0 comments No Regrets, Right?

As everyone is probably aware the NBA lottery was a couple of Tuesdays ago and the Clippe---the Cavaliers got the top pick in the draft. The pick was originally the Clippers pick, but it got sent to the Cavaliers in a trade for Baron Davis. The Clippers wanted out of the rest of Davis' contract that totaled 2 years and $28.7 million dollars. The Clippers in return got Jamario Moon's expiring contract and Mo Williams (who will make $17 million over the next two years) and sent the Cavs, Baron Davis and an unprotected first round draft pick for 2011. This pick turned into the #1 overall pick in the 2011 NBA Draft.

I criticized the trade at the time for the Cavs because I didn't think Baron Davis was a great addition to the team, but I did like the Cavs got a first round pick for their troubles. Even in a (perceived) weak draft that's not a bad deal for them. So in essence, the Cavaliers traded Mo Williams plus having future cap space (in Moon's expiring contract) for Baron Davis and the #1 overall pick in the 2011. That's not a bad deal for the Cavs, even if they do have to put up with Baron Davis. At worst, they deal with him for one year and then trade his expiring contract.

I don't know how I feel the Clippers side of the trade now. It got them cap space and Mo Williams isn't a bad player. It would probably be nice to have that #1 overall pick though. You may think the Clippers are regretting the trade a bit, but you wouldn't know the Clippers and you would be wrong. Scott Howard-Cooper gives us the details.

Cleveland got the selection along with Davis for Williams and Jamario Moon, and so Cleveland will almost certainly take Kyrie Irving with the top selection on June 23 as the Duke freshman becomes the point guard of the future for the Cavaliers instead of the Clippers.

Let me get one thing out of the way first...I did a preview of this year's draft a few months ago. I said the draft wasn't that bad. Unfortunately, nearly half of the players going in the Top 10 in that mock draft did not enter this year's draft, so that did affect what the actual depth and talent of the draft will be. I still don't think it is a terrible draft, but teams aren't going to find America All-Star talent among the lottery picks, except for a few players. There are a bunch of foreign players with potential, some guys who will be NBA contributors, and just a couple guys with All-Star potential. Kyrie Irving and Derrick Williams could have bright futures in the NBA, so teams that pick in the Top 3 are still in luck. That means the Cavs are in luck. This means the Clippers are not in as much luck.

Guess what the Clips will be hearing about all summer?

The fact they are the Clippers and have bad shit happen to them all the time so they should have been prepared for the fact if they made a trade that involved an unprotected first round pick it would somehow turn into a valuable position in a weaker draft? It is like the Clippers don't realize they are the Clippers.

Shouldn't the Clippers be used to the bad luck they have and plan accordingly? No, of course not!

“Protecting the pick was never an option,” L.A. general manager Neil Olshey told NBA.com.

It wasn't an option to get the trade to go through or it wasn't an option at all because the Clippers didn't make it an option? There's a difference. Protecting the pick should have been an option. It's like wearing your seatbelt. Sure, you probably aren't going to get in a horrific auto accident, but why take the chance? If the Cavs wouldn't do the trade if the pick was protected, then if the Clippers wanted to make the trade they had to not protect the pick. I get this. This doesn't mean the Clippers can't regret trading the unprotected first round pick though. It's only natural.

“There is no way to Monday morning quarterback this (since) our draft position wouldn’t have been the same had we not made the deal as I’m sure we would not have finished 11-11 post-trade without Mo Williams.

Oh no, there is a way to Monday Morning quarterback this. Couldn't the Clippers have top-3 protected the pick or something? Would the Cavs have turned down the trade at that point? I have no idea. The Cavs couldn't have really thought the pick would be a Top-3 pick, could they have? As bad as the Clippers were at the time of the trade, I find it hard to believe the Cavs would have been so confident this would be a Top-3 pick they would have turned the trade down. I am sure they will CLAIM that was their position, but only because it makes them look like geniuses. Just like the Clippers will claim protecting the pick wasn't an option because it doesn't make them seem as stupid.

