Among those still having a hard time being happy on perhaps the greatest day in Clippers franchise history, a lot is being made of the "hole" that the trade of Eric Gordon has created at the shooting-guard spot. Obviously, the hole isn't really that big a hole, since it will be filled by Chauncey Billups, who played the spot early in his career and, more recently, on America's FIBA World Championship team in 2010. But what if, instead, we were forced to play Randy Foye at that spot. That would put us right back in the lottery, right?

Um ... no. That's the beauty of having 2 superstars on your roster -- the best PG/PF tandem since John Stockton and Karl Malone. That duo made 3 straight Western Conference finals and 2 straight NBA finals. And starting alongside them at the height of their powers, averaging 30+ minutes a game for six straight seasons, was none other than Bryon Russell, whose career PER of 12.6 is half a point lower than Randy Foye's (13.1).

Bottom line: Having 2 elite players can cover a multitude of sins. And having a starting lineup of Paul/Billups/Butler/Griffin/Jordan should be enough to take us very far this year, health williing.

There are nearly as many opinions on the value of Chris Paul for 2 years as there Citizens of the Nation. But in general, there appear to be 2 main camps: Those who wouldn't trade Eric Gordon under any circumstances, and those who aren't firmly opposed to trading EJ but who think the NBA's insistence on all 5 assets (Gordon, Kaman, AFA, Bledsoe, and the Minny pick) is "too much."

So here's your chance to play GM: In the comments, give us your final offer. Suppose the league was on the verge of trading Paul to another suitor, and you had one last chance to make a bid before losing on out on CP3. The Clippers' leverage is now gone. No more playing hardball. What's the most you'd be willing to give up for 2 years of Chris Paul?

Both are equally absurd statements. People around here have gotten so polarized and entrenched in their opinions that it's starting to remind me of the Dems and the GOP.

EJ is not now and never was a below average basketball player NBA shooting guard. But he also will never in his wildest dreams be as good as CP3. If this is a matter of Olshey calling Stern's bluff, and he lands CP3 w/o having to give up EJ, then he's a God. But if this stance causes us to lose out to another team, then it was not a victory at all, but an abject failure. No matter what, at the end of the day you've got to take a chance on 2 years of a Chris Paul-Blake Griffin pairing.

The one thing all the yay-for-Neil people seem to be forgetting is that Chris Paul is something we don't currently have: 1 of the 10 best players in the NBA. We all think Blake will get there, but he's not there yet. At the moment, EJ is the 2nd-best player on the Clippers. If he were traded for Chris Paul, the 2nd-best player on the Clippers would be... Blake Griffin!

Assuming the continued improvement of players this young, Blake + EJ is the core of a potential playoff team. Blake + CP3, on the other hand, is the core of a potential title contender. And that's why, as long as Paul opts-in for the 2nd year, you've absolutely, positively got to do this, no matter what it takes.

With EBled potentially out for a bit, and in some ways more of a combo than a pure 1 anyway, is there any sense to maybe tossing a smallish, 2- or 3-year contract offer to Barea? I kinda hate him, but he's the sort of guy you hate on other teams and love on your own team. Certainly would love him if he played as well for us as he's played against us.

Or, if we don't want to give up the cap room, we could also do it as an S&T to Dallas for Foye, since Dallas will be looking to fill roster spots with guys who come off the books at the end of the year. It would weaken us at the 2 a bit, but I could see Bledsoe getting some run there when it makes sense to go small, and Butler sliding down to the 2 with the Chief or Gomes at the 3 when we need to go bigger.

Thoughts?

Yes, there have been other polls, but none of them went straight to the heart of the matter. If you had to choose between Eric Gordon and Chris Paul, who would you choose? We're not talking trade scenarios, or contracts, or any of that other stuff. Assume a straight-up trade, with both players being under team control for roughly the same amount of time and dollars. You can only have one or the other on your team to pair with Blake Griffin. Which one?

The following is from Bill SImmons' latest column. Those of you who feel he is just a humorist who knows nothing about the NBA can feel free to ignore. But for those who might think that the author of a highly regarded 700-page book about the sport might know a little something, it is food for thought as to why judging players by stats and stats alone is not any more rational than judging them by the eye test and the eye test alone.

For the record, Simmons is actually an advocate of advanced metrics. But believe it or not, it is possible to believe both that statistical analysis is an invaluable tool in evaluating players and that no model currently in existence is robust/accurate enough to rely on in a vacuum to the exclusion of all other factors, including traditional scouting (i.e., the eye test).

