When we weren’t busy obsessing over Ramon Sessions, Clipperblog spent the last days of Summer detailing our hopes and fears for the upcoming season. Now that we’re past the midway point of the 82 game schedule, let’s review that Hopes and Fears series to get some perspective on where the Clippers currently stand.
The Preseason Hopes on Baron Davis:
“Relevance is an alluring motivating factor for Davis, and when motivated, he’s awfully good. The narrative is set for redemption.”
The hope: Baron is pragmatic (and image-conscious) enough to know that moderation is his best route into his veteran years.
The Preseason Fears on Baron Davis:
“As good as Baron looks right now, who’s to say these are only temporary conditions? What if this is basketball mortality rapping on the door? What if this is as simple as a 30 year old on the downward trajectory of his career? What if Baron believes that the best way to restore his game is by relegating himself to the perimeter and he displays the same kind of inefficiency we witnessed last season?”
“The fear: He’s wed to a singular persona, one that won’t allow for an admission of humility.”
The Midseason Take: Whether or not Baron could play with some semblance of shot moderation was the fear going into the season. How’s Baron doing so far? Well, he’s shooting the ball less often for a higher percentage, he’s getting to the line a lot more, and he’s slowly cutting out the early shot clock, ill-advised jumpers he was famous for in Golden State. With his shot moderation issues slowly being curtailed, we’ve been able to unabashedly enjoy the other aspects of Baron’s game. The elite distributing skills, the post game, and the above average on-ball defense are certainly much easier to see this year. Behind renewed desire, Baron has essentially actualized all our hopes and similarly quieted all our fears with his play halfway through the season.
The Preseason Hopes on Defense:
“Crisp as 2005-06″
“The Hope: Gordon and Griffin become quick studies under the tutelage of a coach whose specialty is this kind of instruction.”
The Preseason Fears on Defense:
“I’ve been asked/forced to go on record with a prediction of the Clippers’ win total this season, and the optimistic number I’ve come up with is 36-38. And it’s this dynamic — along with the rebounding on the wings — that’s kept that number in check.”
“The Fear: That learning process takes far longer than anticipated. Thornton continues to get the bulk of the minutes at the 3, and the base pick-and-roll defense up top will leak like a sieve.”
The Midseason Take: The Clippers rank only 15th in the league in defensive efficiency, but they’ve certainly had their moments. The stretch of games where Eric Gordon and company turned Kobe Bryant, Brandon Roy and Dwyane Wade into inefficient chuckers stands out in particular. So why aren’t the Clippers an elite defensive team? They’re 11th best in the league in terms of efficient field goal percentage against, but they get absolutely killed in two important areas: The Clippers don’t cause turnovers (29th in the league in turnover rate ratio), and they don’t rebound very well on the defensive end (21st in the league in defensive rebounding rate). It’s the extra allowed possessions that are keeping the preseason hopes in check and stopping the Clippers from being a top ten defense like they were in ’05-’06.
The Preseason Hopes on The New Guys:
“These weren’t just ‘flashes’ of talent from players performing well against inferior and unmotivated opposition, but instead were performances that prove what each player is capable of at the peak of their game.”
“The Hope: The new guys acclimate quickly and help alleviate some of the pressure off the returning players.”
The Preseason Fears on The New Guys:
“Change on a 19-63 team is better than good; it’s great. Still, roster turnover can be a scary thing because it increases the amount of factors that are unknown. Al Thornton is a known entity. Rasual Butler, on the other hand, is not. We don’t really know yet for sure if Rasual Butler is a good fit. We can only project the type of player and the type of fit he’ll be.”
“The Fear: That unreasonable expectations or the demand for increased roles lead to a letdown.”
The Midseason Take: The new guys didn’t exactly acclimate quickly. Rasual Butler spent his first month as a Clipper taking ill-advised shots off the dribble and missing wide open looks. Craig Smith and Sebastian Telfair practically disappeared altogether in the month of December. Once the expectations cooled a bit for Butler and he started knocking down his looks, he became an integral part of this team. The Clippers are 9-1 when he starts alongside Baron Davis, Eric Gordon, Marcus Camby and Chris Kaman. Lately Craig Smith has been called upon to fill a new role, and he’s responded beautifully by averaging 11.8 points per game on 62% shooting from the field in 19 minutes per game. While the primary hope didn’t exactly come true, neither did the fear. The Clippers’ new guys were mostly non-contributors at first, but that is clearly no longer the case.
Preseason Hopes on Chris Kaman:
“Kaman stays healthy and regains his 2007 form”
“Can a team compete with a healthy Chris Kaman as its 4th best option? The hope is that the answer to that question is a resounding “yes”.”