The reason in my mind, we can Monday Morning quarterback this decision a bit is because of the logic behind the statement Olshey made here. So the position of the Clippers GM is they were a WORSE team before the trade than they ended up being at the end of the year, so that's why they didn't protect the pick? So fully knowing his team was playing terribly, the Clippers GM made the trade under the assumption the team would play better after the trade, which is not a terrible assumption to make, but does seem a bit risky. If the trade makes the Clippers worse, they have made a trade that increased the odds the first round pick they traded will be a first round pick.

Please keep in mind, the Clippers did not get worse after the trade, they got better. So the trade was made fully knowing the odds were HIGHER at that time of the trade the pick could end up being #1 overall, than they ended up being at the end of the year?

Isn't this a bit backwards? Maybe this reasoning would make sense if the Clippers got worse after the trade. Olshey could say he never thought the team would get worse after getting rid of Baron Davis and so that's why he didn't protect the pick. Olshey's excuse essentially is "who could have foreseen the trade would actually be a good one for us?"

“Additionally, we had a 97-percent chance of sitting here tonight with Baron Davis (taking up 25 percent of our cap), the eighth pick in a weak draft and no cap flexibility.

Well actually as it was made clear, the odds would have been higher the Clippers got the #1 overall pick if they had kept Baron Davis because the team performed worse with him out there. So there wouldn't have been a 97% chance of the Clippers getting the 8th pick, but a much higher chance they could have landed the #1 overall pick since the Clippers were worse with Baron Davis on the team.

So Clippers fans should be happy the team has cap flexibility, no first round pick in a weak draft, and the team can continue to build around Blake Griffin...until he leaves in free agency of course.

Adding Mo Williams and $8.5 million in cap room gave us a better opportunity to become a playoff team next year

Quite possibly. It is hard to argue with something that may or may not happen in the future like this, but the cap room did help the Clippers. So that's true. It still doesn't explain why the pick wasn't protected. It also doesn't explain why Olshey can't just say he regrets not trying harder to protect the pick. Some of these reasons given by Olshey are viable and reasonable, but it still doesn't explain why the pick wasn't protected. Could the trade not have gone through if the pick wasn't protected? Who knows, but it makes the Clippers management sound even worse when they are quoted as saying they don't regret not protecting the pick. Few people could have seriously seen the pick turning into the #1 overall pick, so it is fine to admit you regret not trying harder to Top-3 protect the pick.

than adding a seventh player under 23 with no NBA experience.”

This might be my favorite part of Olshey's quote. He uses the youth of his team as a reason to not want to draft more players that are young. Apparently he doesn't see the Clippers as rebuilding, he just thinks they are too young to compete right now. He thinks this team is on the right track, but just needs to mature some more into a playoff team. While some teams build through the draft, the Clippers see too many draft picks as a bad thing because that means players (like Blake Griffin and Eric Gordon) who have no NBA experience and are young can't compete in the NBA right now.

Apparently the Thunder, who have built their team around a core that is 22, 21, 21, 26, and 22 years of age, just missed the memo on this. The Bulls, who are built around a core that is 22, 26, 26, and 29 years old also missed this memo. They seemed to have added (at some point) young players with no NBA experience and it is currently working out for them.

Now I am not saying any of the players in the upcoming draft are Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, or Kevin Durant. Isn't it a bit stupid to not want players under the age of 23 simply based on the fact they have no NBA experience? Talent is talent. The Clippers two best players are both 22 years of age and apparently this is a bad thing to put other talented young players around Griffin and Eric Gordon. Every team needs veteran leadership, but I don't think it makes sense for a team to not want another young player simply because of his age and lack of NBA experience. I know Clippers fans will state the team didn't need the #1 overall pick, but at least this would give them trade options. At a worse case scenario, you end up with Kyrie Irving or Enes Kanter.

Saying adding protection to the pick — for the top three, for example — was not possible is an indication the clause would have been a deal breaker for the Cavaliers.

Olshey said it wasn't an option. Who really knows what that means? We can assume the Cavs wouldn't have done the deal if it had Top-3 protection, and that may be a safe assumption. The Clippers have to regret this deal though, knowing what they know now. Regardless of how weak this draft is, a guy like Kanter, Williams, or Irving would look good on the Clippers roster. It would at least give them options to have the pick in their possession.

