Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Dissecting the Side-Screen Roll Since 2006

Archive for the ‘Featured’ Category

On the Dunleavy Firing

Posted by Kevin Arnovitz On March - 9 - 2010

From my story at TrueHoop:

Sources around the league maintain that with Dunleavy focused primarily on his coaching responsibilities, Olshey has been the main pipeline into the Clippers’ organization for a while now. Though Dunleavy — and Clippers president Andy Roeser above him — had veto power over any personnel moves, Olshey was the guy you called when you wanted to discuss deals. If that premise is correct, then Olshey had a big hand in getting the Clippers where they want to be financially heading into the summer.

The Clippers are placing a premium on flexibility as they strip their personnel down to the bare essentials in preparation for an active offseason. Only Baron Davis, Eric Gordon, Blake Griffin, Chris Kaman and DeAndre Jordan are under contract for 2010-11, and the organization will have somewhere in the neighborhood of $15-16 million to spend in free agency. Removing Dunleavy further enables them to reformulate, rebrand and reload.

In addition to extending a hefty contract to an elite player, might the Clippers also be looking for big names to preside in the front office and on the sidelines? Hours before the Clippers announced Dunleavy’s termination, a report surfaced that Larry Brown reached out to the Clippers regarding a possible return to Los Angeles. Given the outcome in Charlotte’s ownership situation, the likelihood of Brown taking a second tour with the Clippers seems unlikely, but the rumor does speak to the Clippers’ desire for a complete makeover.

The timing of Dunleavy’s firing is interesting considering that the Clippers are playing out the string under an interim coach. Evidently, the organization decided that even with one year remaining on his four-year, $22 million contract extension, Dunleavy’s presence no longer offered value for the future. Personnel decisions of this magnitude are usually couched in conciliatory language, but the Clippers’ press release was especially pointed:

The organization has determined that the goal of building a winning team is best served by making this decision at this time. The team has simply not made sufficient progress during Dunleavy’s seven-year tenure. The Clippers want to win now. This transition, in conjunction with a full commitment to dedicate unlimited resources, is designed to accomplish that objective.

The Clippers have placed themselves in a unique and advantageous position. Last month, they signaled that there’s a potential opportunity for a top free agent to name his own coach. On Tuesday, that hypothetical was extended even further — name your own coach and general manager.

If only the Clippers could say, “Name your owner.”

Initial Reactions on Dunleavy’s Release

Posted by D.J. Foster On March - 9 - 2010

Mike Dunleavy being let go from his duties as General Manager is obviously shocking. Poor Kim Hughes found out about it after the game through Dain Blanton, the sideline reporter for Fox Sports Prime Ticket. According to an agent that spoke with Adrian Wojnarowski, Dunleavy himself may have had no idea he was being released up until just recently. The whole move feels a bit impulsive. Early conclusions would lead one to believe this was fully a Sterling orchestrated firing, right down to it being announced during a game broadcast.

News of Dunleavy’s release leads to a bunch of questions that will soon be answered. What does this mean financially for Dunleavy and the Clippers? Was there some sort of buyout involved, or will Dunleavy get paid the full remainder of his contract? Does Donald Sterling have someone in mind to replace Dunleavy? Why do this now and not a month ago? Were Dunleavy’s trade deadline deals, where he seemingly improved the outlook for the Clippers’ future and netted Sterling a few million in the process, deemed “bad” moves by ownership?

Regardless of whether or not Dunleavy deserved to be let go for his performance as GM, one thing remains clear: This is a step in the right direction, and that has plenty more to do with Sterling than it does with Dunleavy. For years Sterling was reluctant to open up his wallet and build a winner. He wouldn’t sign free agents. He wouldn’t buy players or coaches out of contracts. He’d basically do nothing that didn’t make perfect sense financially for him. Well, this move doesn’t make a whole lot of sense financially for him, but Sterling did it anyway for what he believes to be the betterment of the franchise. That’s progress.

It will be interesting to see if the Clippers shy away from their follies of the past. Having one man be both Head Coach and General Manager clearly didn’t work out the first time, and though some will blame that solely on Dunleavy, it’s hard to argue that the sharing of those titles in today’s NBA is ideal.

We’ll have plenty of more reaction, analysis, and updates on this situation as more details unfold. Stay tuned.

