Yes, yes--we've heard the clamoring outside the doors for some time now. But the Club likes to keep tabs on its sister institution, Club Reality, and you know the way things are over there. They like to see things to know that they are true. They sat open-mouthed on the night that Sam Cassell made his Clipper debut and beat the Sonics. At the same moment, over at Club Optimism, KA threw open the doors saying "if y'all like soft drinks, I'm afraid I don't have any" as he ushered the Happy Few inside and started Clipperblog. Mein fuhrer was at the helm of this proud ship ready to steer us into the brave new world of Relevance. The Clippers were better than the Lakers. Elton Brand was a beast of MVP proportions after his first truly focused summer, Cuttino Mobley was a sneaky good veteran free agent signing, and the Clips suddenly were led by an extraterrestrial basketball force who was extremely hard to understand when he spoke, but there was some sort of wisdom there, a deep understanding of the game. We saw it in evidence on that opening night, and our bedraggled citizenry didn't even really know what it was. Some of us see the Clippers and we always believe, we hope, we give them our hearts and faith, and we think that things might just work out and we could get to the promised land. We believed in Elton Brand, in Mike Dunleavy Sr., in Chris Kaman and Shawn Livingston and so many others, whom some would call the dregs of the NBA: we believed in Nick Fazekas, in Rick Brunson, in Bobby Simmons and Big Z.

Consider Kevin Arnovitz and our fearless leader Clipper Steve, aka Monsieur Perrin, your hosts tonight, as Club Optimism opens its doors. Sure, it was never in doubt: we always knew that this was just where we would end up, that every step was carefully planned, that the Clippers were only biding their time, accepting their setbacks with grace. KA went to the game in Oakland last night, saw that it was good, and he's opening up the doors tonight. So I'm afraid I've got to get moving and head on in right now. SP enjoys the peace and serenity of his cruise, and he knows that he has given more than his best for years now, that the Nation is strong, and the Citizens are true.

Sam Cassell leading an amazing comeback against the Sonics is one thing. Having Chris Paul take control of a routine game and taking a lead from 1 to 15+ in no time is something different. The Clippers are a fine, talented basketball team with great players. They have an extraordinary leader.

Club Optimism is wide open, friends. If y'all like soft drinks, I'm afraid that, at least tonight, we don't have any.

Does anybody have a guess?  The incentive to study the draft carefully is gone, because the Clippers don't have a pick.  And they obviously have plenty of young players to develop, the entire U23 team in fact, and I don't believe that they need any more guys with potential.  Griffin, Gordon, and perhaps DJ (finishing his 3rd season) are well ahead of the curve, while we've watched a fair amount of growing pains from Aminu and Bledsoe this season.  And who knows what this latest Bledsoe contretemps was all about.  Whatever.

But a "what if" occurred to me.  Aminu and Bledsoe fit into two positions of need for the Clippers, SF and PG.  Let's pretend that they both had stayed in school one more year.  What might that have been like?  They were relatively high first round picks as it is.  Now we have a good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of their game, as they have appeared in real NBA competition.  Some of the weaknesses would be hidden by weaker competition in college.  Would either of them have benefited by staying in school another year?  Would they be top 5 picks?

Would we be salivating over the possible addition of either Aminu or Bledsoe to our roster?  Right now I'm not sure that they're even appreciated.  They're young, and the jury is out, and both have shown good signs and bad signs.

Guess I'm just trying to figure out how to play an imaginary draft game, since it's that time of year and the Clippers are  out of it.

The game against the Wizards provided some interesting new evidence in this new little parlor game.  My first headline would be that Williams remained mixed.  He didn't contribute much at all during 3 quarters.  And then his streaky side showed, and he started hitting shots in the fourth, a number of them timely.  He showed no fear, and guided the Clippers bravely into battle.  At the same time, however, Eric Gordon was noticeably absent.  At least he was until the final moments, in which as SP described, he had a couple of bad ball-handling miscues but was still able to hit a heroic shot to send the game to a second OT.  It ended well for Gordon, but Williams found his stroke and hit some very big 3s in the 4th.  Gordon not getting touches seemed problematic, but Mo Williams and Randy's Foye's ability to hit shots and free throws was "solutional."

The headline on Bledsoe is that I'm sick of seeing him play against John Wall.  We were introduced to him playing against John Wall in the summer league opener, and then he had something of a breakout against Wall's team in what became a blowout.  And in this game he was mixed, but closer to negligible.  His familiarity with Wall is disturbing, since Wall is clearly better.  I like to think that Bledsoe was the best freshman pg in the country last year, aside from the guy who was the pg on his own team.  It's a bummer.

More like Russell Westbrook and Rajon Rondo, or more like Mike Taylor?  Last night might have been closer to the Taylor side of the ledger, but he still provided a nice spark after a few Mo Williams miscues and misses helped the Wizards get back in the game after the Clips got out to an 11-2 start (which I didn't see, and maybe Mo was a critical part of it.  But that's when I tuned in, watching Williams closely, and he was blecch.)  I wonder about the Westbrook comparison, thinking about how Westbrook was named the starter early on, and how the Thunder hung in through his growing pains.  But Westbrook is a better basketball player than Bledsoe.  I've loved Westbrook's game and court presence since I first saw him suit up at UCLA, and Bledsoe is good but he isn't the same guy.  

Yeah, Eric Gordon had a bunch of miscues but hit a huge shot to tie the game and send it into double OT.  Yeah, Blake Griffin spun at the free throw line to find Randy Foye open for a wide open 3, giving BG his first triple double.  Who cares?  It was the pathetic Washington Wizards, and the Clippers did everybody a favor by making the game entertaining, playing poorly, and letting Washington feel that they were tantilizingly close to getting a second road win.  Yi looked great, didn't he?

