That being said, Sunday’s loss was a team effort. Yes, Doc poured gas on the fire with his poor substitutions, but the guys lacked focus and intensity….and missed a lot of great looks. 49 points in the second half would have given us a 1 point win. As terrible as the defense was, we can’t go 16 and 19 in the final 2 frames and expect to win.

Momentum is against us, but I am still hopeful we can pull it out on Tuesday. If not, I will take a deep breath and remind myself (as i have over the past 25 teas as a Clipper fan) that it is only basketball.

If he cared about winning, he wouldn’t stick with Trez that long.

They’re lucky they have the depth to still field a decent team without those guys playing like the near stars they’re billed to be, but without them, I’m not sure their depth is much better than the team across the hallway (of the hotel).

Positive is, I think it’s become very clear who the best 5 man lineup is, and I do think those 5 can play with any other team remaining in the bubble, but I think just like a lot of other teams, it gets pretty shaky when you’re going to the bench, and that was supposed to be this team’s strength.

Where NETRTG isn’t useful & can be misused is to compare guys on different teams and/or in different contexts, since the data captures the entirety of the lineup. So a guy on a bad team is always gonna have a worse NETRTG than a guy on a good team, because the bad team surrounds him with worse players, scores fewer points, allows more points, and loses more games.

Another example of a limitation: JaMychal Green is the only non-Trez LAC player to have a negative NETRTG in the playoffs at -3.7. Landry is third-worst at +1.7. But check this out: Green is -14.8 when playing with Trez and +16.8 when playing without him, and Landry is -29.5 when playing with Trez and +16.9 when playing without him. Because net rating captures the whole lineup, a guy doesn’t control his own net rating the way he controls his own, say, field goal %. So it’s always important to dig into different combinations, different situations, etc. Does a lineup have a horrible net rating, but you check and it’s a small sample size weighed down by a 6-minute stretch where the other team made 5/6 threes? Etc etc.

Regarding Lou, I think he’s curiously at a point where we know he’s a weak defender, he’s really struggling to score, but the most important thing he’s done for this team this season is be their best natural distributor, and given that Kawhi is the only other player who is consistently generating assists and setting up other guys, the Clippers would really miss Lou’s distribution and have a hard time replacing him if his minutes were reduced. That doesn’t mean his shooting and defense aren’t liabilities, just that I think you need to do whatever you can to find lineups where he can succeed. I’m not really sure that Trez is giving you anything positive right now that you would really miss if his minutes were cut.

Frankly I’m with you on not only Green over Trez but Noah over Trez. I don’t think Noah is gonna be great (or even good), but so much of where Trez hurts the Clippers is by being below-replacement-level. It’s the bad positioning, the defensive lunges with no chance of success that put him out of rebounding position, the laziness, the selfishness. Ryan Hollins would give the Clippers better minutes.

I think Green is actually above replacement-level–he’s perfectly capable of being average on the defensive end between his good rebounding, strength, and versatility/switchability that makes up for lack of size. Offensively, his shooting opens up a whole new world of driving lanes for guys. The Clippers need to do a better job getting Green 3PA when he’s playing C, though, as he’s just 2-2 from deep in 26 minutes with no Zu/no Trez.

Toughest part is that Doc refuses to learn things from mistakes. Pretty sure he will keep Trez no matter how awful he is.