“The hope: Kaman proves himself to be dependable by staying healthy.”
Preseason Fears on Chris Kaman:
“The Clippers are paying for potential, not production.”
“The fear: Kaman will never actualize his full potential with the Clippers, or perhaps even worse, he’ll eventually actualize it elsewhere.”
The Midseason Take: In August I wrote that Chris Kaman “usually destroys expectations, one way or another.” That said, I still don’t think anyone (myself included) could have predicted the season Chris Kaman is currently enjoying. He’s playing a career high in minutes (36.4 a game), has only missed 4 games, and is the Clippers leading scorer at 20.1 points per game. Kaman has emerged as the Clippers’ go to guy, and might even end up with a spot on the All-Star team this season. All this after a Summer where most fans were ready to ship him out for Kirk Hinrich. To say that Kaman has fulfilled our hopes and vanquished our fears in the first half of the season is a gross understatement.
****
Baron Davis has surpassed expectations and looks like a completely new player this year. Chris Kaman is playing out of his mind and finally appears to have harnessed all of his potential. The new guys took a while, but Craig Smith and Rasual Butler are now both crucial players in the rotation. The defense hasn’t been great, but it’s been much improved from last year.
For the most part, all of our preseason hopes have been actualized.
So why are the Clippers still a sub-.500 team?
25 Responses
Dunleavy
Posted on January 26th, 2010 at 8:32 am
i would have to grudgingly agree that it is Dunleavy who in some sense holding this team back. not that they would compete for a top spot with another coach but i could see 5 or 6 more wins with a better coach. That would put us in the hunt for a playoff spot. However, i think the biggest issue is that we do not have that go to star player. Until we obtain one i think that we are what we are! we have to get a star this summer!
Posted on January 26th, 2010 at 8:45 am
They’re only a sub-500 team if you count October.
Posted on January 26th, 2010 at 8:49 am
Did your hopes and fears address Blake Griffin missing the entire season?
How about Eric Gordon missing 12 games (and counting)?
How about Al Thornton actually regressing a little (his PER has actually gone down).
How about Telfair and his 10.0 PER?
That is why the Clippers are a sub .500 team.
Posted on January 26th, 2010 at 9:10 am
“For the most part, all of our preseason hopes have been actualized”
- That’s why we are at 20-24. And won 9 of last 10 home games.
“So why are the Clippers still a sub-.500 team?”
-We should ask ourselves: why aren’t we playing bad like the last season?
We lost atleast 10 winnable games due to following reasons:
1. Lost 2 games due to water leak interruption(new tactic to stop Clippers?)
2. Lost 5 games due to Dunleavy’s bad judgement.
3. Lost 2 games because Dunleavy kept playing KAMAN even if he wasn’t in sync.
4. Lost 1 game because Baron Davis was physically exhausted due double team deployment on him.
And don’t we have GRIFFIN to push us further. And Eric Gordon is only 21 and a 2nd year rookie(let’s not forget that)
rmb Reply:
January 26th, 2010 at 9:15 am
ERROR: Last sentence read as “And we don’t have GRIFFIN…….”
Pez Reply:
January 26th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
I’m on board with this post. 2 games due to water leak?
Posted on January 26th, 2010 at 9:11 am
I’d say our sub .500 record is attributed much to some of the reasons you mentioned above. While we have a fair amount of returning players, we also have a lot of new guys, and finding where they fit into this team unfortunately took half of the season. Similarly, the news about Griffin’s injury, Gordon’s spotty absence, and Kaman missing 4 games really hurt the morale and contributions on offense and defense.
Not to mention, past Gordon and B. Davis, our back court is bleak, which isn’t to say that R. Davis and M. Collins haven’t attributed a lot in recent games. Although, I’ve been displeased with Telfair so far. He has it in him to be a solid back up PG, but he hasn’t shown it yet.
Agreeing with Clippman, we don’t quite have that “Go To” guy in the 4th quarter. On the other hand, Craig Smith has been excellent the past few games in the 4th, and Baron has shown glimpses as a solid closer throughout the season. We need to find that consistency.
Granted I would like to see the team a bit closer to .500 if not over the mark, but this team is vastly improved over last season, and it’ll only get better over the next few years. We just have to be consistent and keep adding positive pieces to the mix.
Posted on January 26th, 2010 at 10:12 am
There’s no excuse when you’re coach and GM. Clippers need to go 26-12 at the current rate to make the playoffs. Agree with rmb, there were about 10 games the Clippers could have won.
Imagine if they would have kept Zach.