But when Kaman hit the wide open baseline shot to put the Clips up by 8, our favorite streak was suddenly in serious jeopardy.  Chris Kaman had 28 points tonight.  Obviously, his career high must be 29, because we all know that he has never scored 30.  Milph was wondering if the Clippers have ever had three guys score 30 points in a game.  Blake Griffin puts up a monster game and gets the triple double:  so what?  It was the Wizards.  But if 20wo30 had gone down, that would have been something.  What is Kaman's number at?   

Have to say, it's kinda sad and boring to be a Clipper fan right now.  Lots of reasons, most of them obvious.  I thought that getting Eric Gordon back, with a healthy Chris Kaman, would be exciting and solve everything.  But it's pretty tough when the games don't matter, and we don't even have tanking to hold our interest.  When the Clips go up against a truly hungry, motivated teams like the Suns and 76ers, they look terrible.  When they play bad teams like the Cavs and tonight's opponent, the Wizards, the whole spectacle is pretty pathetic.  If our wunderkind Blake Griffin was beasting every time out it might be different, but he has been caught up in the general malaise.  Griffin misses Baron Davis (although Eric Gordon probably doesn't), as do many of us, though nobody misses him being overpaid for inconsistent effort, focus, and judgment, and we don't miss his bad knee and bad back.  

At least Mo Williams is healthy (for now).  But we've seen a pretty good sample of Mo-time, and I'd say it has been mixed.  We haven't seen a lot of Mo as a complementary player to a healthy Eric Gordon, but I think we can guess that it's going to be pretty much the same.  He can shoot better than BD, he can pass the ball a little bit, he can get his own shot at times.  His defense is poor.  His shot selection can be iffy.  He's a little streaky, and the streaks don't always seem to happen at the most opportune moments, tho you never know.  All in all, he's a nice piece, and he could be a solid component of next year's effort to reach the playoffs.  At 9-10 mil or whatever it is, he's overpaid at something like the same ratio that Baron Davis was overpaid.  But the dollars are significantly less, which means that they can be spent somewhere else.  How (and if) they're spent is a different discussion.  The question that I have is whether Mo Williams is better than Eric Bledsoe, and if he should be the presumptive starter going into next season.

Continue reading this post »

It makes sense, but it's not the way it was supposed to work.  Baron Davis playing for the LA Clippers was set up to be an LA fairy tale, an NBA Hollywood blockbuster.  It was only a few days ago, last Saturday, that we saw Baron's joy as he nailed the pass to the Beast and popped up out of the sunroof.  The tide had seemingly turned for Baron Davis and the Clippers.  He had played his best basketball as a Clipper over the past two months, first winning games at home with Eric Gordon, and then playing hard and making the team competitive after Gordon went down.

Clipper Steve obviously has some fierce reverse mojo going on, to have missed this story last night when he was doing his recap, and then being out of bounds all morning.  I'm sure he's right behind me with measured and cogent thoughts and deliberations.  But we need something up here to continue the dialogue amongst the Citizens.  SP will guide us soon enough.

I'm a Baron guy.  He tried my patience dearly.  But watching him play over the last couple of months was a lot of fun.  The Clippers have once again dashed our expectations, and increased our frustrations, about potential turning into reality.  Blame the injuries to Chris Kaman and Eric Gordon.  Blame Kaman again, that we never saw Kaman-Camby-ZBo.  Blame FElton for Baron's rocky start as a Clipper, and thank him, I suppose, for taking his blown achilles elsewhere.  Bring back Shaun Livingston!  Give us some sort of payback on our expectations, our hopes, our flagging, bedraggled optimism.

Oops!  Never mind.  It's U23 and will be for some time to come.  Hard to complain when Blake Griffin is playing on your team.  This is a good move, I suppose, as part of the Clippers upswing.  But I feel bad for Baron.  He was my guy, a standout amongst so many itinerant Clippers in whom we have invested over the years.  He had a great opportunity.  Now it's over. 

This is gonna be great.  But it's a sad day for Baron Davis.

Mikey P had the chat item down below in a fanshot, but Hollinger elaborates on his stupid, anti-Clipper idea in an insider article about "5 trades that really should happen," or whatever it is.

The buried compliment in the story is that DeAndre Jordan is playing well enough to make Kaman expendable.  So he's saying that he likes DJ, and that he has made a lot of progress.  That's a lot, coming from Hollinger.

From there it's all downhill.  For some odd reason, Kaman for Prince isn't good enough for Hollinger.  He doesn't like the financial implications for Detroit, which is prepping itself to be sold I guess.  That info is in the chat, not the article.  In the article it only says that Kaman for Prince just isn't good enough for the Pistons.  He mentions that Kaman's deal is bad financially for Detroit.  Prince's deal will expire at the end of next year, while Kaman's is up at the end of 12-13. 

He's saying that the Pistons can't handle Kaman's deal plus Hamilton's bad deal.  Makes sense.  So his solution is to dress up Hamilton like he makes sense for the Clippers.  The real priority, it seems, is to find some sucker to take Hamilton's deal.  He wants to trade Kaman for Hamilton, knowing that Kaman would be a great get for Detroit, and getting rid of Hamilton's horrible contract would be a real coup.  So give it to the Clippers!  Great idea!

