We can fault MDsr all we want on the situation that makes little sense, but let’s take a step back real quick.

On the surface everyone is wondering why Mike Taylor is getting playing time while Eric Gordon is not, especially considering MT was 55th and EG was 7th in the draft. What isn’t discussed is that Ricky Davis is a proven scorer and has been a proficient offensive weapon his entire career, whereas Hart has not been anything more then a 2nd string PG his career. It makes sense to dabble in and put MT in the game for Hart, because with Hart you know what you are getting.

On the SG front, Ricky Davis can score so it is understandable to leave him in and hope that he ends his drought sometime soon. I can’t say if it is the right thing to do, but I can certainly understand it. What I wouldn’t have understood is if he gave MT no playing time and left Hart in the majority of the game.

Second theory….maybe EG is already in MDsr’s “dog house”….

OH GOD, Another game for us

The Dunce isn’t playing Gordon because he wants to show the high draft pick who’s the boss. Why didn’t he give Thorton minutes the 1st half the season last year?

They should have traded Gordon or the pick if they’re not gonna play him.

Now that I’ve seen a significant portion of a game, fatigue seems to be a major problem. A lot of those dudes are sucking wind after a few times up and back. This obviously affects the defensive effort and overall sharpness.

No one has brought this up, but why the hell vs. the nuggets was there a segment about best clipper bodies in 25 years???!!!

milsap dominating the clips.

as a warrior fan its funny because milsaps dominates us too.

Looks so good when he’s out there…please give him more minutes Dunleavy…please.

At least they played wit some heart and passion tonight, unlike the previous 3 games. Camby will help this team immensely on both ends of the court. One of the few guys who knows how to pass the ball, and actually challenges shots on defense. And wats up wit kaman. Looked like a completely different player tonight. Now we only gotta get cat and r davis goin.

At least for this game, we didn’t have to complain about Jason Hart. I for one, was encouraged by Hart’s inactivity. The problem is, we have some other Hart-like cancers on the team.

Tim Thomas, obviously. Cuttino Mobley, kinda. These two returning vets are feeling way too comfortable and are taking too many shots. Tonight, they went 7/24. For the year, they’re averaging 26 shots per game, shooting 39.5%. These guys need to take open shots only and stop trying to create on offense.

We started out the game well getting Thornton & Kaman involved and productive. So why did we stop trying to go to them? Tonight, they shot 14/21, and for the year are averaging 24 shots per game, shooting 45%. They represent the core of our team, and need to be taking double the shots that Thomas & Mobley are. It’s too bad the “vets” & Dunleavy think otherwise. I wasn’t able to watch tonight’s game after the 1st, but I’m completely baffled as many of you are, by the insistence on playing Thomas so heavily. And then of course, we were hoping for less playing time from Mobley. So Dunleavy goes for more Mobley tonight, and the same token 3 minutes for Gordon. Freaking brutal. We’re just an old, workmanlike, losing team w/ Mobley AND Thomas on the court.

If we can ever get BD, Gordon, Thornton, Camby, & Kaman playing solid minutes I’ll be happy. Until then, it appears like these journeyman vets are gonna stunt our growth and help make us irrelevant.

Camby looked good tonight. He’s clearly our most competent player.

Dunleavy was raving about Thomas’ great camp, and he did look sharp in limited minutes here and there, but c’mon, the guy shouldn’t be playing more than 10-15 minutes right now, let alone 30. Dunleavy’s doing everything he can to get a win by playing over-playing these vets, when he’s really shooting himself in the foot. Thomas may have had a nice preseason, but he’s not ranked as one of the biggest dogs in the league for nothing.

Substantial progress last night, but still no W, another critical scoring drought at a very bad time, and continued Dunleavy stubborn attachment to underperforming/mediocre veterans. Patience still very much required, but a very good chance that the Clips are going to get shut out through the initial tough stretch, which is going to create a big hole.

Great to see Camby out there, and we got a glimpse of how things should work. The presence of BD helped a lot of folks, and Kaman looked very good for longer stretches and played well.

Starting Taylor and making him the backup is a big step forward—we got Jason Hart down to 3rd string, which is where he belongs, pretty quickly. Next step is for Baron and Camby to start, and go into the standard big man/pg rotation. It’s a minor disaster that this hasn’t happened yet, because the Clips just gave up 3 winnable games, but it was our injuries vs. theirs, for the most part, and the lack of training camp and continuity made the difference.

