Clippers trade Blake Griffin to Pistons for Tobias Harris, Avery Bradley and picks

You have to wonder if the clippers went all in after blake's weasel act vs the Rox. "Yeah, bumping a coach too? Can you get Detroit back on the line?"

 

Now that's comedy folks.

 

That’s an interesting theory...if you don’t do that, Lebron is gone in 6 months anyway. If you do do that and Lebron doesn’t sign, you are possibly left with Tobias Harris and a tanking team starting over with a rebuild only without the benefit of an extra high draft pick. It’s a big gamble.

A. Lebron stays, team stays mediocre while you ride out Lebron’s twighlight Years with little room to make moves around him for the next few year.
B. Lebron stays and team signs off on this trade - your team is better and has a chance to make the eastern conference finals again, but this isn’t a realistic nba title team but it will make management a lot of money although could cost them a fortune in luxury cap money.
C. Lebron leaves - you do the trade and you have to start a rebuild around Harris and Love but you will have a lot of cap room with all those expiring.
D. Lebron leaves - you have a roster who can’t compete but you are really bad also own Brooklyn’s pick and the chance to flip Love for another pick/young player.

A is sad
B is the same old but really expensive to retain
C is rebuild lite
D is the deluxe rebuild program.

 

Nice job by Jerry West.

Clear cap room and could get 2 1st round pick out of a guy that they didn't really want to sign to a max contract anyway.

 

Ariza still wants to fight the Clippers. Rockets want to kick Pat Bev and Doc's son even with the entire team traded way.

When are they going to trade Doc's son?

 

Zach Lowe: This Blake Griffin trade might be a trap for super-mediocrity

• There just wasn't a lot of demand for Griffin, according to sources around the league. Some good teams with big dreams were turned off by his contact. Most good teams are already too expensive to absorb it without sending out their best or second-best players.

• But [the Lakers] don't appear to have taken a serious look at Griffin, per league sources.

• A word on loyalty: the Clippers went out of their way to label Griffin a "Clipper for life." As I first revealed here, the preamble to their free agency pitch meeting involved walking Griffin through a makeshift museum of his life and then retiring his number -- literally raising it to the rafters as music played in an empty Staples Center -- in a staged "ceremony." (They obviously took the banner down and stored it somewhere.) Five months later, he's gone without a say. Look: teams and players say stuff all the time just to say it, because they need to say the right thing at the right moment. But the Clippers went the extra mile with the "for life" line. (They have said the same about Jordan, by the way. Stay tuned on that.) They could have just said, "We love Blake and we're thrilled he's back." They didn't have to make a big show about Griffin being a lifelong Clipper. This will cost them a little credibility in the very, very short-term, but those stains rarely stick. Everyone knows this is a business. But the "for life" declarations seemed over the top then, and almost absurd now.

• I'm not sure this trade makes it any more likely they deal Jordan and Lou Williams, by the way. The Clippers are happy to get off Griffin's contract and recoup a good draft pick in a vacuum. They are still going to take and make offers on Jordan and Williams, and hold out for something good. But there is no more urgency to deal them now then there was 48 hours ago, per league sources.

• The Clippers under Steve Ballmer are confident they can be a free agent destination. Bad teams are rarely free agent destinations. The Lakers are on a four-summer losing streak.

• (The Clippers surely hope to pitch/beg LeBron this summer, even though they still aren't slated -- at least as of this moment -- to have nearly enough cap room for him.)

• Drummond and Griffin are very good players. They are probably not good enough in the aggregate to justify between $60 and $70 million in salary. Drummond is a borderline All-Star in the East. Griffin would not have made it this year in the West even had he stayed healthy. Building a top-10 defense around them will be a challenge. The talent flanking them is uninspiring. The Pistons are starting their own new project from behind. They drafted Stanley Johnson and Luke Kennard instead of Devin Booker and Donovan Mitchell. That's not a purely hypothetical what-if, either; they debated between Booker and Johnson almost up until their pick in 2015, according to league sources. They have $28 million in combined 2018-19 salary invested in Leuer, Langston Galloway, Ish Smith, and Josh Smith. (Yes, that Josh Smith. He hasn't played for the Pistons since December 2014, but they are paying him $5.3 million per year through 2019-20 anyway.)

 

Now let's see West move Gallinari off the books. If he can do that, he just made the Clippers a true player in this summer's Free Agency bonanza.

 

I think this is the rare move that makes sense for both teams given their situations.

Pistons are locked into Drummond, and a lot of terrible mid-level contracts. They have no scoring, and very little playmaking other than Jackson. They need another point guard, lucky for them thats the easiest position to fill. Knicks just brought up Trey Burke and he looks great, these guys are dime a dozen.

They've done well with Bullock and Kennard was not the right pick, obviously Mitchell should have been the pick, but Kennard can be a solid player for them, I think he's been playing better lately. Bullock is outproducing his expected output too so increased minutes & role should benefit these guys.

Given they have little flexibility, locked into the next 3 years of terrible contracts like Leuer, Jackson, etc. I'd just say swing for the fences. Bradley has been terrible this year, and Harris has made improvements but the guy is not a franchise player. Griffin isn't elite, but he's a huge upgrade from Harris. He's expensive, but Detroit is already locked into money and they struggle to attract FA anyway.

Clippers needed to move on given their roster too.

It does make sense all around.

 

Well it’s not all bad for Cleveland even if lebron leaves after the trade b cause it would open up a bunch of salary flexibility by being able to dump one or 3 of their bad contracts.

But it’s all interesting to watch

 

Wow. You must be one of those guys that got mad at me when I said Melo wasn't coming to Houston and predicted OKC. Cuz what I just wrote was clearly a joke, and i love how you quoted the hahaha part and took out the word "wait" to insinuate that. Petty...so petty

 

Does anyone remember the old Orlando Magic that Doc coached? The one before McGrady. It resembles this team a lot. Wouldn't be surprised to see the Clippers scrap their way to a winning season.

 

Cap space doesn't matter for a team like Cleveland because no one wants to play there without Lebron. Cleveland is the antithesis to a free agent destination.

 

I think this was the plan all along and executed perfectly. Sign him so they can get something from him rather than walk for nothing.

 

I meant it more as being out of luxury tax and clearing the books for a proper rebuild going forward

 

The Irony. LOL

Only Doc's son survive.

 

What a great trade for Griffin. LA is a legit free agency destination and they probably have more interesting pieces than the Lakers. If they can attach Rivers with Lou Williams, or trade Jordan, then they have a lot of capspace and options. Jerry West is good at his job.

 

In more important news, when's the DeAndre Jordan fire sale?

 

So what if Detroit fails his physical like they did with DMo?

 

Who's the Asian guy? Looks like the guy that created Super Mario Bro