MVN - Most Valuable Network

Fixing the Clippers

ClipperSteve over at clipsnation.com is holding a contest of which the object is to fix the Clippers. If you were the club’s general manager, what moves would you make to take the Clippers’ franchise to the next level? I found the concept to be quite intriguing, so I put together an entry. I thought I would reprint it here. If any of you think you could do a better job than I did, feel free to enter over at SB Nation. There are some great prizes for the winners.

Introduction:

Since the rest of this is fairly lengthy I will simply open with a few words about my concept. Basically I wanted to make this team younger and more athletic without really going through a rebuilding process. I also wanted to bring in a young star without completely sending the salary cap into the stratosphere. I feel that I was fairly successful in accomplishing both of those goals.

Far too often we as Clippers fans are prone to pessimism. I think that initially this tendency predisposed me to being a bit conservative with what I was trying to do. After putting the better part of a couple of days into this, however, I think you will find that I shed any traces of conservatism. While my plan is extremely aggressive, I also think that it is largely realistic.

It may seem far fetched that all of the transactions I propose could happen in combination. I would suggest, however, that if each trade can be deemed reasonable individually, then what is to stop them from occurring in tandem besides a general lack of ingenuity and drive by those currently in control of this organization?

Roster:

C- Chris Kaman (9.5M)
PF- Elton Brand (16.4M)
SF- Luol Deng (13M)
SG- Cuttino Mobley (9M)
PG- Shaun Livingston (5M)
6- Al Thornton (1.8M)
7- Chase Budinger (2.4M)
8- Joe Smith (5M)
9- Devin Brown (1.2M)
10- Brevin Knight (2M)
11- Dan Dickau (1M)
12- Paul Davis (500K)
13- Josh Powell (500K)
14- Shaun Foster (400K)
15- Open for Flexibility

Depth Chart:

C - Kaman/Smith/Davis/Powell
PF - Brand/Smith/Thornton
SF - Deng/Thornton/Brown
SG - Mobley/Budinger/Brown/Foster
PG - Livingston/Knight/Dickau

Total Payroll = 67.7M

Transactions:

1. Extend Brand now before he opts out

Brand has been in the league for 8 years now and he will turn 30 next season. He is not exactly hurting financially and from everything we have seen about him, Elton is ready to put winning first. It is my belief that if we can clearly demonstrate to Elton that his signing a contract extension for slightly less than the maximum would result in putting a far more competitive product on the floor, he would not hesitate.

If he is looking for a big payday, Brand will likely exercise his option for next season. This will allow him to take advantage of the big jump in maximum salaries that occurs when a player has been in the league for 10 seasons. Honestly though, I do not foresee this being the case.

My goal would be to extend Brand now for the amount he would receive next year if he accepted his option, and then increase his salary by the maximum of 10.5 percent per year. This would give him a maximum increase in his money, just from a less-than-maximum starting point. If Brand were to opt out after this season, his maximum starting salary would likely be around 17 million, which means this is not really much of a pay cut at all.

The extension would last for two seasons after next and provide Brand an option for a third. This would seem to be equitable to both parties and allow for greater flexibility going forward. If Brand continues to struggle with injury, the team will not be trapped beneath his contract forever. If he returns to all-world form, he can opt out in three seasons and get himself a maximum deal if he desires.

I spent about an entire evening looking at information about the CBA trying to determine if what I just described is against the rules, and could find nothing to that effect. Still, I may have missed something and broken a well established salary cap rule. Regardless, I think the essence of my idea is a good one. It would certainly be possible to extend Brand at less than the maximum in order to make the Clippers as competitive as possible.

2. Trade Sam Cassell and Quinton Ross to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Ira Newble, Devin Brown, Cedric Simmons, and the Cav’s first round draft pick.

So far this season the Cavs have been deficient in two major areas. They badly need a point guard and their defense has declined significantly since last season. It is pretty obvious how Cassell and Ross, respectively, would fix those problems for Cleveland.

The guys that the Clippers get back are not that consequential. Simmons is a relatively nice young big who will fill out the roster. Newble can be cut immediately. Brown is worth keeping around as a bench scorer and energy guy. From the Clippers end, this move is purely about dumping salary and getting the pick.

3. Trade Tim Thomas to the New Jersey Nets for the expiring contracts of Jamaal Magloire and Darrell Armstrong.

If the Net’s window of opportunity is not already shut, this season may be the franchise’s last chance to make a playoff run. Prior to this season the Nets thought that Jamaal would be a key acquisition. Due to his poor play and the emergence of Sean Williams, however, Magloire’s worth to the Nets at this point is extremely limited and he is racking up DNPs. Thomas would be the perfect fit to be the team’s staring power forward. The Nets are currently 4-1 in January despite playing a rotation of Josh Boone and Malik Allen at the position. One more shooter to run the wing and play with Jason Kidd would help the Nets immensely in the playoffs. Tim’s playoff experience certainly would not hurt either.