I'm not saying it was a bad trade at the time, because I didn't like it from the Cavs perspective at the time, but even with full knowledge of what happened the Clippers don't regret holding out for a Top-3 protection on the pick? Come on, I don't believe that.

Given the chance to scuttle the deal or jump on the rare chance to move Davis’ contract, the Clippers took the risk that would blow up on them months later.

Exactly. They took the risk. Taking the risk doesn't mean the risk was a bad one, but after learning the pick that was traded was the #1 overall pick, there is nothing wrong with saying they had wished the pick was Top-3 protected. Mo Williams played well after coming to the Clippers, but he isn't a long-term impact player for them. There are 2-3 players in this draft that could be that long-term impact player who would fit in well with Blake Griffin and Eric Gordon. Of course, these are young players with no NBA experience, which for some reason scares the Clippers.

Again, I am not trying to overly-criticize the Clippers for trading the pick. They did what they had to do. They should have Top-3 protected the pick as well in retrospect. My big criticism is Olshey is acting like the Clippers don't regret trading the pick and it ending up being the #1 overall pick. They wouldn't even have to use the pick, at the very worst it gives them options. It would be natural to say, "that's bad luck and we wish we had a chance to Top-3 protect that pick," but instead Olshey is basically saying they wouldn't want the pick regardless and stating it is because the Clippers want to win now and the #1 overall pick wouldn't allow them to do that. I think that's dumb. They made the Baron Davis trade last offseason, they could probably find a taker this offseason as well.

The Clippers figured, or hoped, they were trading the No. 8 choice in a bad draft and that there was little chance of a bad outcome.

Which is a reasonable thought. Another reasonable thought is the Clippers generally seem to have bad luck. If at all possible, Top-3 protect the pick knowing you are the Clippers and bad shit happens to you.

Some have pointed out the Clippers could not have protected the pick, but that logic also fails as is explained very well by an editor at SBNation here. It would have taken some work, but they could have protected the pick if the Cavs agreed to it.

Indeed, there was only a 2.8 percent chance the pick would move all the way to the top. Welcome to that bad outcome.

Was this outcome foreseeable? Probably not. So I won't flog the Clippers too bad for that, but when the result is known, at least admit you probably should have held out for the pick to be Top-3 protected. The Clippers wouldn't look bad if they acknowledge the Cavs would not have agreed to this and so that's why the deal went through the way it did. It just sounds stupid to say the Clippers wouldn't want another young player anyway without "NBA experience" and they don't regret the way things ended up due to this reason.

14 comments What's Irritating Me Today

Now that we are (supposedly because it is not up yet) the proud owners of David Eckstein's Baseball Reference page, I feel like I should step up my game and make my writing even more exciting and sexy. I have found I am not capable of that, so we are all stuck with what we usually get from me. I promise I am not going to talk about steroids today at all. What I am going to talk about is articles that have irritated me.

-Scott Howard-Cooper just has this all wrong.

It's just all wrong.

Point guards also are expected to dominate the first 10 or 12 picks in the draft next week.

There are several point guards in the draft that seem like they can really help a team, that is very true.

And then there's Derek Fisher. He of the season averages of 10 points and three assists. He of the 40 percent shooting in the playoffs.

And he of the four rings.

He won those four rings with Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, arguably two of the top 20 players in NBA history...plus he also had the immortal Robert Horry on his team as well, who by his own admission, should be in the Hall of Fame. Find me a Shaq or Kobe in this draft and then I will admit he has a point. Hell, find me a Pau Gasol in this draft and I may concede the point he is going to try and make that the point guards drafted will not be elite and win a championship.

There's your reality check. At a time when point guards are generating so much attention, a convergence of circumstances from the 2008-09 season into the draft into free agency next month, the reminder note being distributed after the Lakers-Magic series is that it does not take a great talent at the point to win the title.

