Official Los Angeles Clippers 10-11 Season Thread - The Griffin Era Begins (Again)

[p mac one]

Originally Posted by goukiteg

Originally Posted by P MAC ONE

Originally Posted by goukiteg


With that said, I respect most Clipper fans. Y'all stand by your team. But I can't stand the ones with little brother syndrome and always have to make some snide remark about the Lakers.

From my experiences, there are more Lakers fans who have the big brother syndrome if you will and that is far worse because they have no reason to hate on the Clippers. At least from a Clippers fan perspective they have a reason to be mad

Us Laker fans do have a superiority complex. Like we just deserve championships, but given our franchises storied history, can you blame us?

yes, I can. And I hope that Lakers fans have to deal with a prolonged drought so they can gain an appreciation for what it takes to have sustained success.

I've used this example before but the Dodgers are a perfect example of what could happen to the Lakers if the Buss family ever decides to cash out. Just for some perspective I've been a fan of one of the most storied franchises in the history of sports and haven't seen a championship in my lifetime (was 3 days old the day of Gibby's HR -- so it's a technicality

)

Keep em comin YBD.

Hopefully Griffin starts getting some better PEs, though at the rate his popularity is increasing he might have a sig by next year.

 

[kvsm23vs24]

BLAKE

 

[curtiscarter23]

I dont believe Blake griffin is real... hes not human... His hops are ridiculous!!! Sometimes i feel like my eyes are deceiving me. He caught an oop tonight and his head was literally above the rim. Im a huge bulls fan... Him and Drose are two of the most exciting guys to watch. In a perfect world the clips and bulls would make the playoffs and Rose and Griff share MVP honors.

 

[lawdog1]

Wow. That's was a close one -- too close. Our lack of 3 point shooting almost came back to bite us, hard, in this game. Can't understand why Butler didn't get a look when nobody else was hitting against the zone. But I guess we got enough 3s to pull it out, particularly the one by Blake at the end. We needed this win going into the Texas two-step coming up this week.

 

[freshkrn]

im going to clippers vs bobcats game..

 

[lawdog1]

Originally Posted by freshKRN

im going to clippers vs bobcats game..

Cool.  Should be a good one.  Both teams have been playing well lately.  

 

[laridah23]

Originally Posted by lawdog1

Wow. That's was a close one -- too close. Our lack of 3 point shooting almost came back to bite us, hard, in this game. Can't understand why Butler didn't get a look when nobody else was hitting against the zone. But I guess we got enough 3s to pull it out, particularly the one by Blake at the end. We needed this win going into the Texas two-step coming up this week.

My thoughts exactly. Golden State's zone was killing us. Cook was actually available tonight too. I thought we would've went to him, especially when it seemed that everyone was scared to shoot and Gordon was nicked up. 

Hopefully Gordon's injuries aren't too serious though 

Glad that we were able to escape with the win. Curry made me a fan of his.

 

[TheGodFresco]

Good game you guys, Blake is a monster, REAL big fan of his. I got a little soft spot for this team cause of Baron Davis

 

[rfx45]

Ouch, this hurts...
Eric Gordon may have torn wrist ligaments and will be out at least 2-3 weeks according to early reports.

NBA.com writer Art Garcia, who has an excellent reputation, says this is the early word and that he should be out past the All Star break. 

 

[drop knee 101]

damn, EG may have made a difference but regardless, we could have won this game tonight

 

[i am nas]

damn ticket prices went up... gonna have to pay for the see the griff now

 

[mjshoefanatic]

According to
twitter @ChrisVernonShow:

@ChrisVernonShow
been told again keep an eye on the Clippers for a possible OJ Mayo deal (Bledsoe/ Aminu/ Kaman possibles)

if the Clippers thing can happen, have to imagine better possibility because Gordon now out a month

from Grizzlies side- Heisley loves OJ and wants to keep- but if coach gonna use him like he is... he might be persuaded to OK a deal

 

[p mac one]

[h1]This Blake Griffin Speculation Is Getting Absurd[/h1]

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler [+]

By Steve Perrin - Contributor

Read More: Blake Griffin (F - LAC), Los Angeles Clippers

Journalistsall over the country are speculating about the future of Blake Griffin.The assumption is that he won't stay with the Clippers for long, butthe reality is different.