13 million a year for 3 years for an old, fading backup shooting guard?  We're not talking about Ray Allen here.  If Hamilton was a highly productive starter and averaging 20+ppg (like Ray Allen was before being traded to the Celtics) it might be different, but let's remember that Ray Allen is and always has been a starter on the Celtics.  Hollinger's suggestion here is that Hamilton should get paid that ungodly amount to be a backup to Eric Gordon.  It looks a little bit less absurd and comical right now when Gordon is injured.  But Randy Foye's collection of a few strong games in Gordon's absence, and his great outburst last night, kills that extremely weak argument.  Foye, at 3 mil, seems perfectly adequate, especially as part of a corps that also includes Baron Davis and Eric Bledsoe.

Kaman for Prince is highly questionable as well.  If the Clippers were flirting with playoff contention, it might be a different story.  But plugging in Prince for the rest of this season doesn't have any value.  I guess he's a good player and a good fit and would be a good expiring contract next year.  But I have to say I'd rather see the Blake Effect on Kaman and get a sense of what the team looks and plays like with Kaman and Gordon back on the court with the current lineup.  It's going to be exciting.

The Clippers hold the assets.  They only need to make deals that clearly benefit them.  It's not their job to help out other teams that are in trouble.  They have no bad contracts.  They have a lot of flexibility.  Kaman's deal isn't a bad one (he was an All-Star last year) and Baron Davis is earning his money now too.  If some one wants to dump somebody or benefit the Clips, that's a different story.

But you know, Hollinger is free to suggest that the Pistons buy out Hamilton.  The Clips could dump Rasual Butler and go and sign Hamilton.  That would work.  That would be okay.  I suppose that if they buy out Hamilton it would be okay to trade Kaman for Prince.  Sure, why not.  It would only be fair.

I was out for a couple of weeks, missing Gordon's injury, although I was back just long enough last week to watch the Clips lose two games in Texas.  So I've been a little out of the loop, but I feel caught up after seeing the two recent victories.

What seems strange, however, is that Milph really seems to be avoiding any mention of Kaman and his return.  I know that there was a Ralph tweet or something, but going two full games without saying his name once or showing him on the sidelines is a bit odd, no?  Obviously his status is uncertain, but there are two ways to go with it.  Either he's coming back in the near or more distant future... or the rise of DJ as a solid defender and capable starter, who is playing well and showing strong improvement, means that Kaman is more expendable and tradeable than ever before.

Enquiring minds want to know.  Lots of discussion, of course, about Gordon's timetable for coming back.  He's now listed day-to-day, and plans to join the team for the pre-All-Star break portion of the road trip.  Though the LA Times said that the new listing is as much a clerical issue as anything else.  Again, this discussion is all the more odd when put against the silence about Kaman, who was projected, indefinitely, as "not coming back until February."  Okay, so now it's February.  Where is he and what's going on?  The Clippers have taken care of the relatively easy home portion of the schedule.  Getting big bumps from Gordon and Kaman returning to the lineup would make a big difference.

SP has family, virus, and perhaps the schelp back and forth to Staples:  who knows?  But come on, let's get a post up to talk about the victorious Clippers!  This game was  sweet for all sorts of reasons, but the first one that comes to mind is the way that the big win over the Heat was tempered by losing the shootout up at Golden State two nights later.  After beating the Lakers with a decisive 4th quarter the Clippers came back just 24 hours later to do take a modest amount of control in the 4th quarter and get a win.  Two in a row feels a lot better.  Another nice note is that Indiana played well, shot well, and they look like a pretty good basketball team, not unlike the Clippers with a couple of nice wins over the Heat and the Lakers and they blew out the Clips in their last meeting.  Not today.

And if I recall, that game was something of a subpar effort by a guy named Blake Griffin.  Today he was a little bit better, pretty good in fact.  Baron Davis continues to distribute the ball expertly and he added some timely offense with some big shots down the stretch, and Eric Gordon continues to be amazing, solid as a rock.  But yeah, Blake Griffin played a good game.

Continue reading this post »

I don't know about you guys, but I don't have a lot of plans for today.  Sounds like a classic Core Philosophy opportunity.  Too late now to rally up and get the early start at Mt. Baldy, where there is going to be fantastic skiing this year, just like last year.  Baldy is a hidden gem of the Southland, an hour closer than Big Bear, and it's higher and steeper and more challenging, especially when you can ski the ridge down to the bottom.

But I digress.  (Digression, of course, is one of the hallmarks of the CP.  Is life itself just a long digression?  What about "the Clipper Digression"?)  It seems to me that Doing Nothing is a hot button topic in the Nation at the moment.  As you may know, I'm more or less always in favor of it.  But I think that's a pretty unpopular view.  We've covered this before (a zhiv New Year's Resolution:  linking skills), but it's always evolving.  So I'll lay out the zhiv on Doing Nothing at the moment, with the idea that it might stir some discussion on a good CP, transitional day.   You see, the thing is, Doing Nothing is impossible.  We can try, but things are always changing.  2010, not a great annum for this proud Nation by any means, mercifully ends tonight.  We evolve.  Happy New Year, fellow citizens.  Any thoughts on what the Clippers should do in 2011?

Continue reading this post »

Kind of frustrating.  A bad third quarter, which we've seen too many times before and might have hoped was a thing of the past, along with a failure to defend the home floor.  This was an important test for the Clippers, as they were in a position to maintain their momentum and play well against a good team, one which is a bit of a nemesis.  I only say "a bit" because of the fact that there are a whole bunch of teams that bedevil the Clippers.  I guess until you break through, you don't break through.  

It's hard to focus on silver linings coming off a nice skein of victories.  The Clippers played well in the first half, although there were a number of qualifiers to that statement, which set the stage the poor second half and the defeat.  I'll try to get into some Likes and Dislikes of my own, but I'm curious to get the National input, and where things might be going.  The Clips have a break coming up, and you might want to suggest some topics for discussion over the next couple of days before SP gets back.