No, it doesn't take a great point guard. That is absolutely correct. It takes Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, or Michael Jordan as well. In lieu of finding these players in the draft, I would take a great point guard like Tony Parker to pair up with another great player. It really can't hurt...but yes, if you have Hall of Fame type players at a couple of positions, then you don't need a great point guard. This doesn't seem to require a long drawn out article, but mostly just a little bit of common sense. You surround great players with role players, if you have great players at every other position, you find a point guard to serve a role. If you don't have great players everywhere, you find an elite point guard and build around him.

But Fisher has never been in the debate for an All-Star spot, let alone actually made the Sunday game. In his best statistical season, he averaged 13.3 points and 4.3 assists with the Warriors in 2005-06.

I don't think we need further proof Derek Fisher is not a great point guard. We all know this. What I would like to understand is why Howard-Cooper is trying to show a team doesn't need a great point guard by showing that Fisher won 4 titles with Shaq, Kobe, and Gasol on his team and THIS is proof a great point guard is not needed to win a championship. I just feels like this flies in the face of logic. As if a team of Chris Paul and Dwight Howard would not have a good chance of winning a championship if you build around them.

Again, you don't need a great point guard if you have Shaq and Kobe. There is no arguing this. You do need a great point guard if your team doesn't have these two players, which is true for many other teams. For example, if the Magic had a great point guard then they may not have had to have Hedo Turkoglu taking the ball up the court during some of the Finals games and they could have exploited the fact Fisher is not a great defender anymore. A great point guard got Denver to the Western Conference Finals, but there has to be more players around that point guard. The fact Derek Fisher won 4 championships with Shaq, Kobe, and Gasol does not mean a great point guard is no longer needed.

The bottom line is that you need elite players to win a championship, it just so happens the elite players have not been point guards that often as of late.

Consider the point guards who have won in the Finals recently, and it's clear teams seldom need great point guards to win a championship, and teams where the best player is a point guard rarely win.

I don't get what he is getting at here. Fine, the best player is not the point guard most of the time on a championship team. That is absolutely no reason to not draft a point guard in the first round. Howard-Cooper is going to list the teams that have won the championship and I am going to list who else they had on the team, which is why they did not need an elite point guard.

I am not saying a team needs an elite PG to win the championship, I am saying unless you can find a Hall of Fame type player in the draft or already have one then it still makes sense to draft a PG. It's not like it is impossible to win a championship with an elite PG.

2009 -- Fisher.

Had Kobe and Gasol

2008 -- Rajon Rondo,

I would put him pretty close to one of the best PGs in the league. The Celtics would not have won without him. Theory buster.

2007 -- Tony Parker,

Theory buster.

2006 -- Jason Williams

Had Shaq and Dwyane Wade...not to mention Gary Payton got minutes as well.

2005 -- Parker.

Theory buster.

2004 -- Chauncey Billups

Theory buster. It's not looking really good right now.

2003 -- Parker.

Theory buster.

2002 -- Fisher
2001 -- Fisher.
2000 -- Harper

Had Shaq in his unstoppable prime and Kobe on the team as well.

1999 -- Avery Johnson, Spurs.

Had Duncan and Robinson on the team.

1998 -- Harper
1997 -- Harper.
1996 -- Harper.

Had Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Did not need a great PG.

1995 -- Kenny Smith
1994 -- Smith

This was when Jordan wasn't playing and Olajuwon was unstoppable and really Sam Cassell contributed to the point guard position as well.

So basically what we have learned is that in the past 15 years if you don't have Shaq, Kobe, Wade, Jordan, Pippen, or Olajuwon on your team, then you need an elite point guard.

No Hall of Famer was in the role since Isiah Thomas with the Pistons in 1990.

Tony Parker very well could be making a bee line for the Hall of Fame, you have to count him. Elite point guards have won championships in the past, it just so happens the elite players have been big men or wing men of late.

Just look at the difference Derrick Rose made this year for the Bulls. An elite point guard is not necessary to win but if you have an elite point guard that means you don't need an elite player at another position.

Now Ricky Rubio, Brandon Jennings, Jrue Holiday, Tyreke Evans, Stephen Curry and Jonny Flynn lead a point-guard parade in the draft. A few days later, Andre Miller, Jason Kidd, Mike Bibby and Ben Gordon, a combo guard who handles the ball a lot, become free agents with the ability and experience to make a difference.
So Howard-Cooper's point is that there are a lot of point guards that can make a difference available...and this is somehow supposed to help support his theory a great point guard is not needed to win an NBA Title?

