so strength wise. He's only 6'4, but he has good length, so he can keep up in that regard. He also started competing on defense his last season with New Orleans and into being a Clipper, so while he still has faults there, he competes on that end.

I can't agree with the China comments, the reason is that I've seen worse lottery picks (even non lottery picks) get multiple chances while not producing any better at the same stage. That is one thing about the NBA, if you are a lottery pick, you will get a good amount of chances before you get tossed out. Some lottery bound team with availability will pick up a guy like Austin in the waiver wire, or whatever for cheap. A team like Philly or even the Knicks, and he would be able to tag on for the minimum. Look, Wesley Johnson has survived through the NBA on having physical tools and being a former lottery pick. Jimmer Fredette kept getting chances over and over. Thomas Robinson, picked up over and over again. Even if he went to the D-League, he would destroy the D-League, then someone would pick him up, so I don't really think there's any value in hanging on to the whole "he would be in China" thing. There are just easily worse players in the NBA who are even older. The combination of age and pick status would easily have kept Austin in the NBA.

yeah i more mean the assumed thing was to keep them, but at some point the reality of roster construction did hit the team and it was untenable. as far as the other thing, i guess it speaks for itself, but i was more thinking they at least reconsider if chris paul stays.

I think with all the talk of needing to make a change, Redick was one of the planned changes from the beginning. Moving on from Redick that is, being bigger on the wing, etc.

So even if Paul had returned, which they were hoping / expecting for a while and still didn't reach out to Redick, so they decided pretty early that they wouldn't bring him back. Of course they also might have thought the market for him would be higher than it was, but with everyone overspending last off-season and the cap increase not working like they expected, his market for multiple years was in the $8M/year range.

[esqtvd]

i think there was but at a certain point it became pretty clear that keeping all of jordan, blake, paul, and redick would be ridiculously expensive because of tax penalties. we might have tried to keep jj, but once paul was gone that was it for jj as well. it certainly didn't help that joe ingles ruined him on both ends in the playoffs.

JJ was never being kept. In his podcast and the video he made, he said the Clippers did not contact him all free agency until he got his "break up" call from Lawrence Frank. JJ also kind of said he assumed this would happen after both Jamal and Austin were brought back and he realized that the team probably didn't want to put like $40 million into 3 SG's.

___

Austin is a mediocre player who went from a terrible finisher and useless outside shooter to an actually pretty decent finisher, and above average 3PT shooter. He's a little small at SG, but more so strength wise. He's only 6'4, but he has good length, so he can keep up in that regard. He also started competing on defense his last season with New Orleans and into being a Clipper, so while he still has faults there, he competes on that end.

I can't agree with the China comments, the reason is that I've seen worse lottery picks (even non lottery picks) get multiple chances while not producing any better at the same stage. That is one thing about the NBA, if you are a lottery pick, you will get a good amount of chances before you get tossed out. Some lottery bound team with availability will pick up a guy like Austin in the waiver wire, or whatever for cheap. A team like Philly or even the Knicks, and he would be able to tag on for the minimum. Look, Wesley Johnson has survived through the NBA on having physical tools and being a former lottery pick. Jimmer Fredette kept getting chances over and over. Thomas Robinson, picked up over and over again. Even if he went to the D-League, he would destroy the D-League, then someone would pick him up, so I don't really think there's any value in hanging on to the whole "he would be in China" thing. There are just easily worse players in the NBA who are even older. The combination of age and pick status would easily have kept Austin in the NBA.

Well, two arguments in favor of that is that Reggie Bullock's somehow still in the league, and Orlando even gave us a 2nd-rounder for CJ Wilcox. As it turned out, Bullock plus a 2nd-rounder down in the 50s was one of Doc's best deals ever. Austin has been the least of our problems.

Rorschach test.

[Ranma]

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[Galloisdaman]

Woah woah woah. You guys gave me a lot to think about. I didn't know there were such polarized positions on Rivers as a player but I guess I should have expected some based on his last name. He did not blow me away in the few times I saw him play BUT they were very few so not enough to make a proper evaluation.

[Galloisdaman]

He looked great in some of those clips but I know highlight clips can be somewhat deceiving at times.

I will say I'm surprised he is not a better free throw shooter. As a coaches son I figured he would be big on the fundamentals of the game. My hope is that with Paul gone Rivers can really step up and show why he was drafted so high.

[Neddy]

He looked great in some of those clips but I know highlight clips can be somewhat deceiving at times.

I will say I'm surprised he is not a better free throw shooter. As a coaches son I figured he would be big on the fundamentals of the game. My hope is that with Paul gone Rivers can really step up and show why he was drafted so high.

Austin's got one of the ugliest fundamentals in terms of shooting mechanics. Blake has worked at FTs now, but he too absolutely sucked at it when he came out to pros. they both have coach dads. I don't think having your father as your coach means what it used to. rather than have your coach at home to correct your mistakes and work on your weakness, it seems that coach dads simply pull a AAU team together to showcase their sons, a la LaVar.

[Galloisdaman]

He looked great in some of those clips but I know highlight clips can be somewhat deceiving at times.

I will say I'm surprised he is not a better free throw shooter. As a coaches son I figured he would be big on the fundamentals of the game. My hope is that with Paul gone Rivers can really step up and show why he was drafted so high.

Austin's got one of the ugliest fundamentals in terms of shooting mechanics. Blake has worked at FTs now, but he too absolutely sucked at it when he came out to pros. they both have coach dads. I don't think having your father as your coach means what it used to. rather than have your coach at home to correct your mistakes and work on your weakness, it seems that coach dads simply pull a AAU team together to showcase their sons, a la LaVar.

If a guard wants big minutes especially ball handling duties late in games he really needs to be able to hit FT's. Hopefully Austin works on that this summer.

[JGOJustin]

He's become a really good shooter. 38% on 3's, even better on spot ups, and shot over 40% on 3's in 29 games a starter.

For reference, KCP just signed a 23 Million dollar deal to be the starting 2 for the Lakers and he wasn't better than Rivers last season and there wasn't much of an outcry on that deal. Delly is on a 38M deal as a back up guard, I could go on but I say this because there seems to be a bit of a sensationalized and non rational opinion on him from my perspective. How many back up guards were as good as Austin last season? His deal is completely in line and standard for a back up guard signed in the 2016 summer once you take the dumb nepotism glasses off.

He's a really good back up 2 guard that can give you some spot minutes at point if need be. Can defend both guard positions. 6'4 with the length and athleticism to guard his position, has improved his finishing at the rim, and just generally has become a good guard. The Clippers would have been better off starting Austin instead of Redick last year if we're being honest but that's neither here nor there. Him playing with Felton/Crawford/Pierce/Johnson/Stephenson/Smith etc. didn't help matters with him. (Which is why I would have liked to see Doc stagger Chris and Blake but whatever)

He has his deficiencies for sure, (Free throw shooting, irrational confidence, no left hand, shooting technique hampers his ability to shoot off the bounce, can't make passes out of PnR ) but Austin Rivers has been a godsend to a Clipper franchise devoid on Young Talent and he's on a good deal.

The nepotism thing though irks. Like...It's so far from the truth. Imagine thinking A guy who purchased an NBA team for 2 billion dollars would allow nepotism to occur. Imagine believing that