Follow @sbnationla on Twitter, and Like SB Nation Los Angeles on Facebook.



Jan 27, 2011 - The Clippers are all over the SBNation NBA page these days. Blake Griffin features prominently in Andrew Sharp's State of the NBA Union address. Tom Ziller dutifully reports on Eric Gordon's injury, which sadly followed closely on Mike Prada's exuberant piece on Gordon last week.

But the post that really caught my eye was Ziller's evisceration of Mac Engel's column in Wednesday's Fort Worth Star Telegram.There's been plenty of ludicrous speculation surrounding Griffin fromjournalists who'd prefer that Blake Superior play for their favoriteteams. Most of them display a tenuous grasp of reality, and a neartotal lack of understanding of the NBA's Collective BargainingAgreement (CBA). But as Ziller points out, Engel's ramblings have takenthe surrealism to a new level.

Not only does Engel show a remarkable level of disengagement withthe reality of NBA free agency, the rookie scale and cap rules, but thelevel of presumption and absurd canyon-leaping is, well, absurd.

Well put, TZ.

A constant source of frustration for the citizens of Clips Nationflows from the basic premise that, because these are the Clippers weare talking about, anything and everything is fair game. Engel'sconclusion sums the external view of Clipperdom up nicely:

If it were any other franchise, it would be implausible that theMavs, or any other team, would be able to sign this type of talent as afree agent. But this is the Clippers, an organization with a history sounbelievable it would be rejected by science fiction.

Griffin will want out by the time he's a free agent. The Mavs need to have the cap space to sign him.


Well guess what? It is the Clippers, and it's still implausible.

Ziller has already deconstructed most of Mr. Engel's biggest logicaldisconnects. Suffice it to say that he's decided to target the summerof 2013, when Griffin would be a RESTRICTED free agent (RFA) as thetarget date for clearing cap space to acquire the object of hisaffections. The presumption by Engel would seem to be that the Mavswill make an offer, and the Clippers will decide not to match it, aright they would have for their RFA.

This idea represents what I feel is the single biggestmisunderstanding about Clippers owner Donald T. Sterling. People seemto think he's cheap in the sense of "I refuse to pay that much moneyfor anything, period." That's not DTS at all. He's a businessman, andhe likes to make money and he LOVES a bargain, and maybe you can callhim cheap because he loves a bargain, but it's not as if he's unwillingto spend. Let's face it, he wouldn't own an NBA team if that were thecase. The best bargain in the NBA is the true maximum player - the LeBron James, Kevin Durant,Dwight Howard player that would be making two or three times MORE moneyif salary maximums didn't exist. Do you think Donald Sterling sees anapartment property that he believes is worth $200M, but won't buy itfor $100M because "$100M is a lot of money?" Hell no. He snaps it up. Idon't like Donald Sterling by any means, but he's not a badbusinessman, and NOT matching an offer to Blake Griffin would be very,very bad business.

The other hilarious aspect of Engel's column is the idea of the Mavericksactually clearing cap space to make this offer. The Mavericks have thethird highest payroll in basketball, and have been in the top threesince Mark Cuban bought the team. They have operated above the salarycap, and indeed above the luxury tax, for years on end. As of now, theyhave $41M committed to THREE PLAYERS in 2013 (Dirk Nowitzki, Shawn Marion and Brendan Haywood).With just those three and roster holds, they'd barely have enough tomake a max offer; the idea of Cuban gutting the team to make a run at aRESTRICTED free agent is (we keep coming back to this word) absurd.

The absurd talk in LA has at least had the decency to focus on thesummer of 2014. Steve Mason and John Ireland of ESPN radio discussedthis idea (plan? dream? wishful scenario? hallucination?) last week,and then brought the Sports Guy Bill Simmons into the discussion. Mason and Ireland, who are it must be remembered, Lakershacks working for the Lakers station, have decided that Blake needs tomove down the hall in 2014, and that Blake surely must want this aswell, since, hey, he's in LA, he has eyes, he sees what's happeninghere. Simmons, for his part, sees Blake back home in Oklahoma City withthe Thunder. The topic even made an appearance on PTI, so somehow this is a national 'story'.

Let's just return to reality for a moment and review how this all works.