So yeah, apologies again for not putting up any sort of mediocre recap or thoughts after the game.  Heading up to sleep, this time mildly frustrated, as opposed to the contentment of the night before.  But it seems like nobody had much to say after the game on the comment thread.  Like I said, frustrating.  So it turns out that the Clippers won't win 50 games this year.  

And there are some notes on frustration below, after the jump. 

Continue reading this post »

As long as I'm hanging out here keeping the home fires burning, I thought I might hit one pet topic of my own, and also speculate on the primary preoccupations in the comments on this morning's missive.  You know, because I can. 

The post was about getting Win #10 and the Clips grabbing 5 out of the last 6.  Prior to that, I made a quick note after the Phoenix game and asked for Likes and Dislikes.  Maybe I should have done that again after the victory over the Kings, and the Dislikes (Ryan Gomes, anyone?) might have been revealing.  I guess I did my own Likes and Dislikes and perhaps preempted some of that discussion.  I was surprised to see that the commentary devolved pretty quickly into trade talk.  Is that any way to enjoy success?

i like good trade speculation as much as anybody, and I have to say that I especially like new era Clipper trade speculation, where the Clippers have assets and payroll flexibility, and we can talk about giving up a little to get a lot.  Back in the day, when the Clippers were massively disfunctional, there used to be a lot of absurd proposals from the outside, along the lines of suggesting that they should trade Kaman, Gordon, Aminu and a #1 pick for the privilege of renting Carmelo Anthony for a year in a season where they won't make the playoffs.  Oh, wait, that wasn't an idea from the last decade?  What I like are things that work the other way, what I just mentioned:  give up a little to get a lot.  Otherwise, stick to the Core Philosophy:  Do Nothing.  

Continue reading this post »

Again, oh so Clipper.  But the team is playing well and the ball is certainly bouncing their way right now, as evidenced by Evans' potential game-winner, after his missed free throw, coming out of the hoop rather than going in.

My bad on not getting up a fresh thread and mediocre recap, as I had a houseful of happy, partying youth hanging around, none of whom seemed to be the type who care about the Clippers.  So I went to bed with happy thoughts of another win, figuring I would get up in the morning and get things going here.  619 comments on the second half thread is a lot:  bad timing for me, and again, apologies.  But hey, it says something, right?  Or as Ralph would put it:

Here come the Clippers! 

Continue reading this post »

Okay, so the second half and the 4th quarter looked quite... Clipper.  But still.  All the highlights one could ask for in the first quarter, followed by a fair amount of steady play, along with contributions from just enough other guys to put the Clips in a position to win.  Yes, to hold on and win.  It's hard to call any part of a victory in a sub-.300 season a "disturbing trend," but the Clips have shown the potential to give back games that they have well in hand.  It almost happened against the Bulls and the same equation started to operate here for the Suns.

Let's focus on the positive, and a team that has been playing well for awhile now and seems to be clearly on the upswing, making some progress in a sweet spot in the schedule (unlike earlier in the season).  And the Clippers remain extremely fun to watch.  There's that Griffin guy, who everybody is watching, and that Gordon guy, who Clipper fans all know about.

SP is on the road this week, so I'm going to try to fill in with some mediocre recaps and meditations.  Just got back from a sojourn myself, so I'm still catching up.  In my first viewing of this game I had half an hour.  After seeing a great first quarter,  I couldn't help jumping ahead.  I haven't even read SP's preview.  But the Clips won against the Suns, and I'm sure SP mentioned how that hasn't happened in quite a while.  They protected the home court.  They played well.  More later.  You guys know more than I do at this point, so let me know what you like and dislike, and I'll try to catch up before the Sacramento game tomorrow.  

Steve Perrin will get mad at me for not mastering a simple link yet, and I was going to just do a fan post.  But I started to lose my mind there for a second when I went over to ESPN, and I thought we might as well move on from the Denver game frustration, maybe find a new target for our spilkas.

So if you go to ESPN NBA you will see something about Team USA and a trio of photos, Russell Westbrook, Kevin Love, and Lamar Odom, Rudy Gay or Tyson Chandler.  It's Mark Stein on Weekend Dime writing in a fair amount of depth about the impact of playing on Team USA on the performance of its members in the NBA this year.  

To tell you the truth, I couldn't even read the thing.  

I looked at the photos and was bummed that Eric Gordon wasn't there.  So I clicked to the article, expecting to read about his analysis of Gordon and his amazing but quiet and futile run.  Umm, no.

That's right.  A cruel snub.  Westbrook and Love.  Odom, Gay, and Chandler.  No Granger.  And no Eric Gordon.

I wrote over at Clipperblog about how the 08 Rookie Race seems to be playing itself out again in some ways, as a number of the same guys are playing at All-Star level now.  Of course, it takes some extra effort (of following the best players in the league, but you know, why would anyone be interested in doing that?) to know that Derrick Rose wasn't the only candidate in 08, despite being a wire-to-wire winner.  

I'm not going to get into all of it all over again.  Stein leaves out Rose because you don't need to talk about Rose.  Westbrook is obviously a fine player to discuss.  Odom's good play is a nice story I guess, though Bynum being out might have a lot to do with his production increase.  And Odom made a significant contribution to Team USA.  Unlike, say, Rudy Gay, Kevin Love, Danny Granger, and arguably Tyson Chandler.  Love is rebounding like a demon, and Gay and Chandler are playing well enough I guess.

But does no one know what Eric Gordon has been doing lately?  Really?  They don't know at all?  

This article by Stein isn't going to help.  I'm going to go read it very angrily right now.