4. Trade Corey Maggette, the Minnesota first rounder (which is unprotected next year), the pick we just got from Cleveland and one future unprotected first round pick of our own (2009) to the Bulls for Luol Deng and Joe Smith.

Deng will need to be re-signed this offseason, likely for a maximum contract. At first this will cause Mr. Sterling to completely blow a gasket. Once he sees the rest of the plan, however, I think he will come around, especially once he sees we are under the luxury tax. Plus, it has been a while since we really saw any truly stingy behavior from him. He gave Kaman the big deal and not offering any more than we did to Maggette last summer was probably something closer to prudence than parsimony.

Deng is an elite young talent, as was witnessed during last year’s playoffs. He can guard three positions masterfully. He is long, quick, fast, agile, moves excellently without the ball, is dazzling from mid-range, and has a great attitude. The scariest thing about Luol is that he is only 22. If he can improve his touch from beyond the three point arc (a place he currently rarely ventures), he could legitimately be the league’s top all-around wing player.

It is scary to imagine just how imposing a front court of Kaman, Brand, and Deng would be on opposing teams. There is little doubt that they would form one of the top two or three front courts in all of the NBA.

It may seem like a stretch that the Bulls would have any desire to make this trade. After all, the team did decide not to pull the trigger on a deal for the NBA’s greatest individual talent in Kobe Bryant largely due to a desire to hold on to Luol.

The reason this works is that things have changed in Chicago since the off season. First of all, the team has not made any progress in negotiations to extend either Deng or Ben Gordon. It has also become painfully obvious that without any player with the ability to create going to the basket, this team is relegated to shooting far too many jump shots. Between the impending free agency of their two best players and their lack of success, the Bulls are in need of a change.

Maggette would probably get to the foul line more than their entire roster does currently. His slashing would combine nicely with the spot up shooing of Gordon, Hinrich, and Nocioni. Without making a move the Bulls simply have too many players who do the same things. Including the three picks ensures that the Bulls would not feel they were being slighted in any way by this deal, especially when you consider how high that Minnesota pick is likely to be next season.

5. Sign Shaun Livingston to his offer sheet at $5 million.

Shaun will likely be looking to prove he can stay healthy and perform for an entire season. It would really be in his best interest to come back next year and probably the year after in order to get a bigger deal thereafter. I cannot imagine any team really offering him much more given his injury history and inconsistent development when healthy. We would also probably be his best chance to play in a starting role immediately next season.

6. Draft Chase Budinger with the 6th pick and Shan Foster with the 36th pick.

Budinger is a freakish athlete and at 6′ 7″ has a nice frame to play guard in the NBA. I saw him play volleyball in person a couple of times a few years back and his leaping ability is simply out of this world. As his shot continues to improve, his length at shooting guard will really make him a phenomenal talent. I can really see turning the reigns over the Chase at shooting guard sooner rather than later. His presence will likely make shopping Mobley’s contract much more sensible. I am also high on Foster, but if the pick was Joey Dorsey or the like then so be it.

Conclusions:

I believe that this plan puts the most competitive team possible on the court without increasing the team’s payroll significantly. In a perfect world I probably would have both taken advantage of the team’s mid-level salary cap exception to bring in a shooter and kept Thomas. I think the team I have put together has a good shot to win immediately, and Thomas’s contributions would be a huge boost off the bench for the next couple seasons as the young guys develop. The reality of the situation, however, is that in order to bring in Deng’s talents, some salary had to be dropped if we wanted to avoid the luxury tax.

The Cassell trade is a must for the Clippers. He wold have walked after this season so getting some value out of him in the form of the pick and Devin Brown is really a victory. Ross has been great for us, but bringing in his defense would surely put the Cavaliers over the top on this deal. Plus, including Ross makes the deal viable from a financial standpoint.

In some sense, the price I paid for Deng is a bit high. If you factor in the picks, the Bulls are getting four players for the price of one. The Clippers are losing five players to get Deng, because Thomas’s contract was dropped mostly to make room to resign Deng.

Still, Deng is a special player. To go get someone of his caliber is going to take a pretty significant sacrifice. The kind of sacrifice that has us sending away three first round picks. Still, it is necessary to put this team back into the playoffs and give it a chance to compete for a title. Winning the title is still the goal right?

If we do not make these deals, Maggette is likely to opt out of his contract and look for a newer, bigger one. If he does not opt out this off-season, it only postpones the inevitable. We will be right back to square one with him after next season. He has already turned down a contract extension. In a way, now is probably one of the Clippers’ final opportunities to get value back from Maggette’s departure. If we do not act now we will either have to let him walk and get nothing back or sign him to a long deal that he probably does not deserve.

