The Clippers off-season in Smiths tunes

Usually I just send readers to the other site to read my answers to their questions for The Questionable Blogger series -- it's a different audience, and my answers are invariably re-hashes of things I've said here a dozen times. But this question from J.A. Sherman of Welcome to Loud City was out of the box, and I was pretty please with my answer. So it gets its own post on Clips Nation.

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The Clips added some key players (and a coach!) in the offseason. If you could, please explain why you think the Clips made those signings, and also if possible equate each acquisition to popular songs from the 1980's.

80's songs is too broad and "popular" is too plebeian. Clippers fans tend to be an angsty lot, so I'm using the classic angst-pop 80's band, The Smiths.

Doc Rivers -- How soon is now? -- The Clippers gave up a first round draft pick and a lot of money to pry Rivers, one of four active NBA coaches to have won an NBA championship, away from the Celtics. The very fact that Donald Sterling employs the highest paid coach in the NBA -- remember, there are no mins or maxes or CBAs concerning coaches so it's up to owners to decide what they want to pay -- is a mind-blowing thing. Rivers isn't in LA to build a long term winner or to take baby steps -- he's here to win and to win now.

J.J. Redick -- Handsome devil -- I mean, just look at the guy. But it's his game that is most beautiful to me. He fits next to Chris Paul incredibly well. (Maybe Hand in Glove is the better Smiths song here?) He works tirelessly off the ball, he stretches the floor, his BBall IQ is off the charts. Although he's never been a regular starter in the NBA, he's in an ideal situation with the Clippers and represents as a massive improvement over the collection of twos (mostly ones masquerading as twos in fact) they've had since sending Eric Gordon to New Orleans in the CP3 trade.

Jared Dudley -- Sweet and tender hooligan -- Dudley had a run in with Blake Griffin in a Clippers-Suns game a few years back and most Clipper fans didn't like him much after that. But now that he's our guy, he's good to have around. It seems to me that Dudley is a classic example of a guy who is really good on a good team, and pretty bad on a bad team. This Clippers team is good, and Dudley just needs to play his role -- hit open threes, play good defense, do the little things.

Darren Collison -- You've got everything now -- After Redick and Dudley were in place, the Clippers used most of their mid level exception to bring back Matt Barnes who had been a key player on last season's team. But with Eric Bledsoe's departure, it left a hole at backup point guard that the Clippers had very little money left to fill. When they were able to get Collison for a mere $1.9M (the rest of their MLE) it seemed like everything was falling into place.

Byron Mullens -- Stretch out and wait or Some girls are bigger than others -- Once Rivers was in place, every signing he made was about adding shooting. He really, really wanted a stretch big to put next to Griffin at times. It's a good goal, but former Thunderhead Mullens may not be the best choice.

Antawn Jamison -- Heaven knows I'm miserable now -- Yeah, so I'm not a big fan of this signing. This was the final signing of the summer, marking the point at which we realized that there wasn't a single big man on the Clippers bench capable of playing even passable NBA defense. It looked like a problem at the time of the signing -- it looks like an even bigger problem now. Supposedly Rivers is saving Jamison for the playoffs. I think he's saving him from the embarrassment of being scored on more than your sister (actually, does Sherman even have a sister?)

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So there you have it. The Clippers off-season in Smiths tunes. Now I feel like Please, please, please let me get what I want this time. But These things take time, and it might be that You just haven't earned it yet baby.