We have covered most of this in our discussions. Davis claims he is not healthy (I do believe that) and that Sr. misled him about how the offense would operate. Says the team does not have an identity (we have said that for years). Believes that next year will be his best year yet because he is pissed.

I don’t see any way that Sr. and Baron are both here next year. It will be one or the other.

25 games left. Anybody want to make predictions about how many of those games the Clippers will win? Probably worth looking at the schedule first.

You know that Club Optimism is going to be Optimistic, especially after a nice win against GSW, when Camby returned, Randolph and Eric Gordon led the scoring after slow starts and subpar shooting, and Baron Davis looked comfortable, strong, and frisky almost going for a triple double.

I’m remembering how the Clips had suffered through some very dark hours and CS was a bit faint-hearted, with good reason, but moKi stepped up and said there would be a turnaround. We got to see some good basketball then. That was before Camby’s latest glitch/illness—the timing of Camby’s down moments this season has been very annoying—, followed by Zbo’s family crisis and altercation. And within that brief span we got to see a post all-star game/pre trade deadline crushing of the Clippers down to a new low.

We have a familiar term for it around here. I know a lot of us don’t want to hear it, want to believe they don’t exist. But giving up 282 points in two games is some very high quality losing, by any definition.

Buried within some of genuine issues and the vicious swipes at the Clippers in Simmons’ article is the same theory that BDavis has been proposing since the season first turned ugly in the opening two weeks and the team got off to a horrendous start. With injuries, starting with Marcus Camby, the team wasn’t able to figure themselves out in training camp and the preseason, so they went into the season without an identity, and then things just went from bad to worse.

I would argue, at this point in the discussion, that the ZBo trade wasn’t able to save the season, but it was a great leap forward for the future of the franchise. Zbo is a nice fit. Camby was coming around when Zbo arrived. Zbo is a guy who can routinely score 25 ppg. The addition by subtraction was huge, taking Tim Thomas away from Dunleavy, and saying goodbye to Mobley and putting Eric Gordon in the starting lineup, getting big early minutes. Mardy Collins turned out to be a solid bonus to the trade, a good replacement for QRoss, and he and Fred Jones, who arrived soon after, can make up for the Ricky Davis failure. The Ricky Davis failure compounded the Baron Davis failure—there seems to have been a little codependency there.

Simmons does a good job of showing how Baron Davis needs to play with passion. But he simplistically chooses to blame Dunleavy for all of the Clipper ills, and doesn’t recount the injury record. He mentions BD’s injuries, but those only make sense and correlate to BD’s uninspired and futile play when they’re put in the context of Camby’s lost preseason/opening 2 weeks, Tim Thomas’ preseaon injury, Kaman’s foot, and Jake Voskuhl shoving Randolph.

As Simmons was writing that article, the tide turned. Yes, the Clippers were about to be blown out by Portland, and I’m glad I didn’t tivo/watch the first quarter of that ugly game. But when I turned on the TV towards the end of the 2nd quarter, BD was playing pretty good basketball. The Clips played a couple of nice stretches in that game, but with no Camby and Randolph it was always going to be a blowout.

I like the setup for this Boston game tomorrow night. The timing is good for the Clips, on their home floor and coming off a victory, to play a solid, elite opponent that is missing one of the top guys in the league. The Clips may well come out tight, unable to hit their shots, and if Al Thornton can’t play they will be missing a key piece themselves (not to mention Kaman). So let’s see how it goes.

BD has realized, it appears, that if he wants to play a role in the conversation about how the team plays and Dunleavy’s approach, he has to show his value. Kind of ironic, the whole “play hard” thing. BD is in a different position now. He showed that he can still bring it—but that was against Golden State.
 
But now is the time. moKi has been scarce, but he called the first brief turnaround, and I’m curious about what he’s thinking at this point.

We’ve reached the stage (finally) where the team should be healthy enough to “gel” and find their identity. We need to remember that things can go wrong now, of course, and something terrible could happen at any time. But there’s no reason, right now, not to think that we’re going to see a relatively healthy, talented roster finish out the season, trying to “find their identity.” With Gordon and Novak shooting 3s instead of Tim Thomas and Ricky Davis, Randolph back healthy and finding his rhythm, the Clips should be much better than they were at any point this season. If Baron plays hard now, and things go wrong or there’s a big problem, then it’s on Dunleavy. But it should work.

Zhiv – why not be optimistic that the team will get a good coach and GM next year and begin to move forward? There is no way that this coach and GM can realistically lead this team to success. There’s a difference between optimism and pure silliness.

You’re kidding yourself if you think that Zbo is a good fit for this team. Where’s your outrage over the ridiculously violent thuggery he perpetrated on Ahmundson? Did that not bother you at all? Have we really sunk that low? There’s a reason Zbo was available when as John R among others pointed out his numbers alone probably indicate that he’s not really much overpaid.

its just obvious at this point we need a new coach. i’m torn between wanting the clippers to finish the season on a run building team morale, chemistry, and confidence for next year, or just tanking, getting a high draft pick, and getting dunleavy ousted. if we finish the season on a run, dunleavy is more likely to stay, if we continue to stink, hes more likely to go. or we could finish our last 20+ games at around .500 which would just give dunleavy another excuse for more time and a fresh training camp….i truly am torn