There's a thread about SP's copyrighted phrases, U23 and Posterphobia.  I was commenting about the exchange between Marv Albert and Steve Kerr about Clipper Nation (Marv:  There's a Nation?), and I realized that the story of the broadcast by Mike Smith and Don McLean hasn't really had any run.

I thought it was kind of classic, myself.  Early on they had no intention of trying to do any play-by-play.  McLean, the old gunslinger, is a nice match for Mike Smith in his own way.  They're both stretch 4 broadcasters, whatever that might mean.  Good eye for putting the ball in the hoop, natural scorers.  McLean could be a great color man for the Clips, but somehow he never played for them (otherwise we would have heard "former Clipper Don McLean" a few thousand times, right?), and Smith and his ten children got there first.  And no one would want to mess with the fine Milph chemistry at this point.

Continue reading this post »

No problem.  The Clips and Blake Griffin came through on the birthday of our fearless leader, and delivered a satisfying home win against the team with the best record in the league once again.  After losing 18 straight against the Spurs, including two already this season, the Clippers rallied under the guiding hand of the returning Baron Davis in the second quarter and held on through the second half.  The must-watch Blake Griffin show was both solid and spectacular, continuing his streak of outstanding performances.  

Enjoy the moment, Citizens.

As one commenter said so eloquently, "I've never been so excited following a game thread."  

What do we know now, at halftime of a meaningless preseason game?  I think we can safely say the Blake Griffin has been eager to play basketball, and he's good at it.  

Griffin's path to this point in time--halftime of a preseason game against a mediocre to poor opponent, but one with a highly touted rookie big man in Cousins, and a troublesome, energetic undersized PF in Carl Landry, along with Jason Thompson, another young big--is just so interesting.  Freshman year at Oklahoma, decides to come back for sophomore year.  Complete domination in sophomore year, number one pick in the draft by your Los Angeles Clippers.  Great preseason, with some lingering knee issues, going into rookie campaign, knee fractures in the last preseason game, sits out entire season.  But he has a chance to travel with the team, see the schedule, how it works, working on all sorts of things himself, but unable to get on the court.  Healthy all summer, preparing to play.  Early foul trouble in preseason opener in front of rabid Portland fans, disappointing effort against team missing three centers, but with LAldridge intact.  And then we get tonight's first half.

Does anybody think that Blake Griffin was eager to get a good run out on the court, to have a chance to do his thing?

My regret is that I haven't gotten it together to hear Ralph's description of the game, and the Milph combo.  Whenever good things happen for the Clippers I'm happy for Ralph, and this seems to have been a very good night.  And radio is probably even more fun.

Unleash the Beast! 

Or rather, go ahead and sit the Beast.  Nothing more to prove here.  The next step is to see what happens when Baron Davis plays with these guys.  Against the Warriors?  Down in Mexico?

No way the 2nd half can be as exciting as the first.  But let's enjoy the good times.

Hey!  I'm reading box scores, taking a look at the Wizards and the Cavs and Boston and New Jersey and the general preseason chaos and confusion (Yi Jianlian!  You go, big fella!), and I see that the Clippers and Sactown are underway.

In case no one has noticed, the venerable Clipoblogosphere is going through its own preseason growing pains, trying to figure out how to cover, analyze, and discuss the Clippers the right way.

Allons-y, mes amis!  Eric Gordon and Blake Griffin.  Have at it.

I got in the car at 720 last night to head down to Long Beach for the big preseason ClipsNation politburo meeting, complete with Lebanese food.  And I realized that I could listen to Ralph and Mike kicking off the fall campaign, appropriately enough, on the drive.  When I turned on the radio the first thing I heard was "and Blake Griffin picks up his second foul and will come out of the game."  The score was 15-14 I think, and Ryan Gomes hit a three and the Clips had the lead.  I missed hearing about Griffin's exploits, and BDavis and Gordon were nowhere in sight, but hey, let's go fellas, let's play the right way.

Or not.  And then the deluge.  A perfect storm of Bledsoe turnovers, Wes Mathews gluey Portland perfection, more turnovers and disgruntled Rudy F. threes, and soon enough that old Clipper feeling, the familiar fear and loathing, the insanity, the horror, it was all racing back, much too soon, much too quickly.  I had to report to our fearless leader that the Clips had been outscored by something like 50-15, and they were down by something like 35 points.  I exaggerated.  My eyes were wild, the walls were closing in.

But after a couple of beers, and a night of rainy reflection, I realized it was part of a carefully designed plan.  Getting blown of the floor and out of the gym in Portland was the best possible thing that could have happened last night.

Continue reading this post »

With Bynum out until December something, and Kobe shutting it down in London after 6 minutes and the TWolves having their way in a meaningless game, I was wonder if there was any chance that the Lakers might get off to a slow start this season.  In a word, no.  We know that the schedule giveth and taketh, that it all balances out.  But obviously any of us would prefer for the Clippers to have an easy November to build momentum and confidence, and why not wring some early losses out of the hated champs, just for fun and to make them human. 

I don't know which is worse, how easy the early Laker schedule looks or how hard the early Clipper schedule seems.  Kind of an amusing comparison.

Baron Davis is not in bad shape, or out of shape, and he's not fat.  He's a beast of a player and he's strong and quick.  The thing is, he plays in the NBA.  And he's not getting any younger.  And he's supposed to be a very high level player, if not at elite status then just short of it.  So the standard of what "in shape" means for Baron Davis is extremely high.

