ClipperBag: Let the season commence – Clipperblog (blog)
We’re one game into the preseason. We’re three weeks from the start of the regular season. It’s time to come out of hiding. It’s time for the first ClipperBag of the year. Tweeters, take it away:
Will CDR be with the team all season? I hope not. He’s a below average player.
– @SwishKid
Well then. Such concern. And it’s about a player who only earned 20 minutes a game last year, acting as one of the best perimeter defenders on a team that finished sixth in the NBA in defense. Charlotte coach Steve Clifford instantly became one of the NBA’s best defensive coaches last season, and now, the Bobcats Hornets are a squad that thrives in preventing its opponents from putting the ball in the hoop. And yes, defending how the Bobcats (Not the Hornets. They were the Bobcats then. I got that one right.) won games last season. CDR vastly improved under Clifford, whom he already knew from a previous Lakers training camp invite when Clifford was an assistant in LA.
What have we been saying about the Clippers’ weaknesses for the past two seasons? The team is lacking in athletic players who can guard on the perimeter. Matt Barnes is still a high-effort, intelligent defender, but he’s not gaining any athleticism at age 34, even if he did lose 15 pounds during the offseason.
If your concern is that trading Jared Dudley and a future first-round pick to create the cape space needed to sign Douglas-Roberts among others is a mistake, I won’t argue with you on that front. Giving up first-rounders is always worrisome. But if you watched Charlotte last year or even watched CDR bouncing off screeners like a ping pong ball while endlessly chasing Klay Thompson around picks during the first preseason game, you’d see the newest Clippers small forward fills a void the organization has had for a while.
Oh, and yes. I’d say he’s with the team for the season.
The Clippers’ small forward spot is the weakest position. Instead of plugging the leak, Doc has opted to throw the kitchen sink. Basically, point guards, shooting guards and power forwards will take turns at the 3 (remember CP3 on Durant). Griffin could become a dual forward because of this. The only way I could see them getting their SF will be by trade, and the value of Crawford, Bullock and Wilcox may not be enough. The Clippers could be forced into trading DJ just to get their guy, especially since it’s his contract year.
Can they get by with a small forward kitchen sink? Could you see the Clippers sacrificing chemistry for a position of need?
– @WammyGiveaway
This is a reference to Game 4 of last year’s Western Conference Semifinals, when Chris Paul guarded KD for one quarter. One measly quarter. I don’t think we can call that a trend. And considering the way the Clips trapped Durant during that single period of basketball, it wasn’t just Paul guarding him. That was a short-term solution. It wasn’t anything indicative of the future.
Also, I’m dispelling these rumors right now. We’re not seeing a Blake Griffin-Spencer Hawes-DeAndre Jordan lineup. It’s not going to happen. Griffin is not, as you say, a “dual forward.”
Maybe Doc will float it out there for three minutes against a small team seven games under .500 when the Clippers are winning by 11 in the third quarter in the 49th game of the season on a Tuesday night.
But that’s it.
Yet, there are rumblings of this actually, you know, becoming a thing. But we’re not going to see that lineup consistently. And it wouldn’t happen against just anyone. It has to be the perfect situation. And it’ll only be for a few minutes, just long enough for the Twittersphere to notice and just short enough for basketball nerds who aren’t watching the game initially to miss it once they change the channel to see a replica of the best All-Star Game lineup of all time (five bigs, including Shaq at point guard in 2003).
That said, small forward is clearly the shallowest spot on this team. Believing in some Matt Barnes regression isn’t that hard to sell. The guy’s 34 years old and considering plenty of his game is build on out-quicking the opponent, it stands to reason he’s going to show signs of age at some point in the near future. Actually, you could argue that Barnes’ motion on offense is more dependent on lateral quickness than his defense…
Will we see a lot of Barnes/CDR lineups to switch on the wing on defense?
– @jon_eng4
Man, you guys are loving the small forward questions. This idea does make a good deal of sense against teams that you want to get running, though.
Throw CDR at the 3, Barnes at the 4, stretch the floor some with two guys who shot at above-average rates for those two positions last season, and give yourself some defensive versatility on top of that.
The Clippers tried this concept last year, except then, it was Barnes at the 3 with Jared Dudley at power forward. And even after spending the full mid-level exception to sign Spencer Hawes, you’d expect them to try out small ball at points throughout the season. We’re talking about a team that finished seventh in pace last year, according to basketball-reference. Griffin and Jordan obviously like to run. So does Barnes. Paul, who has always been more of a half-court point guard, even proved himself more willing to do so last season. And naturally, Doc is going to put his guys in a position to take advantage of their athletic advantage over most any team.
Joe Ingles isn’t the hero Los Angeles needs…But is he the hero Los Angeles deserves?
– @traread (Tom Read of the Believe the Hype Podcast)
Australia, always a solid six years behind in its pop culture references.
Prediction for most improved returning player?
– @dukenilnil
Not Joe Ingles, Tom.
It sounds somewhat crazy, but once again, I’m going with DeAndre Jordan—unless Blake Griffin starts shooting 90 percent from three like his first preseason game implied he’d do.
DJ was the go-to pick for most improved last season. It was easy. Vinny Del Negro was out, Doc Rivers was in, and DeAndre was bound to get minutes, play fourth quarters, gain defensive intuition and maybe most importantly, actually feel wanted within the organization.
