Post-season Thoughts/Comments

by civicdude590 on May 20, 2009 3:55 PM PDT

Hey guys Andrew here, just wanted to give a little insight to what i have been thinking about lately with the Clippers situation.

1. Blake Griffin - although i have not watched much college basketball i have seen his stats and they are pretty amazing! 30 double doubles in a season, 22.7 ppg, 14.4 rpg. Both of these stats are impressive, but also adding over 1 block, 1 steal, and 2 assists per game is amazing for a 6-10 guy. He still has his flaws though shooting 59% FREE THROWS? so hopefully that part of his game will improve as time goes by. In the future if he gains an outside game he will be a star for sure!

2. Trades - Hmm ZBo, Kaman, Camby, Jordan thats a lot of bigs for a team, now include blake griffin. Since our record was terrible last season many of our big contracts have very low values. We need to get rid of some players and reinforce some flaws of the team - DEFENSE, we have no one that can stop or slow down any star players, EG is good at defending but star SG's are usually taller and will hit shots with EG defending. Also we need a decent SF to come in and play for Al Thorton. So now who do we trade?

Roster

PG - Baron Davis, MIke Taylor

SG - Eric Gordon, Fred Jones*

SF - Al Thorton, umm Mardy Collins*?, Steve Novak* maybe

PF - ZBo, Blake Griffin

C - Kaman, Camby, Jordan

* - Unsure

Well that seems like a decent team doesn't it? Still we thought last year was going to be great and look where it got us right below 20 wins with 19. How DID WE LOSE 63 games? Well stopping/slowing All stars is one of them. Defensively we did well in PG situation, Eric Gordon is a good defender but we need a great defender, in the SF Al Thorton is slower on the defensive end so we need a defender here as well. PF and C defense is going to be the best that we will get. Camby is great on weakside Def but is weak against stronger players, Kaman has the offense as well as height to defend, and Jordan is great foul-giver.

My Personal Opinion - Now maybe you guys might think differently but i lean towards rebuild and start new. Kaman has become a big liability with being Mr. Floppy, not playing most of the season due to injury, as well as his basketball IQ not being very high. Trade Kaman for one or two bench players at SG, SF. Camby will be a veteran with defensive skills that he can teach DeAndre Jordan. I see big potential in him even without an outside game he is a young, athletic, 6' 11", and can Dunk! It gives people someone alley-op to, and dunk, it brings the crowd into the game, people would cheer for impressive plays like that. Then now we have 2 PF's and 2 C's. Maybe let Griffin start the first games, see how he does, if he doesn't live up to the hype then have Randolph start.

Ending comments

Hopefully we can trade at least one person out of Zbo, Kaman, and Camby, and in return some decent backup players who will score for the team when starters are out. I mean there was one game or wait.. maybe a few games that the bench only scored 2 points or something? It would be great if one of these trades produced maybe a QRoss/Shane Battier player, then our Clips will have a solid defense. Maybe the Clippers will come off with a steal with our second round picks again like Mike Taylor and Jordan who both have high potential.

O yea somehow for 2 years in a row it seems that in the off-season, Clipsnation has more Buzz than during the season itself. Anxiety, hope, nervousness, excitement, all the feelings that this new hope for the next season gives me.

Edit: Added some of my opinions on who to trade. 5/20

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On paper, the roster does look solid. But the chemistry just wasn’t there. As the 2002 thru 2006 versions of Team USA proved, talent a team does not necessarily make. Fundamentally sound role players are needed, too. Think Shane Battier.

On the other hand, all of the playoff teams in the West have at least one and usually two NBA stars. Plus there is PHX, which has a few stars as well. The Clippers don’t really have any NBA stars right now. Baron Davis was once a star, but he wasn’t last year. Marcus Camby is a defensive star, but a team with him as one of the top two players won’t advance far. Zach Randolph puts up star like numbers, but so does Troy Murphy. ZBo is basically Troy Murphy with an attitude. Kaman – sometimes great, sometimes bad, but not a star. Thornton. A potential big time scorer, but right now he’s not a star.

Eric Gordon and Griffin are potential stars, but they are 20, so it may take a few years. DeAndre Jordan could be anywhere from Samuel Dalembert to Dwight Howard. We have absolutely no idea. Mike Taylor could be Daniel Ewing, or he could be Tony Parker. We don’t know.

Adding Blake Griffin to this team proably won’t change the team too much. But drafting Blake Griffin and building around him will. Once the young guys become stars. then maybe we can see the Clippers playing into May.

It takes stars surrounded by role players to win.

F-Elton!

by mikey p on May 20, 2009 4:22 PM PDT reply actions

There will be change

Last season we had enough talent to be relevant, but probably had the worst effort of any team in the league. Adding Blake Griffin, and hopefully putting him on the floor more then on the bench will give our team an entirely different look. EJ played hard last year, but he wasn’t the type to fire up his teammates around him. It looks pretty certain that Griffin will be able to do that. He probably already has, with everyone knowing that he’s set to arrive.

It’s also important to point out that we wont have any “true rookies” on our team next year with griffin having 2 years of college behind him. All the teams that were set to try and shut down EJ in their matchups with us next season will have another beast to worry about down low.

To your point about role players, Camby may be the ultimate role player, but that could be a problem for Thornton, who tends to think of himself as more than that. Other guys like Taylor, Collins, Jones, Jordan & Novak have role player written all over them. For next year anyway.

I could see us doing something similar to what Chicago did last year with Derrick Rose, but we have the potential for more.

by ghost_ride on May 20, 2009 4:37 PM PDT up reply actions

next year

i dont see this roster changing much prior to the trade deadline next year…there may end up being some un-happy campers who dont like their roles….bg will be coming off the bench to start the season…so will camby….thornton will be the starting sf….camby has 1 more yr on his contract and he is 36…he is a great mentor to deandre, griffin and even kaman…novak needs to stay…he and gordon are the 2 knockdown shooters that the clips need…..and baron needs to stop jacking up 3’s and killing rallies.

by dellago on May 21, 2009 8:35 AM PDT reply actions