Deandre Jordan, Blake Griffin, Eric Gordon, Kyrie Irving. It would've been OKC and Clippers competing for West for a while...
ironically their biggest hole is PG, and this draft's BPA happened to be Irving lol. Honestly I can't wait to hear Bill Simmon's new podcast about this and the clipper curse.
The clippers can't do anything right. Its a double whammy if you think about it since they cost themselves a # 1 pick and they probably could of fliped Baron Davis's contract into Rudy Gay. Talk about a two step backwards move.
You're right bdiddy+2012 unprotected pick+young talent (bledsoe or amino) for gay would've been enough PG - Irving SG - Gordon SF - Gay PF - Griffin C - Jordan DAMN talk about franchise killing move, I wonder how the clipped fans are reacting to this.
A lot of them are pissed, but it doesn't bother me at all because it's stupid to assume that the results would have turned out the same had the Clippers kept the pick. Most likely the Clippers would have lost more games and moved up to the Pistons pick. I liked the trade at the time and this doesn't change anything. It would have been nice if they had at least gotten protection on the pick (even #1 protection), but I read somewhere that they couldn't do that due to some obscure NBA rule.
Clips traded away their 2012 top 10 protected 1st rounder to OKC for Eric Bledsoe in 2010. Therefore, there was no way to put protection on this years pick, otherwise they would have ended up owing the same pick to two different teams. Note that the Clippers are able to trade their own pick in consecutive future drafts (2011 and 2012-), because they have Minnesota's UNPROTECTED 2012 first rounder, satisfying the requirement to have a first rounder at least every other year. On that subject, unless Rubio comes over and is a ROY candidate, it's quite possible that the Clippers get 2 prospects better than Kyrie Irving next year in the draft using the Minny pick and their own. http://www.draftexpress.com/nba-mock-draft/2012/ Bledsoe also looked pretty damn good to me last year. Honestly, if Donald Sterling wasn't the owner, we'd be talking about this team as the BEST landing spot for either Howard or Chris Paul; they've certainly got some of the best trade pieces in the league. Nothing would make me happier than to see Sterling get caught in an IMF-style sex scandal, be forced to sell the team, and have the Clippers make the Lake Show into also rans.