There are some other challenges.  Davis was confused and lost some motivation when FElton signed with the 76ers.  He thought that he and FElton would be able to figure out their game together, and then the guy he was looking forward to playing with, even in Dunleavy's system, was gone.  So he didn't do much to get ready in the summer of 08, and then, as these things go, he hurt his back in the preseason and was banged up, and he didn't have the sufficient reserve of conditioning to make a strong recovery.  He played badly all season, and realized at some point that his own lack of effort and preparation was problem, that it wasn't all just Dunleavy's control issues.

Continue reading this post »

Looking around for camp invitee, par Monsieur Perrin, DJFoster over at Clippers.com, getting some Fri 9/24 info from "LACx3."  Maybe that's him, maybe it isn't.  I didn't know that DTS has an "oceanfront property," but it makes sense of course.  And somehow I missed the tradition of "the Clippers annual Malibu White Tip-off Party," which DTS is hosting at said property on Sunday.  I assume we should all feel free to stop by, as long as we're white in some form or another.

I also learned, from VDN, that Blake Griffin is going to play the right way, that VDN wants guys that have "the right mentality in terms of preparing the right way, wanting to improve, wanting to be coached."  I assume that improvement and coaching consists of learning and teaching how to play the right way.

But the main thing I got to see was the Clippers preseason schedule, jumping to the next square past the opening of training camp on Tuesday.  And the Clips have three games the following week, all on the road, against intriguing, mid-level opponents, Best, Better, Good, just like buying home supplies at Home Depot.

Preseason means too much for the Clippers, we all know that.  It should mean nothing, and it does mean nothing.  The main thing about training camp and preseason is to keep everybody healthy, and that alone has been much too difficult for our hapless Clips over the years.  Offseason preparation is better and improving--guys are preparing the right way--and that should cut down on calf strains and hamstring pulls, and the yoga must help there too.  Camby's training camp injury two years ago made Tim Thomas the opening day starter and Baron Davis hurt his back in the preseason that same wonderful year.  The Clips seemed to do well staying healthy in training camp and the preseason last year, until that pesky little Blake Griffin injury.

Not sure where Portland is expected to finish in the West by the pundits, but it's safe to say that everybody is picking them well ahead of the Clips.  Our good pal Camby is welcome to sit out the entire preseason the way he did on the Clippers.  Isn't he old?  Oden needs to conserve his minutes too, right, and he should go onto the Yao24 program, don't you think?  Always nice to see Andre Miller, the great Humanitarian, always a pleasure.  We remember the way he livened up the annual Malibu White Tip-off Party back in the day, getting off to a great start with his teammates.  The bond on that squad was deep, lots of guys eager to play the right way, no one worried about their contracts or anything.  If SP doesn't hate Voskuhl anymore (though he's not against calling him a girl), how do we feel about Andre Miller?  What's our list of most hated ex-Clippers look like?  Even FElton has had the good grace to become amazingly terrible with a horrendous contract, after betraying his Clipper fans.  Miller is what he has always been, a giant pain.  Hate Andre Miller, love Brandon Roy, eager to see the Gomes-Batum matchup, want to see Kaman's new double skip dribble through the legs that sets up his 3-pt jumper (learned it from Kobe, but he doesn't have Kobe's 40 foot range quite down yet, maybe next year), and let's all say hello to Mr. Griffin, in the preseaon once again.  Exciting?

Does Sactown feel just a little bit more funky than in recent years?  Do we smell Kings cow pies once again, just like the way Chris Webber and Vlade used to get down?  Reke and Cousins should be nice, Hawes out and Cousins in, and Griffin against Cousins should be really fun.  And what about Dalembert?  Wasn't he a jerk on the Canadian Olympic team a second ago, but now he works around the clock saving Haiti?  Not ready to like the guy yet, want the Clips to be clearly better than the Kings, ready to see the Clips play the right way and defend Reke, and Cousins should be a raw, undisciplined talent.

Not feeling good enough yet?  Time to play the Warriors!  The boring, better, but still not good Warriors.  Say goodbye to Nellieball, and Hollywood Baron say hi to all your old Bay Area friends along with new owner Peter Guber, an old LA cronie.  Let him tell you the story of selling Guber-Peters to Warner Bros., before taking over Sony Pictures.  It's a good one, but of course any random Jon Peters story is priceless.  Gordon and Davis against Curry and Ellis, or Foye against somebody.  How do we feel about Randy Foye in our third preseason game?  Didn't realize he averaged 16+ ppg year before last; not too shabby.

How's that for a week!  What could be better than that?

Did some one say Mexico?

This quote from Shakespeare (King Lear, I think) should be remembered by all Clipper fans.  It comes in handy.  It doesn't make things better, but it provides a thumbnail guide for the possibility that our favorite squad is in retrograde, rather than moving forward.

I got myself psyched up again today, "once more into the breach!" and came up with one of my standard crackpot Club Optimism theories, that the coaching staff, such as it might be, had hampered the potentially potent Clipper SL attack by failing to start DJordan and Sofo side by side.  Unleash the beasts, I said.  It seemed like a simple enough adjustment, and it promised to solve everything.

That's not what happened.

Continue reading this post »

I registered more than mild disappointment after the first game of summer league.  Club Optimism was prepared to open its doors, even after a blank and uninspiring FA sequence.  But inside the Club there was a sense that it was premature to think of opening up, that we just wanted to see some excitement and positive signs and tendencies.  A blowout, in the same manner that the Wiz blew out the Clips, would have generated thinking about opening the doors, but instead we had just the opposite.  Cooler heads were skeptical about the Clipper SL squad competing with a team led by John Wall, let alone dominating them.

But then this morning, in the steam after a good workout, I realized what was wrong with the first game.  It was simple.  It was a coaching decision that led us down the path towards disappointment and even despair.  For some reason, it was decided not to unleash the beasts!