Mike Dunleavy out as GM

Posted by D.J. Foster On March - 9 - 2010

From Clippers.com:

The Los Angeles Clippers and General Manager Mike Dunleavy today have severed ties. Dunleavy previously also served as the team’s head coach from 2003-04 until February 4, 2010, when he resigned as head coach.

The organization has determined that the goal of building a winning team is best served by making this decision at this time. The team has simply not made sufficient progress during Dunleavy’s seven-year tenure. The Clippers want to win now. This transition, in conjunction with a full commitment to dedicate unlimited resources, is designed to accomplish that objective.

Neil Olshey, presently the Clippers’ Assistant General Manager, will assume the duties created by Dunleavy’s departure. He joined the organization as Director of Player Development for the 2003-04 season. He served as an Assistant Coach in 2004-05, and was elevated to the position of Director of Player Personnel from 2005-06 through 2007-08. He assumed the role of Assistant General Manager prior to the start of the 2008-09 season.

Olshey has played an important role in the completion of several significant team transactions, including the deals which brought Marcus Camby, Craig Smith, Rasual Butler, Steve Blake, Travis Outlaw, and Drew Gooden to the Clippers, among others. He also played a integral part in administering all preparation for the Clippers’ last four NBA Drafts, which produced Al Thornton, Eric Gordon, DeAndre Jordan, and last year’s #1 overall pick, Blake Griffin.

We’ll have more coverage on this surprising move after tonight’s game.

Game Thread: Clippers at Orlando

Posted by Kevin Arnovitz On March - 9 - 2010

Game 64

4p PT

Fox Sports Prime Ticket

980 AM

Are the Clippers Behind the Curve?

Posted by Kevin Arnovitz On March - 9 - 2010

I spent the weekend at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston. Last year, the same conference was held in a small academic building on the campus of MIT in Cambridge for 400 attendees. This year, the numbers exploded — one thousand individuals wore name tags, along with 400 people on a wait list. Those in Boston included NBA executives and prominent agents. Organizers moved the conference across the Charles River to the Boston Convention Center in order to accommodate the demand.

The substance of the conference was pretty much what you’d expect. Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey (the founder of the conference), Analytics godfather Dean Oliver (who works for the Nuggets), Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, Portland Trail Blazers general manager Kevin Pritchard, Boston Celtics assistant general manager Mike Zarren and others who apply advanced statistical analytics to better their teams spoke on various panels about the value of this discipline in generating wins. Academics presented papers on everything from the value of a blocked shot to how best to maximize shot distribution among a team’s players.

All in all, 16 of the 30 NBA organizations were represented at the conference by executives or statisticians — that’s about double the number of teams who had paid attendees in 2009. It was heartening to run into smart young thinkers in this area who were free agents last year, but have been hired in the past 12 months by teams. Kevin Pelton, who has worked tirelessly in this field, just signed on with the Indiana Pacers. Ryan Parker, of Basketball Geek, has joined the Portland Trail Blazers. Jon Nichols, a brilliant grad student at Harvard in information technology, has been hired by an undisclosed team. For all the findings and discussions, the most profound takeaway from the conference was the overwhelming evidence that the application of advanced analytics is taking over the NBA. What was once a novelty has become a full-fledged movement. Not every team has embraced these tools, but as Dean Oliver pointed out, the smart ones have. Boston, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Memphis, Oklahoma City, Orlando, Portland, San Antonio have probably been the 10 most aggressive organizations. What do they have in common? Every one of these teams has a record of .500 or better this morning. If I’m a fan of a specific team, I want my team to be on that list and, unless my squad is winning titles on the strength of its personnel decisions (and checkbook), I’d be bothered if they weren’t.

Some teams executives will tell you that the League has gotten smart about furnishing teams with more extensive data (stats like deflections), and that the need to have experts on the payroll isn’t necessary. But there’s a vast difference between data and informed conclusions. The former are easy to come by; the latter requires great expertise. As Zarren said in the session on basketball analytics, “You can do two things: get more data, or use statistical techniques with the data that you have.” As we move forward in the empirical age, it strikes me that if you don’t have the proper personnel who can understand and utilize these techniques, your organization is going to be left behind.