The draft and free agency alone will alter the league for years. It just may not deliver a title. Because it doesn't take a dominant point guard to win.

If you have elite players at other positions, then no it won't take a point guard to win a title. If you don't have elite players at other positions, like San Antonio or Detroit, then an elite point guard may be required to win a championship. I think the point of this article should have been that it takes elite players to win a championship, but they just haven't come from the point guard position as much lately.

-When Bill Simmons called his own article from ESPN the Magazine bad, I could not agree more.

That article was the kind of article that I would not dare post. I would proofread it and if I put it up, make sure it gets covered up by something very, very quickly. I hope someone here covers it at some point, but I am not even in the mood to try and go through it at this point.

-Donte Stallworth getting suspended is a great move.

Regardless of Florida law, he killed someone while driving intoxicated. I don't make a lot of money, yet when I am going out to drink I manage to get the money for a cab ride, so why can't football players do that as well? It makes no sense to me. I hate paying for cabs when I am out drinking but I am also not egotistical enough to believe I should be able to drive drunk when I want. If I don't want to pay for a cab or can't afford it, I either don't drink that much or don't go out. It's pretty simple. I think the suspension is a good move.

-Another thing that irritates me, and this is me being a grumpy old man, is all the fucking animation and video on ESPN's site. Right now I am listening to a break down of the Stallworth case on ESPN and it annoys me. I don't want animation on a site, I want links to articles that I want to read. Animation and video slow my computer down and just generally piss me off. If I don't click on it, I don't want to hear a fucking breakdown of the Stallworth case. It takes both my home and work computer more time to load when I am trying to find a Wallace Matthews article to write about because there is so much shit on the page.

I know I sound like an old man, but I don't need all that. I want information given to me and I don't need to hear the SportsCenter break down when I click on an AP article that ESPN has linked. Stop it.

-I remember Josh Hamilton growing up here in North Carolina and hearing the stories about him and how great he was going to be. I can't help but feel like the situation Bryce Harper is in is similar.

I understand his father's need to give him more competition but I believe Gregg Doyel is actually right in this situation. I just hope that Bryce Harper doesn't go through the same problems that Hamilton did. It pisses me off a little bit when parents put this amount of pressure on their child. I realize he is a special talent but he also needs a chance to grow up a little bit. There is such a thin line between setting expectations for an athlete and setting that athlete up to fail. I don't know which one is going to happen to Bryce Harper.

-Now that I have said Gregg Doyel was right, let me tell you how he was wrong.

Kobe v. Shaq

Kobe wins.

This is a stupid argument in the first place. I don't know if you can even compare the two. They won three titles together and one title apart. It just seems kind of even and when you start breaking down the teammates for each it just seems dumb. It also seems pointless as well.

Shaquille O'Neal has never won an NBA title without a Hall of Fame teammate. For his first three rings, all in Los Angeles, that teammate was Kobe. For his fourth ring, in Miami, that teammate was Dwyane Wade

You can't really compare just one teammate on each team. Perhaps the third and fourth guys on Shaq's Heat team were as good if not better than Kobe's Laker's third or fourth guy. It doesn't matter because Gregg is not going to compare them. He thinks basketball is a two-on-two sport. There is more to look at when comparing two teams than just the best two players on each team.

Shaq won all his NBA titles without having to carry the biggest emotional burden -- late-game heroics. In the final minutes of a close game, Shaquille O'Neal was a liability for his own team because of his foul shooting. Literally, one of the best scorers in basketball could not be trusted with the ball because the opposing team was just going to send him to the foul line, where Shaq has always been comically futile.

Somehow his futile foul shooting did not stop him from winning 4 NBA Championships and never, that I can recall, cost his team an NBA Championship. You can't really call Shaq's foul shooting a liability if it was never a liability.

Greatness didn't come to Shaq. He had to move about to find his greatness.

I mean, really? These points are feeling weak right about now.

