It kind of gets you off the track of the “building blocks” concept, which is about how MDSr uses the guys on his roster. No matter who is available, he’s always going to take the same conservative, play defense/exploit matchups approach.

The best way to look at it is his reactions to his adverse fortunes last year. The first problem was that Marcus Camby wasn’t available. He was just beginning to evaluate DeAndre Jordan. He brought back Paul Davis (mistake—and taking Davis3 over Milsap turns out to be almost as bad a draft faux pas as Korolev over Granger). Tim Thomas and Baron Davis got hurt. Now his lineup is Kaman-Skinner/Davis3/Novak-Thornton/Davis2-Mobley/Gordon-BDavis/Mike Taylor/Jason Hart. We know now, after the fact, that the best version of that team is Kaman/DJordan-Skinner/Novak-Thornton-Gordon-BDavis. MDSr should have had a really short tryout for Davis3, Davis2, Hart, and TThomas returning from injury, and Mobley (MDSr’s beloved blanket) needed to come off the bench in the Thornton-Gordon rotation. And without Camby and a solid defensive scheme coming out of training camp and preseason, MDSr should have given BDavis his chance to play with reckless abandon (made problematic by the fact that BDavis was hurt), and tried running with Mike Taylor. But this is all clear only now that the season played itself out so horribly. Where MDSr went wrong was overplaying Tim Thomas until the trade, along with Mobley (to a certain degree) and Davis3, but the real culprit was Ricky Davis2, who absolutely killed the team every single game. Add to that not playing Novak, not using Skinner correctly, and worrying too much about defense and not putting a credible offensive team out on the floor. Davis2, Thomas, Mobley, and BDavis and Kaman/Camby and other unimaginative MDSr. combinations sent the team on long, torturous scoring droughts, while two of the best shooters in the league sat on the bench, and Jason Hart relieved Baron Davis. Hart got pulled quickly for Taylor, to MDSr’s credit, but we never got close to a glimpse of Camby-Novak-Mobley-Gordon-BDavis, with Thornton coming off the bench, for instance.

I’ve been relatively supportive at times of the Zach Randolph trade, but in this context it looks perhaps especially desperate and misguided. It was a direct result of conservative “building blocks,” and most importantly a failure to explore options that existed within the roster. Is anybody besides me realizing right now that Mobley was the “glue guy” on the Clippers roster, a viable option as the starting SF alongside Gordon? Hard to conceive when Thornton had such a promising rookie season, but those are the types of things that you have to try when you have injuries and are getting off to a slow start. And if you handle Thornton correctly, he cuts down on his shortcomings and has a better season. He rebounds better, for instance, coming off the bench.

The same story can be told, with similar miscues, after the trade for Randlolph. Say that the trade was a good idea, or just neutral, for a second. It certainly wasn’t imaginative use of the roster and playing different styles to suit your talent and player performance, shaking up what you have, but take it as a given, a shake up from on high. MDSr still didn’t make the proper adjustments. He continued to give Davis2 opportunities. Novak sat for more weeks. The Clips showed signs of life when ZBo arrived, as Camby started playing well, and Gordon was showing his first signs of true excellence. But Davis2 was still getting opportunities, and Kaman got hurt, then Taylor. The Clips play .500 ball for a couple of weeks, but then the wheels come off. MDSr still wasn’t playing Novak, and DJordan hadn’t made any notable appearances. This was Davis2’s final stand, something that should have never happened in the first place, but should have ended much earlier. When Kaman gets hurt you play DJordan, you start playing him a lot, because your team is going in the tank or hanging by a thread at best, and you have to try everything. You’re seeing good things with Gordon playing, and you don’t know what DJordan might do if he’s in the rotation. And Novak should have been in the rotation and seeing big minutes since the first week of the season, but now, at 30-35 losses and rising, he starts to get some minutes.

Gotta go, but you get the point.