But unless the Clippers trade Baron or Kaman, they won’t be able to make a max offer.

that they’d have a better shot at the LBJs of the world. I’ve been saying that for a while now (the Anoter Son post is coming, I can feel it). Of course, there are still cap issues that would have to be sorted out.

Not gonna happen, I suspect.

I’m not sure how to link so I copied the post.

There is a way, friends
Free agents historically won’t come to the Clippers because of the management / coaching staff. However, if they clean house now, find good, young up and coming management talent first, and then a good young coach (Hughes), which translates into more winning this year, there could be a palpable buzz generated about the team that someone like Lebron could look at.

Just sayin’

by Jax on Jul 3, 2009 7:41 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

I pay less attention to Simmons lately, but… he can be funny… really funny. Off topic, I guess, and a little dated, so not worthy of a Fanshot, but this is my favorite Bill Simmons column (from 2006):
“First Annual Atrocious GM Summit”:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/060224

SP promises a more exhaustive post, but he has “schoolwork.” I thought he was already a well-known blogger with a press credential.

Kind of like Bill Simmons. Simmons is about Simmons—he’s not especially concerned with the realistic opportunities and chances of success of the Clippers (as opposed to the Celtics), and he has a pretty good understanding of LA, entertainment, entertainment as sports, media, etc. He’s a smart guy—if you read the thing about his dad, you can see how Simmons is pretty aggressive about taking in information and developing opinions—his dad has something like three different degrees, and just retired from running a school district.

Simmons can be very funny, interesting, and knowledgable, but everything he says has to be taken with a grain of salt. He’s pretty reliable about the Celtics, and his loyalty to them seems solid enough, although we’d like to see his adopted home team test that this year and in the future. I’ve mentioned before how his attitude towards Doc Rivers was similar in way to what he’s putting MDSr through now, but now with KG, etc., guess what: he’s pretty good with Doc Rivers. But he knows the importance of a strong opinion, for good or ill—kind of like some other folks on this blog. It gets attention. Don’t go with the flow, cry for change, change the flow. Don’t be patient, do something right now. It’s so easy when you’re a critic and a commentator.

Dunleavy pegged Simmons pretty nicely when he called him a joke writer recently. His status as a journalist is worthy of an SP “thought paper.” It’s actually kind of amazing that our Humble Nation has a folksy, salt of the earth, one of us blogger like the Artist Formerly Known as Clipper Steve, the inimitable, rising KA, and Simmons is a season ticket holder. For a ridiculously lousy team, this is a phenomenal group. Maybe the Clips are about to do something big. Remember it’s not just those guys—we also have Club Optimism!

I think that Simmons needs to study Dunleavy just as carefully as he studied Elgin Baylor. As his English Professor, that’s what I would assign, rather than writing a paper on the accomplishments of Henry Louis Gates Jr., just because he’s a Masshole. Look at Dunleavy as a player, where he came from, what his game was like, what made him successful. I bet that he would find that Dunleavy is a lot like Simmons, only tougher, more committed to basketball, a better athlete, more focused and disciplined. In his excellent study of the Original (and only, now) EB, I believe that Simmons beat Dunleavy in Horse or some other shooting game, and Dunleavy never paid him. I’d like to hear Dunleavy’s version of this story—and with SP and KA on the case now, there’s an important question, finally! Simmons just needs to admit the fact that Dunleavy was a much better basketball player than he ever dreamed of being, that he had the solid NBA career that Simmons spent his entire adolescence dreaming he might have, that he has held a number of jobs that Simmons has spent a fair amount of time in his adulthood dreaming about having. Who is the only GM and coach in the NBA? This isn’t a good thing, necessarily, but it represents a lot of power in the league that Simmons obsesses on. We shouldn’t worry about Simmons. He gets paid to zhiv, to dream, to make it up as he goes along, he’s not accountable for anything, his only responsibility is to entertain us and to take care of his family. His primary concern is for himself.

His wild-arsed theories about what to do about the Clippers don’t have anything to do with reality. He needs to quiet down and focus on the shifting tides. We (our Jax contingent) want management to apologize for certain mistakes, but has Simmons said stated clearly that he was wrong about the Randolph trade, when he was certain that MDSr’s most grievous sin was trading for a horrible reprobate who is completely untradeable—and he had KA backing him up? No, he just blames Chris Wallace, another one of his incompetent GMs. But the truth is that Randolph spent an unfortunate but well-meaning year on the Clips, where he was far from being the primary problem, and his arrival allowed the franchise to stay credible and progress, and he is now a nice two-year player on the Grizzlies, giving them something that they badly needed. Chris Wallace isn’t a sucker for taking ZBo. Zbo is an asset with an outsized contract who was traded twice. So Simmons can start, before he writes the in-depth Dunleavy study, and goes to eat doughnuts with him in a receptive frame of mind like he did with Baron Davis, by apologizing for some of the things he said about the Randolph trade.

And the same thing is true with Donald Sterling. I’m not sure that Simmons was an STH when the articles ran about DTS’ real estate empire and his business philosophy. It’s very simple: never sell. Instead of coming up with hare-brained ideas of how to pry the Clippers away from DTS—about as easy to resolve as getting the Ayatollahs out of Iran—, again, Simmons should study DTS in depth, get beyond the deeply problematic racist and morality issues, which are tawdry and tired, and study his business acumen and rise: just how is it that a mediocre LA doctor becomes a multi-billionaire? It’s pretty simple, Simmons: mortgage the new book, the ESPN site, the two kids, and buy real estate, apartment buildings, downtown, over there in your hipster Silver Lake Eastside location NOW. Not tomorrow, TODAY. Clean it up, rent it out, make it decent and liveable and nice (increase its value with repairs and good management), and just hold onto it. Then buy some more.

It’s nice that Simmons gets paid for his MDSr diatribes and his fantasies about the team going nuts and blowing up under new ownership. But I like the real world better, you know, since that’s where things happen and that’s where we live. I like Jax and think he knows the game, but he’s a broken record waiting for things to change that just aren’t going to. Simmons isn’t so different. In the real world, we can hope that MDSr, who is not exactly the root of all evil, he’s more of a mixed bag, is successful and finds a way to kick himself upstairs under a new deal. The reptilian DTS can’t live forever, and does anyone have any idea about the succession plan for his empire? There’s a good journalistic question. We know all about Jeannie Buss and the kid who embarassed himself accepting the trophy, and of course Jerry Buss should pay 80 million, 40 to Lamar and 40 to the league, just because it’s the Lakers—but that’s money that Buss, the gambler, isn’t leaving behind for anybody, and his estate will be miniscule in comparison to Sterling’s.

Where are the Clippers headed in the longterm? One question is where the NBA is headed, but probably more important is the question of who will inherit Donald Sterling’s billions. If Simmons makes nice and plays his cards right and becomes a devotee, DTS just might leave him the team. Now that’s a plan.

I have never taken Bill Simmons words seriously, and still do not.

no one is commenting on BG’s torn rotator cuff.

How often does an injury like that “heal in 3 to 4 weeks” esp with our trainers at the helm.