Nothing. They have $59 million in guaranteed salaries next season not counting Jordan who will be seeking a max deal of 5 years / $100M which puts them at $80 million and deep in luxury tax. They have no draft picks. Their 2015 1st round pick belongs to the Celtics for the Doc Rivers defection. They have no bench meaning no tradeable assets. The Clippers are pretty much locked into the current roster and playoff mediocrity unless they make a bold move like sign and trade Jordan in return for another scorer perhaps a good SF and some bench help.
The Clippers are better running their offense through Griffin than Paul. I'd trade CP3 if the Clippers could get back 2 starters of at least Ariza's calibre plus 1 lower tier star player.
The Clippers are stuck because Jordan is going to get a max deal, but he's a one dimensional player. They are about to have $60M tied up in 3 players. I would decline the team option on Crawford. If Pierce comes back I look for him to sign for a part if not all the MLE. They will resign Rivers, but will still lack depth after the starting 5.
Blake can't close games and no team can win a championship without a star perimeter player. I agree Blake needs to ascend to the top of their pecking order but he disappears too often. He doesn't (yet) have the mentality necessary to be the top dog on a championship contender. He does have the skills and physicality.
Get rid of Chris Paul. The reason being is that the Clippers organization needs to force Blake Griffin to be the "MAN". He has to be the go to guy every night and should be the one handling what goes on for his team to be successful. Let Griffin run fast breaks and other stuff. Build a team around Blake Griffin needs. They can honestly get so much for Chris Paul (not saying that he sucks or anything but I think its time for them to try something new and Griffin is still so young). Where Chris Paul is a good fit? Portland, if Aldridge stays. Dallas, if they can retain their key players and get rid of Monta Ellis (not sure if he can play good off ball, doesn't seem like it with his tenure with Curry and Rondo). Instead of Rondo, get a player that can be a 3 and D guy. Bulls, obviously Rose has to go. Spurs, anybody can be a great fit with the Spurs.
CP3 needs to take a backseat to Griffin. The clippers are a much better team when they play that way.
1. Blow up the team, collect assets. 2. Move to Seattle and stop being the red headed step child in LA.
I always have this thought in my mind since the beggining of the series and now it might happen. What's going to happen if one of the two Rivers' has to go. Fans are blaming Doc for the failure and Austin is surely replaceable.
So let's get this cleared up because for the most part people on here are just going for the defacto "hire a real gm/hire a new gm" line. The Clippers have a GM. It's not Doc Rivers. The Clippers GM answers to the President of Basketball Operations. The President of Basketball Operations is Doc Rivers. That's the issue. Doc getting the President of Basketball ops title and therefore having final say over player personnel decisions is the biggest problem. W/o a doubt it was smart for Doc to go after that job title as it basically guaranteed him that only ONE person in the organization can get him fired and that's Ballmer. W/O a doubt it was a dumb decision for the Clips to give him that title because now how do you demote him? Either way, I doubt Doc loses his power over player personnel and Ballmer already has a GM in place. There's not much they can do outside of re-signing DJ. They(DOC) F##ked up by lowballing Paul Pierce and spending the dough on Hawes instead. Most know Pierce on that Clippers team would have been perfect. Returning to LA to close out the last few years of his career whilst providing the Clippers with legit toughness(unlike Barnes bull$hit fake toughness) and clutch play to team up with CP3 and push Blake and DJ to greater heights. I don't know where they go from there but that's their problem to deal with I guess.
Perhaps they might actually want him back seeing as Doc isn't the one that sent him away/wasn't in charge when Aminu was traded, and they realize that the playoff series he had vs the Rockets wasn't an aberration but rather signs that his shooting is actually improving/on the verge of improving?
Good god. Funny how many posters were so butthurt about Morey not going after him. "We don't value role players!"
I'm trying to understand the reasoning for trading Chris Paul? As much as I hate him, IMO he's one of the top 3 pg's in the league is the prototypical PG for a championship team. The problem is their supporting cast. Barnes,Big-baby,Crawford,Rivers That's the problem for the Clippers. I think Barnes scored 0 points in game 7 and you can't have that for your starting "3 & D" player and Crawford shot horribly this series as their 6th man and other go to scorer. I feel like they do this every year, but they need to retweak their supporting cast again.