Bearing in mind that a new CBA will be in place (either before orafter a lockout this summer) and that some of the details may change,I'm going to use the current CBA rules as a basis for the discussionsince (a) it's what we have and (b) the new CBA will by all accounts beMORE owner friendly, so it would be highly unlikely that any rulechanges would make it harder for the Clippers to retain Griffin'sservices. For instance, an NFL-style franchise tag is being pushed by some owners.

We've already gone over restricted free agency a bit, and why Engel's "Blake to Dallas in 2013" plan doesn't make any sense.

But even before 2013, the Clippers, under current CBA rules, wouldhave the opportunity to offer Griffin a contract extension in thesummer of 2012. For a talent of Griffin's level, teams ALWAYS offerthat extension and players ALWAYS sign it.

If the Clippers for some reason didn't offer the extension and/or ifGriffin for some reason didn't sign it, he would become a restrictedfree agent in 2013. At that time, any offer sheet he signed with anyother team could be matched by the Clippers - which of course theywould do.

If Griffin's only goal in life is to get away from the Clippers byany means necessary as quickly as he possibly can under the currentcontract rules, he could refuse to sign an extension in 2012, refuse tosign any offer sheet in 2013, refuse to sign a new contract with theClippers in 2013, and instead sign a one year qualifying offer in 2013that would allow him to become an unrestricted free agent in 2014. Thisis Mason and Ireland's scenario - that he would be an unrestricted freeagent right at the time that Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol would be at the end of their deals (not to mention 36 and 34).

OK, so at least there's a viable way Griffin could be available in2014, but how realistic is this scenario? Here is the complete list ofNBA players since the implementation of the current system who haveeschewed signing a maximum contract and instead signed a qualifyingoffer in order to reach unrestricted free agency sooner:

• nobody

It has never happened. Now, obviously there can be a first time foreverything, and Mason and Ireland would say that anything's possible,even likely, with Donald T. Sterling in charge. Unfortunately, there'sreally no precedent for that either. Elton Brand didn't do it. Lamar Odom didn't do it. Michael Olowokandidid turn down a much bigger (but not nearly maximum) offer from theClippers in order to take the QO back in 2002, not because he wasdetermined to leave the Clippers but because he believed he could makemore on the open market - he was wrong.

At any rate, the Lakers scenario, such as it is, is that BlakeGriffin, in a series of decisions literally unprecedented in the annalsof the NBA, would become an unrestricted free agent in 2014. Of course,Griffin is the only one that can make that happen, not the Lakers, andhe would be leaving a lot of money on the table to do so. How muchmoney?

The difference between a first round draft pick's qualifying offer (Greg Oden, $8,788,681) and a maximum extension for a player in the same draft (Kevin Durant,$13,603,750) is almost $5M in actual lost salary. Of course the biggerissue is the guaranteed money. Durant signed an extension in 2010 forover $82M. For the right to become an unrestricted free agent as soonas possible, a maximum player would have to leave that money on thetable for TWO FULL seasons before his next big pay day. I'm sure thatBlake Griffin wants to make Mason and Ireland happy (I mean, whodoesn't really?), but an injury in those intervening two years couldcost him $80M to $100M. I guess I'm saying, there's a reason no one'sever gone that route.

Perhaps my favorite part of the Mason and Ireland comedy tour is thepart where Ireland asks "What are the odds that the Clippers don'tscrew this up?" and Mason replies "Zero. Zero percent." Wow. That's anextraordinarily precise number to place on an extraordinarily vagueconcept. Of course, we don't know what Mason's definition of "Screwthis up" is. Maybe the Clippers have already screwed it up in his mind(really, that's the only logical explanation for a prediction of "zeropercent"). Maybe when the Clippers allowed Griffin to get injured lastyear, they screwed it up. Maybe by not returning a phone call to Masononce they screwed it up. That's the beauty part. It can mean whateverhe wants it to mean. But if the question is, "What are the odds thatBlake Griffin will be a Clipper during the 2014-2015 season?" theanswer is of course significantly higher than "zero" percent. It's morein the 90% to 95% range. And by the way, the odds that Griffin's aLaker in 2014 would approach zero.