In the end, Jordan improved even more than his most optimistic supporters could’ve predicted. Save Kimberly Jordan (@callmeMISSKIM has to be the best NBA mom to follow during games, by the by), no one had DJ sailing all the way to top-three in Defensive Player of the Year voting last season. But there are still plenty of holes in his game to rework—even defensively. And considering how much better he got during his first season under Doc, it’s safe to assume that trajectory will continue into this season.
Let’s assume Jordan is who he is offensively. We’ll guess the free throws stay the same, the post moves continue to allude him and he stays as a pick-and-roll threat who can clean up on the offensive boards and sky over the world to dunk on every living being. He’s still the biggest candidate on this team to get better.
It’s not that DJ just showed up last year and was great from day one. December Jordan was better than November Jordan. February Jordan was better than December Jordan. And May Jordan, playoff Jordan—that guy was absolutely incredible, especially in round one against the Golden State Warriors, when he averaged 12.1 points, 15.1 rebounds and 4.0 blocks on 75.7 percent shooting, seeing his rebound total climb past 17 in four of the seven games.
Jordan can still get better as a pick-and-roll defender, learning not to bite at a first dribble move. You’ll still see occasional late rotations from him trying to recover for teammates. When he’s throwing a block party, he maintains that tendency to get antsy, leaving his feet or trying to position himself primarily for blocks a tad too often once his swat total gets up to three or four. And when he strays from where he should be, he’s prone to allow backdoor cuts.
There’s a bunch of room to get better. At the rate he’s going, it seems perfectly plausible DJ makes all those improvements this year. If he does, that’s what could help the Clippers make the leap to winning the West.
Will DJ sign a contract extension? When is the deadline? Will it be a distraction? How much is he worth as a free agent?
– @avonhun
As Doc said about the possibility of a DeAndre extension last week, “He won’t ever accept an extension. Why would he?”
That’s not because DJ staunchly won’t sign with the Clippers. As Rod Tidwell would tell you, it’s all about the money. If Jordan comes out and actually makes those improvements to his game this year, he’s due for a massive raise, right?
DeAndre, who is on the last year of a four-year, $43 million deal, will be the 51st-highest paid player in the league this upcoming season. Look at the centers who make more than him:
Kevin Garnett ($12 million), Al Horford ($12 million), Nikola Pekovic ($12.1 million), Joakim Noah ($12.2 million), Andrew Bogut ($13 million), DeMarcus Cousins ($13.7 million), Tyson Chandler ($14.6 million), Roy Hibbert ($14.9 million), Brook Lopez ($15.7 million), Marc Gasol ($15.8 million), Dwight Howard ($21.4 million).
Purely for basketball reasons, DJ probably falls somewhere in that Bogut-to-Chandler salary range (Noah and Horford are vastly underpaid): defensive-minded centers who can provide help on the other side of the ball—though DJ’s versatility and NBA-leading consecutive games streak separates him in some ways from the injury-prone Mavericks’ and Warriors’ centers. But there’s more to factor in than just quality of play. There’s that darn TV contract.
With a recently signed nine-year, $24 billion television contract expected to kick in for the 2016-17 season, we’re about to see revenues skyrocket. And that means the salary cap will follow, possibly passing the $80 million figure, up from just over $63 million for the 2014-15 season. Once those expected changes occur, $15 million or $16 million won’t seem like all that much for a 27-year-old who also doubles as one of the NBA’s best defensive centers. Add in the Clippers’ desperation to keep him (Jordan is their entire defense), and DeAndre could become quite a wealthy man in about nine months.
Does @andrewthehan like the over on wins Vegas is giving the Clippers at 55.5? I sure do. #SBID Also, the Spurs’ over 56.5 seems low.
– @rufusslim
It’s your lucky day, Rufus. Guest post time from Andrew (the) Han:
If the Clippers stay relatively healthy—meaning their core players miss fewer than 15 games combined—then I’m fairly confident they crest the 60-win total for the first time in franchise history. Take that with a grain of salt though because I also picked them to win 60 games last season (which was vindicated by their Expected Win/Loss sum).
The Clippers had the No. 1 rated offense with Chris Paul missing a quarter of the season and J.J. Redick missing half. That’s their starting backcourt out for a combined 67 games. I hate picking the over on teams with high win totals, but with health and continuity, there’s no reason to think they’re not primed for a monster season.
Trepidation for that Spurs over as well (same reason as above). Because Popovich is unafraid to experiment with the regular season and rest players, you always wonder whether this’ll be the year they just accept a four-seed and pack it in. But every year it seems like no matter who they trot out on a given night, San Antonio at a minimum flirts with 60 wins.
The two I’d feel least hesitant about are the Hawks over (40.5) and the Nuggets under (40.5). But, as always, sports betting is dumb. #sbid
I’d also add that the Memphis over 48.5 looks enticing, though Andrew seems to disagree. The Grizzlies won at a 50-win pace during the lockout season. They won 56 a couple years ago with a healthy Marc Gasol. They put up a 50 total in the victory column last season with Gasol missing almost half the year. Over the summer, their only real loss was Mike Miller, who they more than replaced when they signed Vince Carter. The West may be dominant, but that’s not new. Barring injury, Memphis is topping 50 wins. But yeah, we don’t gamble…
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