The reliance and interest in Thomas was half of the reason why the Clips lost the game in the 4th quarter. Camby was making plays and the Clips were hanging in there, when MD wanted to bring Kaman back in. He took Camby out and left Thomas in, and the rest is history. Hopefully the number of games where Thomas is the starter and primary PF are now over. It’s pretty strange, and others have commented on it in the thread, but Dunleavy’s incredibly long leash for Thomas and his consistent lack of rebounding and defense is extremely strange. We still have to remember the original expectations for Thomas, coming off the bench, playing limited minutes, and being productive in short stretches.

I have an unfounded belief, almost a theory, that standard-level veterans are keenly tuned to the value of minutes, and they will make then count if they have to (and still have the capability). But if they get those minutes automatically and don’t have to produce and earn them, they are much less effective. Watch Jason Hart the next chance he gets. Watch Tim Thomas get better when Camby starts and plays through the 4th quarter in a close game (as he should have last night)—when Thomas does come in, he’ll get rebounds and hit shots.

And that gets us to Ricky Davis. The Ricky Davis funk is killing the Clippers. According to my theory, the best way to get him out of his slump is to take him out of the rotation. Another way in which the RDavis funk is hurting the Clips is that it is increasing the role of Cat Mobley. 25 minutes is a lot for Mobley, and 37 is way too many. MD’s instinct thus far is to give RDavis a chance, but he’s not hesitating to bring Mobley back when Davis is ineffective. All of us, I think, and especially after the success of Taylor, are going nuts hoping that MD will turn towards Eric Gordon and let him get out there—how much worse could he be, how much bigger a disaster would it be than what’s already happening, And the veteran/limiting minutes rule will apply not just to Ricky Davis, but to Mobley as well. As soon as Gordon gets minutes and shots and shows his activity and scores points, believe me, Ricky Davis will come out of his slump. And as soon as Gordon starts taking away minutes from Cat Mobley, Mobley will be much better in the reduced minutes that he’s playing.

Let’s just hope that this is where things are headed. The last three games were good ones for Gordon to get minutes—the Lakers and the Rockets, not so much. But we can live for another week, I suppose, with getting Camby and BDavis healthier and into the starting lineup and cutting back on our Tim Thomas consumption.

He’s actually giving out an effort. The guy can play, we know he can. At least he’s getting things working for us…doing something…being active. Eventually it will click for him. It’s much better then the non-caring Thomas in my opinion.

In Clipperblog’s excellent and fairly hopeful breakdown, his final note mentions the idea floated earlier that the Ricky Davis experiment feels a lot like Patterson last year. It shouldn’t be like this, but it has that vibe. I’m still thinking that RDavis will get better very quickly when Gordon plays ahead of him. He can be much more effective and much better than Patterson ever was—as KA points out, they’re very different players—but he has to get into the right headspace. Having Baron back will help, but he needs to be challenged by Gordon, not just given the job.

That game was painful. There were a few positives though. Kaman and Camby looked pretty good together on the floor. Kaman did a very respectable job guarding Boozer for extended periods of time, and was fairly aggressive against Boozer on the offensive end. He’s becoming too reliant on his left hand, but overall I was very happy. In his fairly limited minutes, Camby played well also. It’s encouraging knowing that they can be effective playing together.

Baron looked terrible and out of sync. And although I love Cat Mobley, his decision making (both on his shots and passes) is just atrocious and kills the offense. He should be coming off the bench for 18-20 min a game as an offensive spark, but nothing more. Taylor also looked very mediocre, including very bad defense on Price at the end of the 3rd quarter that led to an easy AK47 dunk and gave the jazz a ton of momentum going into the 4th quarter.

Of course, the main reason why we lost is because Tim Thomas doesn’t care about defense or boxing out and is so lackadaisical it kills me. Someone please give him some of Kaman’s ADD medicine. I was close to the floor last night, and it’s shocking how much bigger TT is than Millsap. He must have had him by at least 4 inches and they probably weigh about the same. Yet, he let Millsap grab every rebound. On one play, Millsap grabbed an offensive rebound, and Tim Thomas was forced to switch onto AK47. Of course, he refused to box him out also and Ivan Drago grabbed an offensive rebound. TT is killing me. Although Brian Skinner and/or Paul Davis are definitely not long-term answers, they wouldn’t have let Millsap single-handedly destroy us.