Neil Olshey tried to address this issue last week when he told Ramona Shelburne that Griffin would "only ever be a Clipper."Of course, that is almost as ludicrous a statement as any made by Masonor Ireland. (Note to Neil, never respond to absurd, unjustifiablehyperbole with absurd, unjustifiable hyperbole; even if you're beingironic, the irony is usually lost on absurd, hyperbolic people.) Allthe Clippers can do is offer the appropriate contracts, and I have nodoubt that they will. I fully believe Olshey when he says that he'll beon Griffin's door step with that maximum contract extension in thefirst week in July in 2012, and in all probability Griffin will signit. But Griffin is 21 years old, and if he signs a five year extensionthat kicks in in 2013, he'll be a free agent again in 2018, at the ageof 29. There's absolutely no telling what will happen then - just askthe fans in Cleveland.

I actually wonder why the Engels and Irelands of the world arebothering to wait so long to get Griffin, as long as reality isn't aconstraint? As little plausibility as their scenarios have, why notjust come up with a 'plan' to acquire Griffin now. Griffin is making$5.3M this season. How about Luke Waltonfor Blake Griffin? Done. Griffin's a Laker now, which is what everyonewants. That was easy, and makes about as much sense as 2014. You wanthim to be a Maverick, Mac? DeShawn Stevensonfor Griffin works, AND Stevenson's contract is expiring, so Sterlingsaves money, which is of course the only thing he cares about. So mucheasier than waiting until 2013.

Anything can happen of course, but if we use history and logic andthe realities of the NBA collective bargaining agreement as our guide,the only logical conclusion is that Blake Griffin will be a Clipperuntil well after 2014. Condolences to the Lakers and Mavs and Thunderand all the other teams out there who covet him. He's not goinganywhere. Not yet anyway. Start clearing cap space for 2018.

 

[mjshoefanatic]

Originally Posted by freshKRN

im going to clippers vs bobcats game..

See you there

 

[mjvskb24vs23]

Blake with 15 in the quarter

 

[sirius lee handsome]

that was a hell of a pass to blake griffin. longer than half court alley oop

 

[got shoes]

nice oop by foye and blake

 

[GaBeGRaMz]

Originally Posted by SIRIUS LEE HANDSOME

that was a hell of a pass to blake griffin. longer than half court alley oop

My gosh.

You can literally just throw it anywhere from anywhere.

 

[got shoes]

Foye playing like he back at Nova this year

 

[drop knee 101]

DAMN Blake just jumped too high for that loop

 

[GaBeGRaMz]

I will now be rooting for the Clippers for the rest of the season, because I want them in the playoffs. They will be dangerous in the 8th or 7th spot. Hopefully they can keep playing well.

 

[lawdog1]

Good bounce back win after that tough Texas road trip. Solid, but not outstanding, performance for Blake. Great games by Foye and Gomes and Baron took over when he needed to. We need to get the next to home games going into the monster road trip.

 

[GaBeGRaMz]

I will now be rooting for the Clippers for the rest of the season, because I want them in the playoffs. They will be dangerous in the 8th or 7th spot. Hopefully they can keep playing well.

 

[laridah23]

Originally Posted by GaBeGRaMz

I will now be rooting for the Clippers for the rest of the season, because I want them in the playoffs. They will be dangerous in the 8th or 7th spot. Hopefully they can keep playing well.

Thanks

Although, us making the playoffs is a long-shot

. We have a brutal 10-game road trip next month, all while our leading scorer will be out about a month. I like our chances to do bigger things next year though.
Anyways, good win tonight. Let's keep it up against Milwaukee and extend our home winning streak

 

[GaBeGRaMz]

Originally Posted by LARidah23

Originally Posted by GaBeGRaMz

I will now be rooting for the Clippers for the rest of the season, because I want them in the playoffs. They will be dangerous in the 8th or 7th spot. Hopefully they can keep playing well.

Thanks

Although, us making the playoffs is a long-shot

. We have a brutal 10-game road trip next month, all while our leading scorer will be out about a month. I like our chances to do bigger things next year though.
Anyways, good win tonight. Let's keep it up against Milwaukee and extend our home winning streak

Don't sleep on Foye and Baron being able to step up. Especially Foye, he can get it done. Then when Eric Gordan comes back Foye going to become that off the bench threat.