Continue reading this post »

I can't believe that I was so bummed out after a summer league game.  But hey, I know what to expect:  it's the Clippers, after all.  Still, it's just summer league, and things are going to be sloppy and a little wacky, and it's just one game.  I do think, however, that we learned a fair amount about some semi-important new players last night, even though the jury only heard the opening arguments and a got a few pieces of evidence.

But the main thing is that it seemed like the Clips had a nicely rounded roster, with a promising player at every position, especially by summer league standards.  And I was hoping to see some surprising talent and get some excitement.  In short, I was hoping that the result for the Clippers would look something like the result that the Wizards walked away with.  I was hoping that the Clips would give the announcers and pundits a lot to talk about, and take the focus away from John Wall and the Wizards and generate some excitement about the youngsters and the Clippers.

Didn't happen.  It's the Clippers.  Even in summer league.  For now.

Continue reading this post »

So let's assume this happens.  Is the New Heat a superteam?  Sure, why not.  They're built to match up with the Lakers.  Gasol/Bosh, Artest/Lebron, Kobe/Wade.  The Lakers happen to have Bynum, LO and now Steve Blake and some other guys, but whatever.  We've talked about how the Clippers match up with the Lakers, as recently as when the Clips drafted AFA.  Let's not forget our Boston pals and their champion team with Garnett (Bosh), Pierce (LBJ), Ray Allen, now Rajon Rondo and Old Ray Allen (2 yrs, 20 million).

So how do the Clips match up with the Miami triumvirate?  It's an interesting exercise to match a team against 3 guys.  But the Clips only have a few key players, and some other new question marks.  They're not a real team yet.  Of course the Heat aren't a team yet either, not even close.  It should be really amusing to see who gets spots on their roster.

The basic version:  Griffin/Bosh, AFA/LBJ, Gordon/Wade.

Ouch.  Extremely young.  They've got that going for them.  But let's take AFA out, and add another free agent.  And let's move Kaman into the mix at the same time:  Kaman/Bosh, Griffin/LBJ, Gordon/Wade.

It just got a lot better, didn't it?  Now let's say that AFA turns into something of a defensive stopper, and you want him on the floor to slow down a great player.  Now you've got this:  Kaman/Bosh, Griffin/LBJ, AFA/Wade.  And Baron Davis and Eric Gordon are running around on their own.

No team has very many guys to throw at LBJ defensively.  Griffin is probably a pretty good start.  Aminu might be credible.  Wade is no picnic either.  We all know Gordon can defend, Wade is a tough matchup for him, and he does better than you might expect.  BDavis can defend Wade too, a little bit.  We need to see how AFA plays against bigger wing SGs like Kobe and Wade, if that's even possible.  I don't worry about Bosh so much, which is probably a big mistake.  You can't have Griffin guarding two guys, Bosh and LBJ.  Kaman can guard Bosh pretty well, but if the Heat have a big stiff at center, and Bosh doesn't want to play a lot of center (although that might change with him on "the superteam with no center"), that moves things around.

I don't know.  Would Tayshaun Prince make things better for the Clips?  With Travis Outlaw getting 35, is Mike Miller's price above 40 and climbing up towards Bobby Simmons land? 

Should the Clips sign Bobby Simmons?  Has anybody asked that yet?  Having Simmons and Livingston on the team would be amusing.

Getting close now, and with FA musical chairs winding down and the Clips hiring a coach, it's time for a little summer basketball.  I have to say, I'm pretty excited about the roster.

Bledsoe-Warren-Aminu-Sofo-Jordan.  Is it just me, or is that an awesome lineup?

Warren is the weak link, and my expectations are low.  And I'll temper my Sofo/Jordan enthusiasm with the idea that they probably won't play too much together.  But they should be pretty effective when they do, so that will be really fun.  Let's break it down a little bit.

Aminu.  I'm most interested to see this defensive intensity we've heard about, along with the rebounding.  It seems like he should be a pretty effective summer league player, where athleticism and effort can turn into easy baskets in a more wide open game.  And it will be interesting to see how he functions in the role of obvious starter and marquee player, although he will be neither of those things in the regular season.  But the important thing is seeing him moving around on the court and getting a sense of his approach and feel for the game.  In a best case scenario, he's the other side of the Blake Griffin coin, where BG is the PF with a lot of SF stuff going on, and Aminu is the SF who makes a lot of PF plays.  Summer league should be a good venue for him.

Eric Bledsoe.  No better opportunity to get a good look at what we hope is a diamond in the rough.  Again, athleticism is a big factor.  It's funny to remember the banner recent PG and tweener drafts, when we were watching Eric Gordon and measuring him against so many other guys.  I'm trying to remember some of the second tier guys, and wondering if they'll be around.  If I know very little about Aminu, I know even less about Bledsoe, and no one has really seen him running a team and playing on a roster that doesn't have John Wall on it.  My guess is that he'll be a bit raw, but very promising and fairly productive, I hope.  But who knows.  He's slotted to have the opportunity to play an important role on the team, and we should have some sense of whether he has any chance of doing that after we see him play a few games.

So that's two eagerly anticipated debuts.  What's next?

DJordan.  I'm going with DJ over Sofo because I would like to see some real improvement.  The downside is that DJ was great to watch and extremely complementary with Griffin last summer, and we won't get to see their combined force here.  But this is a great opportunity for DJ to show that he's a force unto himself.  Is there anybody that he'll be up against who should be able to stop him?  If DJ is going to be a poor man's Dwight Howard, this is the place to play that role, and to show a little domination.  He'll need help from Bledsoe and some of the other guards getting him into position to make plays, but there should be a lot of stuff that he can do on his own.  As a third year player I don't know that he'll play a whole lot of games, but the more he plays the better.  This should be a fun warm up for the preseason, when he'll be back on the court with Griffin.  It would be great for DJordan to show some maturity and polish and to see him finding ways to use his athleticism and length.  He and Griffin must be back at it again, going full bore, and his teammates Griffin and BDavis and Gordon will be there pushing him, expecting more out of him than the other guys.