Posted on January 26th, 2010 at 10:59 am
I think the big story is ERIC GORDON’S TOE! He admits to having arthritis and that this has been a problem in the past. Does anyone worry that both Gordon and Griffin might be broken out of the box? All I know is KOBE would be playing with this toe issue. Man up.
Pez Reply:
January 26th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
Toe injuries sound trivial but they can derail entire careers…
I do agree that if we’d had our g-force…or whatever the decided nickname was…all season we probably could have won at least 5 more games.
Beard The Curse Reply:
January 26th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
I agree. Man the F up and play.
Posted on January 26th, 2010 at 11:53 am
Good post TN, KB is a super star, we do not have even stars in our team. Cleveland won twenty more games on Lebron’s first year. Counting that they tanked in the second half, we should have won 25 or 26 games with Griffin.
Posted on January 26th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
My only question is how many guys from our current roster that are becoming free agents after this season do we retain? This is a legit team, like someone else stated.. we need a “go to guy” in the last minutes… Although I’m not a big Rudy Gay fan, I think he’d be able to fill that void because he has size and he drives to the paint which means free throws. I would love to see Camby, Butler, and C. Smith come back, maybe we can give up Thornton through a trade to shed some cap space. What do you guys think?? I really do like our current squad, there’s just one missing piece, (aside from B Griffin) and possibly a coach that isn’t too prone to panicking in late game situations.
Posted on January 26th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
I think the sub .500 record so far is attributable to two factors… Dunleavy’s incompetence and Baron’s not showing up ready from day one… While Baron has been very good of late, he didn’t start out well… When the schedule was very easy in November and we should have been piling up wins, we were losing because Baron was playing his way into shape, rather than ready to win from day one…
Posted on January 26th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
keep randolph? kb is a super star, wow this is turning bad. The suns have 2 superstars and might not make the playoffs. memphis isn’t better than us healthy and we have a 1st round pick and possibly a big free agent on the way. I FEAR NOTHING, lets get healthy and keep the haters at bay.
Posted on January 26th, 2010 at 4:58 pm
The Clips are a sub-.500 team because………………..they’re a sub-500 team!
Really!
Perhaps with Blake Griffin around, they would’ve performed above the .500 level but we’ll never know.
Also–the lack of efficiency and outside shooting from the SF position. Butler’s come around, but the Clips need a big-time shooter at the SF position and a strong backup PG.
If the Clips can score Rudy Gay or another upgrade at SF, you’ll see a much better team next season.
Posted on January 26th, 2010 at 7:08 pm
Dunleavy…..the coach who didnt play Gordon at the start of last year until a injury forced him to….didnt play Smith earlier this season when the bench needed help…other teams are winning with injuries…not this coach….
Posted on January 26th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
The problem is clearly Dunleavy. The only reason we’ve been playing well is because Baron has stepped up and Marcus Camby shows up ready to work. We can blame injuries for the slide right now, but those injuries can be traced to Dunleavy overplaying the starters and not using his bench for the first half of the season.
The teams biggest turn around came when Dunleavy was out with a bad back. Thats when this team finally started showing up…when Dunleavy was gone.
Posted on January 27th, 2010 at 8:24 am
OK. AL THORTON has to go. CAMBY will be gone. Keep KAMAN, B. DAVIS, SMITH, GRIFFIN, GORDON and D. JORDAN. CUT EVERYBODY ELSE. Pick up a great free agent, say…RUDY GAY, DIRK or D. WADE…draft pick and let’s roll. Can you imagine BARON, WADE,GORDON, GRIFFIN AND KAMAN?
Kevin M Reply:
January 27th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
Dismissing the improbability of getting Wade, no way I’d keep Gordon in that scenario. Let’s face it: he can’t create for others, can’t rebound and there wouldn’t be enough shots to go around, so we could trade him for a SF.
Posted on January 27th, 2010 at 10:27 am
i agree, who we keep will depend on who we can pick up. there has to be a core kept, preferably a young core but we do not need to keep players just for the sake of keeping them. i have always believed that you keep a player with heart (and quality skills) over a good to great player with NO HEART. Consistency is the key and with HEART players you will get that day in and day out AKA – Houston.
Posted on January 27th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Maybe that speaks more to the thoroughness of the “hopes and fears” article than anything else. Obviously Griffin missing the whole season is a huge blow. I would say that a majority of our hopes rested on his shoulders. Blake was (is) supposed to be a sure thing. “Sure thing” #1 picks usually have huge impacts on their teams even as rookies.
Also, there’s something to be said for the bench. Not only the new guys, but the returning guys. Thornton has been up and down, struggling more than not, and DJ just hasn’t progressed as much as we all hoped he would.
I think this season started out a mess and they’ve done a respectable job since.
Posted on January 27th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
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