MGB8 wrote:Memphis cratered when, due to injury, they downgraded from JJJ to Clarke. Folks here are deluded as to Clarke’s value.
I just want to expand on this. At the end of the year when JJJ was out, the Grizzlies went 6 and 9 without him - both pre and post restart. Now, pre restart, Clarke was out the final few games, too - but you could see the negative trend begin with JJJ being gone - Clarke being in or out didn't have much of an impact. There's a reason that, after 1 start, the Grizz chose to start Tolliver over Clarke in August.
Now, you could point to the fact that the Grizz lost all 3 games in July / August when JJJ was there (and Clarke played, as well) - but those were a 2 point loss to the spurs, an 5 point overtime loss to the desperate Blazers where Dame and CJ put up a combined 62 points and Melo had a throwback 21 points (and JJJ had 33 points, +8 +/-, while Clarke also had a super efficient 21 points in 34 minutes, but only +2 +/-). There was one worse loss - the loss to the Pelicans by 10 - but JJJ had 22 points (+/- of -3) and Clarke had 10 and 8 (+/- of -5) and the real issue in that game was Morant going 5 for 21 including 1/10 from 3, with Kyle Anderson and Dillon Brooks also having bad games.
But back to Clarke - he only started 4 games - so small sample size. But in those games he only shot 29% overall, 0% from 3 (0-3) despite a lesser usage rate than he normally has, with fewer rebounds and fewer assists. He feasts against reserves.
Projecting Clarke with his 12.1/5.9r/1.4a/0.8b/0.6st in 22.4mpg to be some sort of star player, at least at this point, seems to be a bit of stretch - there's a big difference in being a high energy reserve with a versatile skill set and a guy consistently logging start minutes and playing against opponents best players.