Sofo.  This is an SP/zhiv dream come true, and we've been waiting a long time for it.  In case any one doesn't know, SP is very high on his BFGC.  I saw SP the other day, when I was exploring the possibility of making a run at Pierce, and SP just wanted to make sure that there was some money left for Sofo.  One of our citizens was making the case for Rhino, and SP was defiant:  if you think Rhino can move people around and make plays in the paint, you should know that Sofo is a house and can be completely unstoppable down on the block, making him an immediate double team.  The pick and roll with Sofo could be outrageous, SP noted.  As for me, a lot of citizens know I have a soft spot for the underdog big man, the tall tree who shows up unannounced at the first tryout and turns out to be a dominant player.  Still waiting for that guy, although Kaman is finally making us proud.  It goes back to hoping for Benoit Benjamin and Stanley Roberts and even, ahem, Michael Olowokandi.  It wasn't Chris Wilcox (why can't he be Amare?  maybe he still can!), Big Z got hurt, and then I pulled hard for a series of disappointing candidates.  Paul Davis, Josh Powell, even DeAndre Jordan up above right here, who might still be the One (or maybe the Two, alongside Griffin.  Nah.  He just needs to be pretty good.)  But the disorder of irrational big man optimism will probably always be known as the Fazekas syndrome, correct?  Go ahead, make fun. Just be prepared:  I'm completely ready to lose my mind about Sofo.  I know it's not going to work out, but I can't help myself.  I can't wait to see the guy play.

That's more than enough right there, isn't it? I like the return of Caner-Medley, who seems like a great candidate for a roster spot, and we already know he's a good summer league player.  Is there anybody else anybody is interested in?  I have very low expectations on Warren, and don't expect to be surprised, but he does round out the starting lineup, at least for the first game.

And I have to say that going into the draft I really didn't expect the summer league roster to come together like this and to be this intriguing.  It's even going to be interesting to see who is coaching the team.

SP doesn't seem to be around this evening.  So I'll put it up on top:  the Clips have apparently reached an agreement for Vinny Del Negro to be the next coach of the storied franchise.  Reports are coming in from KA and Lisa Dillman.  The thing to look at is KA's older post, from last week, about the comparison between VDN and Casey and the styles they represent.  KA also reported earlier this week that VDN had been extremely impressive in his interviews with the Clippers.  We have to assume, I think, that the Clips were like all of us outsiders, knowing that Casey looked much better on paper, that he had a system and all sorts of experience.  But I just read the earlier breakdown, and KA mentions the strong improvement of Noah and Gibson under VDN's watch, along with the steady early success of Derrick Rose.  With all of the Clipper youngsters, this counts for a lot.  And VDN may have a more dynamic and salable media presence.  Who knows.  

There's a good discussion over at the fan posts, where this news went up 3 hours ago.  Any further thoughts, before SP gets here?

I love it when the elite teams have to pay full price and get subjected to the same market forces that challenge the other, also-ran teams in the league.  When I went on a Celtics site or two a couple of days ago, wondering about whether the Clips could pry Pierce loose for a deal in the mid-50s for 4 years, a lot of people were saying that Pierce should sign a 3 year deal in the high 30s.  Wouldn't that be good for Boston.  Yes it would.

So now Pierce has signed, but rather than caving in and taking a team option for the 4th year, Boston is now on the hook to pay Pierce 4 years/60 million.  They have the inflated Garnett contract for two more years.  And after that is all done, they'll have two more years of Pierce.  The funny thing is that when you sign a deal like this you say it's okay, because in the last year or so, when the player is 35-36 and much less productive, it becomes an expiring contract and a nice trade piece.  But how does that work when you're trying to make Paul Pierce "Mr. Celtic," who played his entire career there?  "Yeah, except for that deal in the 2013 offseason when we sent him to Charlotte, who waived him before the trade deadline.  Other than that, he was Mr. Celtic."

Paying Pierce for 4 years made sense for the Clips as a matter of establishing credibility, and going to a place where they've never been.  Pierce will help the Celtics chase after something they weren't able to grasp this year.  He has two more pretty good years left, but he will decline.  Pierce's value elsewhere in the league was greater than what the Celtics could afford.  The Celts deserve some credit for paying a guy who has done a great job for the franchise, but this deal will hamper them greatly in trying to rebuild around Rondo, once they're done paying Garnett.  Now we'll see about Ray Allen.  And we'll see if the Lakers make a mistake and overpay Derek Fisher for his past service, or let him go to a team that will overpay for his playoff experience and record of success.

Interesting, how longtime players for successful franchises have a greater value to other teams.  And how making deals with them is very problematic for these successful franchises, moving forward.  

Last year I was bummed when there were no teams with cap space and Lamar Odom signed with the Lakers for a major discount.  How does LO feel about making Drew Gooden money?  Yes, it's three years instead of 5.  My bad.  I don't think any comparable deals have been signed yet this year, but Rudy Gay and Joe Johnson are making twice as much as LO.  But this year the Lakers have signed Steve Blake for real money and should lose some guys, maybe Fisher, and now Boston has paid the market rate for Pierce, creating issues for their future.  Cool.

Time to go see what the Boston folk are saying about the deal.  Happy now?