First he left Orlando one year after the Magic were swept 4-0 by Houston in the 1995 NBA Finals. Shaq left in search of a great teammate, and what do you know? He found one in Los Angeles. Named Kobe. Then Shaq left again, a power-struggle loser who ended up in Miami with another great teammate, Dwyane Wade.

The Lakers were in no way a complete team when Shaq joined up. It's not like he joined a great team and put them over the top. He was the reason they went over the top. Also, the reason he got traded to Miami was because Kobe wanted him gone, so that's really not his fault. I don't see how exactly you can blame him for that and he certainly did not have Kobe get him traded in his search for a good team to chase a title on.

But what we know is this: Kobe started his career in Los Angeles, he stayed in Los Angeles, and the titles have flowed through Los Angeles. He didn't have to exercise free agency or go out on the trade market. He just stayed where he was, and he won.

To be fair, he actually was drafted by the Charlotte Hornets so under Doyel's theory he chased a ring by being traded to the Lakers.

This one is a matter of taste, I guess, but to me Kobe Bryant is the better player because he's the better player.

Oh, I get it. That makes little to no sense now.

At his best, Shaq was as unstoppable a force as the NBA has seen, but let's be honest: Shaq was a physical mutant. He was bigger than everyone else in the paint. Stronger.

Sure Shaq had physical advantages but how many big, tall strong guys have done absolutely nothing in the NBA? It's about learning to improve your game and wanting to win and Shaq had both of those characteristics. He was bigger, stronger, and quicker because he made himself be that way through his will, he didn't just take his genetics and sit on his ass.

Say what you want about Shaq, but don't say he has Hall of Fame skill. He doesn't.

Because posting up, rebounding, and all the other things a center has to do just always come naturally. That's why Diop, Patrick O' Bryant, and Yinka Dare became All-Stars. Right, Gregg?

-This is a Lakers fan site but they do a great breakdown of Bill Simmons and some of his predictions being wrong.

I don't necessarily like the Lakers but this writer does a great job of pointing out Bill's errors in predictions and how he never says he is wrong. All this stuff is at the bottom of the post after they have dissected Kobe.

“The ‘09 Cavs are the ‘91 Bulls reincarnated… everyone keeps underestimating them and nobody realizes that they are about the blow thru these last 2 rounds.”

“The Magic just needed 7 games to beat a Celtics team that had 2 scorers with dead legs, Scalabrine/Marbury/House as their bench and actually ran a game-ending play for Glen Davis. Don’t start thinking Orlando is good please.”

In fairness to Bill, the Cavs did blow through the first two rounds.

Whenever Simmons is wrong, he always follows the same pattern: (1) blame the failed team’s coach, and (2) use hindsight to tell us what the losing team should have done to win. Just admit you blew it, Bill. Admit that you misread Cleveland, Orlando, and LA. Admit that instead of blaming Cleveland’s loss on bad coaching and the failure of Cleveland’s role players you should have considered these facts before making your predictions – that Brown’s offensive lack of creativity and the playoff inexperience of Cleveland’s role players might be a problem after all. Monday morning quarterbacking doesn’t become front page espn writers.

When I have something to add I will tell you. I have nothing right now. He does tend to follow these two patterns. In fact, hindsight tends to be Bill's best friend.

And, while you were quick to point out that LA didn’t have to play Boston in this years finals (which is assuming a lot), you failed to note that Boston was lucky not face Ariza or the one-legged Bynum. Do you have any idea how painful it was to watch Radmanovic guard Pierce as opposed to Ariza? I would gladly replay the 2008 and 2009 finals, both against Boston, with LA’s current team.

I would want to see this and would indeed tune in. Ariza on Pierce would have been a much better match up.

But, please, give us Laker fans the courtesy of relying on actual facts and evidence to support your arguments. Don’t rewatch the finals celebration a dozen times searching for one missed high five or false smile. Don’t read Phil’s mind.

I have been surprisingly not disliking Simmons as much lately, but I do have to admit though Bill knows more about the NBA than a lot of other people do, he does tend to read minds and look for high fives to make his predictions. He also blames the opposing coach when the team loses and it seems to be a formula he uses. He won't admit he is wrong...ever.