Pretty funny, using a preseason game to matchup DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin against Tim Duncan. Lots of things to like about that game last night, with all of the preseason qualifiers noted of course.

Apparently Ricky Davis showed that he isn’t a total stiff. Milph mentioned that he might be better in a starting role than coming off the bench. Whuh? How about keeping it real, and just saying that if he can make some plays and hit some shots and not be absolutely pathetic, he might be a decent spot player, and preseason is an important proving ground for him. I’m not at all sure who should be the guy who is just outside of the rotation, and perhaps even in it: MCollins, RDavis, SNovak, or perhaps even Kareem Rush. Kind of a tossup. I might even lean towards Rush, but he won’t make the team. After that, I’d go with Collins and Novak ahead of Davis. But go ahead, play RDavis all you can in the rest of the preseason, and let’s see if he can by some chance still bring it, and prove me wrong.

Nice work by Thornton, carrying the team and winning the game for the Clips, more or less. If the Butler-Gordon-Thornton rotation is well-managed, the Clips could be really good.

And nice work sitting out guys, keeping them healthy. It’ll be good to get Telfair back, and let BDavis take it easy.
But my favorite thing is this Griffin-Jordan combo. It’s just a fun combination, exciting in the present and even more exciting for the future. Clipper depth at the big man position is pretty awesome.

Way to keep the positive flow going here. This one didn’t count, but psychologically it could be important. We’re also now 3-0 when Blake Griffin plays.

Think Thornton helped make a case for himself coming off the bench. He had the misfortune of still coming up a minus, but what he did at the end of the game bodes well. If we don’t have a dynamic wing player, at least now we have some options and Butler’s play will hopefully motivate Al to do more.

Good note. Thornton is a dynamic wing player—coming off the bench.

I guess the downside here is that Butler wasn’t able to keep his strong streak going, and he wasn’t very effective slowing down Richard Jefferson either. Oh well. Can’t have everything, and with no Kaman-Camby-Gordon, as SP points out perhaps Butler was less glue guy/role player/hitting 3s, and felt he needed to do more.

At any rate, the Clips are showing some impressive depth.

Just perusing the commentary over at Pounding the Rock. As mwhite mentions, there are a couple of nice notes on Blake Griffin. They are geeked up about DeJuan Blair, as well they should be, but they have some perspective on things. One guy, analyzing Griffin, said that he would be absolutely shocked if Griffin didn’t win ROY, that he’s amazing and makes all kinds of plays at both ends of the court. Blair is putting up competitive numbers, but the comment noted that it’s preseason and Blair is not going to get anything like the minutes that Griffin will. As we’ve heard early and often, Griffin is in a class by himself.

But again, the idea of being geeked up about an extraordinary 2nd round draft pick got me thinking. Blair seems NBA ready in a number of ways and he’s looks poised to make a significant contribution to an elite team. Going at #37, he’s a legit draft steal, and a major preseason topic. But what about our own DeAndre Jordan, who was the #35 pick a year ago? Jordan is not quite there yet, but he certainly seems to be coming on fast, and last night was another nice step forward. Spurs fans are of course going to want to compare DeJuan Blair to Blake Griffin. But I’m a Clippers fan, and I want to compare DeAndre Jordan to DeJuan Blair.

As I said, DJordan is on a very different timetable. He wasn’t ready last year, and was more like raw ore, and a project. But sometimes projects work out. He has two fine centers ahead of him on the Clipper depth chart, Kaman and Camby. In that way he’s a bit like Blair, who is playing behind Tim Duncan. It might be interesting to see how Jordan and Blair’s minutes stack up against each other at the end of the season.

Aside from the unfortunate turnovers, which SP already qualified, DJordan played a nice game last night—and in part of it he was going up against Tim freaking Duncan, and for the first time.

For the Clips, it’s not just the great luck of winning the lottery and getting Griffin. It’s not just making your own luck by grabbing Camby and RButler from teams shedding salary. It’s not just the good luck of being able to get Eric Gordon at #7, or Al Thornton at #15 the year before, for that matter. DJordan looks to be an absolute steal in the draft, a guy who probably should have been up there just below the Gordon-Mayo-Westbrook level. And as you all know, I for one am kind of geeked up about it.

Club life is pretty good these days.

DeJuan Blair isn’t a steal. He’s a great player who is playing like he should be playing. Watch a Pitt game from the past two years. The problem with Blair is that he’s got seroius health issues. NBA teams don’t like to invest heavily in players with health issues like that. Spur fans are giddy b/c they are not thinking about what could happen at any time.

D Jordan, on the other hand, is like Zhiv said a project. Which is why he’s appropriately taken in the second round. Why would Zhiv think he should have been taken 10th without the benefit of hindsight? I don’t buy that. Does the fact that he ends up working out out make him a steal? I guess so. I generally don’t equate projects with steals.

A steal would be someone like Manu G, an established player who was playing in Europe, who went at 29th or something like that.

FYI Thornton went 14th. I would rather have had another player who went later whose name shall not be mentioned.