Thomas is a nice player, but he is not getting any younger. It seems like his game becomes more one dimensional with each passing season. He also has a history of injury and attitude problems. The one aspect of his game that is truly valuable, his shooting, can be replaced at far less cost.

There are two issues that I see presenting themselves once this plan is in place. The bench is a bit thin, and while the payroll is not outrageous for next year it has a distinct possibility of increasing with the salaries of Deng, Brand, and Kaman. Remember though, that after next year Joe Smith’s deal will come off the books. The year after, Mobley will be entering his final season will be much easier to trade. By parting ways with the two of them we will be saving ourselves 15 million dollars. That should be plenty to fill out a nice bench unit and lock up Budinger in a couple years as the starting shooting guard for the future.

Once this plan is executed the Clippers will not only be a contender next season, but for seasons to come as Kaman and Deng continue to develop and Brand returns from injury to hopefully play some of the best basketball of his career.

Knight injury leads Clippers to waive Frahm, sign Diaz

Just when I thought they were finally getting healthy, the Clippers announced that Brevin Knight is suffering from a stress reaction in his left fibula.

The injury was revealed by an MRI taken on Monday. Apparently he had been feeling sore for a while, and the pain worsened causing Knight to determine it merited examination. Although the injury will likely not cause him to miss any games, Knight will play decreased minutes and be kept out of practice for the foreseeable future.

If any of you are medical masterminds and can explain what a stress reaction is, please do not hesitate to use the comments section of this page to do just that.

From what I was able to find based on about five minutes of extensive research on the internet, a stress reaction is a primarily psychological issue that involves an emotional reaction to physical stress. I really doubt that Knight had an MRI on his leg to detect mental anguish, so there must be something I am missing here.

Maybe he is in reality suffering from a stress fracture rather than a stress reaction, but that is purely conjecture on my part.

Three weeks ago I would have said that an injury to Knight was no great loss to the Clippers. Over his past 10 games, however, the 11-year veteran out of Stanford has dished out 43 assists while committing just one turnover. Largely as a result of this impressive streak, Knight is currently second in the NBA in assist-to-turnover ratio, trailing only Jose Calderon of Toronto.

Considering his recent string of both quality ball-handling and improved shooting, Knight’s injury may actually deal a significant blow to the Clippers’ chances.

As a result of Knight’s injury, the LA Times reported that the Clippers have waived Richie Frahm and intend on signing Guillermo Diaz to a 10-day contract. Frahm’s one-year contract would have become guaranteed on Thursday, so it came as no surprise that the Clippers waived him in order to maintain a measure of roster flexibility.

Initially the plan was to sign Frahm to a 10-day contract of his own provided he cleared waivers. Knight’s injury, however, complicated the matter, and the Clippers chose to sign Diaz, the team’s second-round pick in 2006 and a combination shooting and point guard.

Diaz has been playing for the Anaheim Arsenal this season, the Clippers’ affiliate D-League team. Diaz played in 14 games for the Arsenal averaging 16.6 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 3.0 assists.

Frahm told the Times that he was aware he may be waived and that it affected his play over the past several games. Frahm certainly did not shoot the ball as well as expected in his short time with the Clippers. During his career Frahm has connected on 35.6 percent of his attempts from three point range, compared to just 28 percent in 10 games this season.

Will overcoming injuries be too little, too late for Clippers?

After an all-too-predictable loss to the Spurs on Sunday afternoon, the Clippers now stand at a deplorable 10-21. The team has lost eight of its last nine games. Since starting the season with four straight wins, the Clippers have lost 21 of 27.

Of the team’s ten wins, only two have come against opponents that currently possess a record above .500. One of those two wins came on opening day against the Warriors without Steven Jackson. The other was at home against the Nuggets on Nov. 21.

Statistically it is not difficult to see why the Clippers have failed to win games. They rank last in the NBA in scoring, 29th in field goal percentage and 23rd in three point percentage. If you prefer advanced statistics, the Clippers rank last in the league in offensive efficiency, 29th in effective field goal percentage and 29th in offensive rebounding percentage.

Early in the season, it was not at all difficult to believe that the Clippers could compete without Elton Brand. The Clippers had won four games, lost none, and were on top of the world. Sure it was only a few games, but the Clippers had at the very least shown what was possible. If they could win those four games, what was there to stop them from winning more?

As the season progresses and the delusion of Clippers’ greatness moves further and further from reality, it is difficult to determine just where to place the blame. The argument can certainly be made that the Clippers had this coming all along. It can be stated logically that without Brand the Clippers are simply not a very good team and the early success was simply a fluke. It is impossible to judge an NBA team on the merit of a modest four game stretch.

