From my column at ESPNLosAngeles.com:

After a stagnant offseason, the Los Angeles Clippers quietly made a few moves to round out their rotation by signing free-agent guard Randy Foye and forward Ryan Gomes to multi-year contracts on Thursday night.

Instead of overpaying in an inflated free-agency market, general manager Neil Olshey picked up two under-the-radar type players to mesh with the team’s young core, while maintaining future financial flexibility. Although the moves are less than splashy, Foye and Gomes will provide the team with versatile skill-sets that can help them win games now while not sacrificing anything for the future.  More...

From Lisa Dillman at the Los Angeles Times:

“It appears as though the Clippers’ first move in the summer free-agent market will be signing guard Randy Foye.

Foye, 26, who can play point guard or shooting guard, averaged 10.1 points for the Wizards last season and had gone to Washington in a pre-draft trade with Minnesota last year, along with Mike Miller.

He was drafted by the Timberwolves and played there for three seasons before going to Washington.  More...

From my column at ESPNLosAngeles.com:

Congratulations, Vinny Del Negro.

As the new head coach of the Los Angeles Clippers, you have inherited a promising, young core. But before you get too comfortable in your new digs, there are a few things you should know about the roster.

1. One of your best players has no sense of his limitations.  More...

Earlier we touched on Dean Demopoulos and the “Black Zone” the Blazers run, but we didn’t really explain what that constitutes. Luckily for us, Ben Golliver at BlazersEdge had an interview with Nate McMillan last year that broke down a lot of what the zone defense is all about:

Blazersedge: You’ve been playing some match-up zone recently on defense. What prompted you to go in that direction this year?

That’s a part of the package. We have a zone package that we play. It’s not just one zone. We’ve got really four zones. We’ve got a “2″, “2 Black”, “3″ and “3 Black”.    More...

Clippers sources confirm that Dean Demopoulos is under heavy consideration to join the coaching staff as a top assistant.

Demopoulos boasts one of the strongest defensive pedigrees in the league. From 1983-1999 he was an assistant at Temple under John Chaney before heading off to the pros to work as the lead assistant under Nate McMillan in both Seattle and Portland. Demopoulos has earned praise for developing strong defensive game plans and is credited with the institution of Potland’s vaunted “black zone” defense. Demopoulos is widely regarded around the league as one of the finest defensive minds in all of basketball.  More...