The Clippers aren’t ignorant of advanced metrics. Mike Dunleavy made the wise decision to shift Rasual Butler into the starting lineup in part because basic plus-minus data were telling him that was the smart thing to do. Back in October, team executives said they targeted Craig Smith in the off-season because they loved his efficiency numbers. But these observations barely penetrate the surface of the shale. There is so much to be understood, a fact more and more teams are beginning to grasp.

Teams are very proprietary of what they’re learning and even whom they’re hiring to crunch these numbers. For all we know, the Clippers have an army of credentialed statisticians studying data, making unique discoveries about the team and passing along those findings to the decision makers in Playa Vista. If that’s not the case, Clippers fans should hope it soon becomes a reality. In an age where information is king, NBA teams, global corporations, governments and individuals can’t afford to be playing catch-up.

Utah 107, Clippers 85

Posted by Krai Charuwatsuntorn On March - 7 - 2010

For the past twenty one years, Clippers games in Salt Lake City have come to resemble traditional Japanese Kabuki theater.  Fans would enter the venue, secured in the knowledge of the storyline and how it will end.  There are no surprises and no suspense, the joy of spectacle lies in small deviations; how the Jazz might prevail on this night and by how much.  The players in their respective jerseys might have changed over the course of two decades, but there is a comforting rhythm to the almost unbroken string of Clippers losses in Utah, as predictable as the tides and the turning of the earth.  When the Clippers finally pulled out their lone victory in twenty one years, on January 22, 2003, the world did not come to a cataclysmic end as the ancient Mayans had prophesized, though perhaps the world did hold its breath for a brief moment to ponder this inexplicable outcome, which had defied all known laws of physics, before exhaling and settling back into its comforting axis of rotation, from which the unbroken streak of Clippers losses would continue on as before.

For most of those twenty one years, when the Clippers record in Utah was a cumulative 1-39, the coach of the Utah Jazz has been Jerry Sloan.  It is perhaps no coincidence that one of the most stable franchises in the NBA would  have such an unfathomable home record against one of the most unstable franchises in the league.  Since Jerry Sloan took over as coach of the Utah Jazz from Frank Layden in 1988, the Clippers had hired and fired 12 coaches, counting Kim Hughes and Dunleavy for seven of those years.  It is no wonder then, that even though players have come and gone, their bright eyed rookie seasons turning into tearful retirement speeches, the Utah Jazz continues to run the same pick-and-roll plays for Darren Williams and Carlos Boozer that they had run for John Stockton and Karl Malone, with the same effectiveness against succeeding new generations of Clippers.  That Jerry Sloan has survived for so long as a coach in the NBA is a rare anomaly, as the tenure of most NBA coaches, particularly Clippers ones, is often short, nasty, and brutish.  It is no wonder that current interim Clippers Head Coach Kim Hughes professes his admiration for Jerry Sloan and perhaps, if he were honest with himself, also a bit envious of Sloan’s long tenure.

In any other town, in any other franchise; being the bridesmaid but never the bride for twenty one years would have brought out fans with pitchforks and the taciturn Jerry Sloan would have been led to the guillotines a long time ago.  But there is a certain faith in the system which the late Larry H Miller held for his long time coach, and though Sloan never won a championship, it is hard to quibble with his consistent winning record and consecutive playoff appearances year in and year out.  There is a great article by Ian Thomsen for Sports Illustrated recently about the head coach in the NBA being a lion tamer in a cage with five lions, trying to get them to perform before a jeering crowd of 20,000 each night.  More than any other professional sports league; the power, money, and the guaranteed long term contracts reside with the players.  Coaches like Jerry Sloan, despite their long tenure, have to find ways to inspire and cajole their players, to get them to sublimate their own sometimes selfish desires for the greater glory of the team.  Being in the same office for over 21 years earns you some respect, and for an interim coach like Kim Hughes, who is under contract for another month, the ability to shape and hold his players accountable must seem like a daunting task.

