Morning Roundup

Thanks for Livingston info. He made a huge mistake by not accepting Clippers offer. Clippers gave 999% to him. I haven’t seen any player who received such a royal treatment from Clippers Mngt. But Livingston did not appreciate it enough.

Regarding RANDOLPH: Like it or not this team has 100% chance of winning any game. But without him only 30% chance! That means we are putting all our eggs in ONE(Zach) basket. If we go to next season with current make-up, we’ll again go thru the same old thing.

This situation is SERIOUS. But there’s a way-out. In exchange for Baron, Ricky & Thornton(he WILL not accept 6th man role) we can get a proven player for sure. Thornton has huge upside. Other 29 teams would love to have Thornton right now.

Shaun Livingston should of taken the Clippers offer, now look at him play in the D-League for penuts. Quntin Ross also wanted more money from the Clips and went to Memphis getting paid the same amount.

On a completely unrelated note, I watched some of the UW-ASU game tonight and came away very impressed by James Harden. He’s like a smaller Paul Pierce, or maybe a less athletic Manu Ginobili. Yes, he doesn’t have ideal size and he lacks some athleticsm, but I can see him being a good fit if we don’t get Griffin and Rubio doesn’t enter. As of right now, my top 5 for the Clippers are:

1. Griffin- Simply the best player available. We would have a logjam in the front court, but it won’t be hard to move Camby and clear up 30 minutes a game or so. He feels like a can’t miss prospect to me, and he’s probably the only one in this draft class.

2. Rubio- By all means the best playmaker and outside of Griffin has the highest ceiling in the draft. He’s a few years away in terms of maturation, but having Baron would buy us some time in his development. Passing on a franchise point guard would be tough to do. Hopefully by the time Rubio is ready to for a starting job, Dunleavy is gone and a new coach with a more fast-break oriented system is in place.

3. Harden- Could help right away, but maybe not as much as everyone thinks. I think he’ll go through an adjustment period against larger, quicker defenders and he’ll have to adjust his game some. He seems to be the most well rounded player in this draft, and probably the safest pick outside of Griffin.

4. Al-Farouq Aminu- He’s pretty far away, but he’s another guy with a lot of potential. We have the luxury of playing Al Thornton at the 3 until he develops, so he won’t be rushed to be a contributor. I haven’t been able to watch to much of him, but he’ll be a guy to keep on a eye on in the tourney.

5. Either of the combo guards (Teague, Curry)- On a team with severe depth issues, leaning towards a combo guard is actually a good thing. Put a guy like Curry on the second unit and he can still play 25-30 minutes a game backing up Baron and Gordon. Yes, Curry is completely one dimensional and somewhat of a defensive liability, but he will be much less exposed coming off a bench role and covering teams backup shooting guards. He would provide instant scoring and we could mold our bench around him.

I know, this comment is way too long. Basically everyone should hope that Rubio comes out, even if you don’t want him, because he will be great trade bait for a team in need of a point guard.

It feels like the top 3 are miles away from everyone else in the draft. What do you guys think?