This is not, however, the only explanation for why the Clippers have struggled. It is certainly possible that the Clippers would have been able to maintain their early success had it not been for a multitude of further injuries.

First, Cuttino Mobley missed the two games directly following the Clippers season-opening win streak. Then Sam Cassell, Corey Maggette, and Tim Thomas all missed a significant portion of the young season due to injuries as well. The Clippers were already playing without Brand. There is no way that they could endure all of these additional injuries.

Thus, the Clippers season became a waiting game. As loss after loss piled up, all Clippers fans could do was point to the impending return of their many injured stars. At that point things could surely turn around.

If it is not too late to make a difference, that point has arrived. The Clippers are now healthy for the first time in quite a while. Against the Spurs, Mobley, Maggette, Thomas and Cassell all appeared in the same game for the first time since Nov. 26. They have played together in just eight games all season. The Clippers’ record in those games in an impressive 6-2.

Sitting at 11 games under .500 and with a formidable January schedule on the way, it is now or never for the Clippers. Whether or not any lingering effects from these injuries exist will likely play a role in how successful the Clippers can be going forward. While Mobley and Maggette seem to be back to pre-injury form, Cassell and Thomas are still yet to prove that they are completely recovered despite returning to action.

In the end, the strength of the Western Conference, where the Golden State Warriors would be the eighth seed if the playoff started today despite having a better record than all but three eastern teams, will likely be far too much for the Clippers to overcome. Even so, the Clippers newfound health will likely yield a few more wins in the remaining months of the season than the four victories the Clippers totaled in December.

Even if the Clippers have no hope of playing in May, they might be tough to beat in April.

Inconsistency plagues struggling Clippers

The Clippers have struggled mightily this season to put together a complete game.

Despite the team’s unprecedented string of injuries, the Clippers are completely capable of putting together stretches of beautiful basketball. When they run their offense through him in the post, Chris Kaman is able to score with ease on most nights or kick the ball out to open shooters when he is doubled.

Corey Maggette’s penetration, Cuttino Mobley’s proficient play in the high post, and Sam Cassell’s scoring can all provide the Clippers’ attack with added potency and versatility.

This model of quintessential offensive performance, however, has only been attainable for the Clippers over very brief periods this season. With a large degree of regularity the Clippers’ offense simply loses its productivity.

The ball does not find its way into Kaman’s hands early enough in the shot clock. The Clippers’ wing players fail to knock down open shots, allowing opponents to double Kaman relentlessly.

Instead of shrewdly reverting to what had previously been effective, the Clippers often allow things to spiral out of control once they encounter one of these offensive lulls. Players lose patience with running the offense through and try to do too much themselves. This is manifested through a stagnation of the Clippers’ offense and results in far too many bad shots and foolish isolations.

The Clippers chronic inconsistency was on full display this week as the Clippers needed a fourth-quarter comeback to defeat lowly Minnesota on Monday and follow that with a 95-81 loss to the Hornets on Wednesday.

The Clippers were able to beat Minnesota, despite losing each of the first three quarters and failing to connect on any of their 14 three point attempts. Richie Frahm and Cuttino Mobley each drew iron on five occasions from beyond the arc.

Winning this game was more about a lack of fourth quarter composure by the 4-25 Timberwolves than it was about great play down the stretch by the Clippers.

Still, that LA was able to score 32 points in the final frame when they only mustered an average of 19.7 over the first three certainly speaks to its lack of consistency. Further, the Clippers shot 62 percent from the field in the fourth quarter but only 42 percent prior.

Kaman was so frustrated by the Clippers’ play in the win that he said the following to the AP:

“They’re just not that good, so we were able to beat them. We’re not that good either. I mean, it was like a ‘Dust Bowl’ game - two of the worst teams in the league playing each other.”

The loss to New Orleans certainly did little to appease those feelings, as the Clippers lost the third quarter by a 13-point margin on their way to a 14-point loss. The Clippers scored 25 points in the second quarter to tie the game at the half, but only scored 16 in the first and 17 in the third.

Possibly the worst part of this loss was the poor play of Kaman. The Hornets made Kaman the focal point of their defense, and he was unable to overcome the extra pressure as he shot just 1-for10 from the floor on his way to just nine points and 11 rebounds.

After the game both coach Byron Scott and center Tyson Chandler said that stopping Kaman was the Hornets’ first priority coming into Los Angeles. The strategy was to force Kaman into taking jump shots and take away post-ups while keeping him off the offensive glass.

As teams continue to focus more and more on him defensively, Kaman will have to elevate his game once again in order to keep up. There are certainly indications that he will be able to do just that. For instance Kaman was effective passing out of the double-team in this game, dishing out five assists to just one turnover.

As the season progresses, it will be a joy for Clippers fans to watch Kaman continue his development. Needless to say, that is one of very few positives for the Clipper faithful going forward.