The Clippers started out the game with a hot hand, and they looked like the team that had shocked the Jazz five days ago at the Staples Center.  That victory remains the crown jewel of Kim Hughes brief coaching career; a rare win against a playoff bound team who was fighting to hang on to their top four ranking in the West.  Before that victory, Coach Hughes had implored his team to give maximum effort for four quarters.  He said that wins and losses against teams like Utah no longer mattered, he just wanted a consistent effort for 48 minutes and would live with the results, with his head held high.  In the exuberance aftermath of that victory, there were some optimism that perhaps this collection of Clippers players will be able to build something positive for the off season after all; that individual growth and an espirit de corps can be forged for next season, and perhaps a few of the players with expiring contracts can be brought back, instead of being scattered to the four winds.  Bring on the playoff teams, Kim Hughes had insisted; he welcomed the challenge, and his players would welcome it too.  They needed to be tested and they needed to chart their growth and maturation as a unit. 

For most of the first quarter, the Clippers took the game to the Jazz, they played with fierce abandon, as if to defy the gods.  They moved the ball crisply and they made Utah seems like a tired team, whose energy and future was all but spent.  For a brief moment, it seems possible that the impossible might happen again, as the Clippers shot out to an early ten point lead, forcing Jerry Sloan to call a timeout.   It is worthwhile to watch disciplined teams like Utah and San Antonio after they emerge from a timeout huddle.  There is no panic in their game, and more often than not, they don’t try to do anything different, they just run the same plays they ran before, but with more attention to details and execution.  The Jazz came out of the timeout and stopped the bleeding.  Then they slowly, methodically, cut into the Clippers early lead.  You can feel the inevitable turning of the tides, and even though the Clippers were playing relatively well, with Drew Gooden scoring inside and the ball finding the right shooters in the corners, you felt that Utah was just patiently waiting for their familiar foil to self destruct, in accordance with the cosmic laws which govern Clippers games in Salt Lake City.

When they finally lost the last vestige of their lead late in the second quarter, it seemed as if the final breath of life had vacated the Clippers players lungs, and any hope they had of defying the gods or the immutable laws of the universe had dissipated.  Generations of Clippers players before them had lost to generations of Utah players on the other side, and now the familiar rhythm of the Kabuki play was once again established.  Utah had clawed out a one point advantage at halftime, but to long time fans of the Clippers, it might as well have been a twenty point lead.  To ensure that the ending is no longer in doubt, and that the storyline adheres to tradition, the Jazz came out and scored seven straight points in the third quarter, essentially ending the game.  They would methodically outscore the Clippers by 21 in the second half, sending them reeling toward another blow out loss in Utah. 

That the Clippers were playing without Eric Gordon, on the second night of a back to back, probably didn’t matter very much.  The same lack of focus, poor shooting from their key players–Baron and Kaman–and lackadaisical turnovers did them in once again.  Baron and Kaman combined to shoot 9 for 32 from the field, for a 28% field goal percentage, and combined for 10 turnovers between them.  To the comical delight of the crowd, with the game decided in the fourth, the Clippers had a four on one fast break and turned the ball over on a traveling violation.  These priceless moments are why people attend Kabuki plays.  The ending, the victory was never in doubt, but little variations on how you get that victory is entertaining.  Kim Hughes’ ultimatum, his plea that the Clippers play with all out effort and focus for 48 minutes is yet to be fulfilled.  Even in their previous victory over Utah at the Staples Center, they had played with focus and determination for only 46 minutes, with the final two minutes almost costing them the game.  Now that the gauntlet of effort has been thrown down by Kim Hughes, and what he has asked of this Clippers team is not unreasonable, what will happen if his players defy this simple challenge?  Certainly  Drew Gooden played with effort and toughness tonight, and he needed to because he is playing for his next contract.  But for Baron and Kaman, secured in their guaranteed money, knowing that they will be here next year even though Kim Hughes may not, what incentive or threat can Interim Coach Hughes hold over them?  If he benches Baron and Kaman, the team will, in all likelihood, lose even more games, and he will certainly be cleaning out his desk next month, even as Baron and Kaman will remain, watching him carry out his belongings, ready for their next coach.

The Clippers sustained record of futility in Salt Lake City might be etched upon the stars, or it might have been the last will and testament of some ancient gods, but a more reasonable explanation might be attributed to the quiet steadiness of Jerry Sloan; his long tenure and enduring system amidst the ever changing faces of Clippers coaches, most without much authority, defied by their players, and ultimately sacrificed to the altar of futility.  And so continues the rhythm of the tides.  The Clippers are now 1 for their last 41 against Jerry Sloan’s team in Salt Lake City.

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