Sorry, I guess my rant wasn’t over.

So here’s the problem. Last week we were bitching about how the Clips were giving up to many leak-outs for easy baskets. They seem to have tightened up on that. but now they are buckling under to double teams. Opponents used to double Kahwi, but now PG and Harden as well.

So maybe LAC is learning/responding … but EXTREMELY slowly. Opponents seem to find ways to beat LAC much faster than LAC finds a response. Is THAT on the players Ty?

Why is it that other teams develop game plans to beat us, but we don’t do the same?

Rant over,

Per Lue, players not doing what they supposed to do – multiple games, same refrain.

Players may be fed up with Lue’s past blunders last season to date?? Useless for them to respond?

Who establishes the team’s identity … Like Warriors are 3 pointers, lock down D, unselfishness during their run. Clips – ISO, least ball movement, inconsistent efforts during a game, small ball, fixed number of rotation guys / fixed players to remain on the bench regardless of how bad the regular rotation guys are playing.

So what must Ballmer do, since Frank loves Ty and wants him to be the team’s coach for a very long time. Windows are closing.  It is Ballmer’s money.

George doesn’t fit in with Leonard at all.

Throw doubles at Harden and he is rendered useless. Same with George.

The FO ceded too much authority to George and maybe Leonard. You can never do that.

Is there a Clipper offense? All I see is George 1 on 5. Harden getting doubled teamed and over-dribbling. Leonard going 1 on 2 or 3. These 3 do not pass the ball and in the rare situations that they do make a pass, it’s too late.

And last but by no means least, there’s Lue. Lue has lost this team. He’s destroyed Bones Clipper’s tenure. He stopped using Kobe Brown which I believe was a huge mistake. Amir would never have received his opportunity had he not stepped in when there was an injury. How many games were lost because of some Lue fantasy regarding “small ball.” Lue can’t motivate this team. He’s coaching like he has checked out.

The Clippers had the right idea coming out of training camp. They blew that up when they traded for Harden. When it became difficult to make the trade, the Clippers should have walked away. Whenever something becomes overly difficult, the best thing to do is walk away. Now we have this mess.

I hope Ballmer has learned the lesson from this debacle.

New stadium. New team. New beginning. That’s what I’m looking forward to. This year is over.

And sure, a 2nd round exit might be possible, but the fact that we’re even talking about this as a possibility is already in itself a failure. This team’s *floor* should be the 2nd round. Instead it wouldn’t even be surprising to see it get bounced in the 1st. Epic failure on all levels.

These players seem to think they can turn it on/flip a switch whenever, but they haven’t earned the right to be so conceited. Someone else said this in one of the other comment threads, but we aren’t the Shaq/Kobe Lakers who showed they could turn it on late in the season – this team hasn’t accomplished shit. The “stars” on this team are all surefire HOFers and I respect their resumes, but the overwhelming majority of those accolades came *before* they got here. I don’t give af that you won an MVP while on Houston, James. I appreciate you carrying us to the WCF a few years back, Paul, but that wasn’t supposed to be the end goal.

There are few off court things that are red flags too like the PG contract extension and the fact that zero buyout guys wanted to come here. They know what’s up and wanted to stay clear of this mess.

Having said all that, they were terrible toward the end of last season and performed way beyond expectations against the Suns. Might have even won that series if Kawhi doesn’t go down. So while I don’t expect anything beyond a second round exit we could find something for one series and play spoiler.

But yes, after that it will be time for a full renovation.

1) Attend championship parade
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OK now that I’ve got the jokes outta the way, here’s what I’d actually realistically like to see:

1) Fire the entire FO, especially make sure to clean out our scouting/draft department.
2) Fire (or trade, if you can) Ty – send him to the Lakers if they want him. Maybe he and Lebron can reminisce about their Cleveland championship run.
3) Let PG13 and Harden walk. It’s clear that neither of these dudes is straight up washed, but neither of them is worth the contracts they’re going to ask for. At their peaks they’re both All-NBA caliber players, but they can’t reach those peaks consistently anymore, and when they’re off they’re *so bad* that we basically automatically just lose the game. The TWolves game on 3/3 is literally the only game I can think of this season where we won despite PG13 and Harden having off games. Overall they’re both essentially borderline All-Stars who are going to want max or close to max deals. You can’t build a championship team by overpaying for dudes who aren’t foundational pieces. They are literally only going to get worse from now on – you don’t overpay for guys past their primes unless you’re *sure* they’ll bag you a championship, and we can all see that’s yet again not in the cards for us.
4) Keep an eye on Kawhi and Russ’ trade markets – I don’t think we *have* to trade either of them, but if it can help us recoup some draft assets that would help w/ the rebuild, I wouldn’t hesitate.
5) Find a coach who is willing to actually develop and lean on young guys.