Without further ado, SImmons' Power Poll capsule of the 2010-2011 Milwaukee Bucks:

Remember those old Fox shows, "When Animals Attack?" The 2010-11 Bucks are "When Advanced Metrics Go Wrong!!!!" They traded for an already overpaid Corey Maggette (an efficient scorer on paper, which apparently made him underrated as long as you never, ever watched him); overpaid Drew Gooden (an efficient rebounder and high-percentage shooter who holds the unofficial record for "most times a player made his coach roll his eyes and look at the scoreboard" since 2000); and took care of John Salmons (who had his inevitable post-contract year swoon). Everything made sense on paper.

Which would be fine if this were baseball. But it's basketball: a sport in which five guys have to mesh the right way (a process that often defies statistics), and also, they have to collectively give a crap about the sport and each other. The season started and everyone quickly remembered that (A) there's a reason everybody hates playing with Maggette (actually, two: he's a ball stopper and a ball hog); (B) there's a reason Drew Gooden has been on 47 teams in nine years; and (C) you never want to give a non-All-Star in his 30s his last big contract (by no coincidence, Salmons' Bucks numbers dropped from 20 ppg and 47% FG to 13 ppg and 39% FG).

What's really confusing: Over the past few years, didn't the Thunder's Sam Presti show everyone how to run a small-market team? Build through the lottery; keep your cap space (so you can swing cap-related deals during the season that net you extra draft picks); avoid paying market price for veteran starters who aren't All-Stars; don't overpay your own guys if they aren't building blocks. And the thing is, John Hammond KNEW the blueprint. He was using it these past two years! So what made him go Maggette/Gooden/Salmons on us? Do NBA GMs just slowly lose their minds? Is it like when you go on Amazon to buy one book and end up with two Blu-rays as well, and even as you're paying for it, you're saying, "What's happening right now; why am I buying these?"

Just thought it would be fun to see how absurd that statement looks today. You know, for nostalgia's sake. Amazing how different things can seem in a just a few short months. Not that it wasn't an absurd statement then, but at least there was enough doubt and advanced-statistical slight of hand that it could generate a ... shall we say, spirited debate. But now? Just 16 games later? Anyone out there still want to be on that side of the argument? Anyone?

Here's another reason why, in this lost season with virtually no hope of a playoff run, the kids need to play a lot, and play together: The D(evelopment) of great *team* D(efense).

It's hard to argue that a Bled/EJ/Chief/Beast/DJ lineup is now or can soon expect to be better offensively than a more veteran lineup. But defensively? The jury's still out, but there's hope for a positive verdict.

As of right now, the Clippers are dreadful defensively, seemingly no matter what 5 players are out on the floor. And this exacerbates their offensive woes, since it means less chance for transition baskets and more time in their halfcourt sets. But I think the Club D lineup has a chance, with time and experience, to become a really disruptive defensive unit, which will also help them greatly on the offensive end, since these 5 players all have the speed and athleticism to get out and run.

We all know what DJ can do defensively when he's focused. Blake has actually been a bit disappointing defensively, though obviously he's got both the BBIQ and the physical tools to become a solid defender. Meanwhile, Bledsoe and Aminu are already better on-ball defenders than Davis and Gomes, and have made some plays here and there showing glimpses of what they could become with better understanding of team defensive concepts.

Now, this is not an attack on Fizzle or Flippy -- um, I mean the honorable Misters Davis and Kaman. I'm not saying they are worthless, or shouldn't start, or should be traded for pennies on the dollar. But I would like to see the Club D lineup out on the court together as much as possible, because the better they learn to work together on the defensive end, the better the long-term prospects for the franchise.

An open letter to John R.:

In the comments section of your recent FanPost about the below-average shooting guard who is somehow on the verge of faking his way onto our national team, you asserted that a player's teammates have no bearing on his stats (though you did at one point admit that this is an "unexpected result"). A number of us called you on this assertion. I made the point that Chris Kaman's rebounding numbers were considerably higher during the '07-'08 season, which was the year Brand shredded his Achilles' tendon and was thus the only year in Kaman's career in which he wasn't playing alongside a PF who ranked among the league's Top 10 rebounders -- the implication of this clearly being that, in a year in which his teammates were inferior rebounders, Kaman's rebounding numbers increased because there were more opportunities available to him.

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