Summer league round-up: Los Angeles Clippers

View the Clippers summer league roster. It's frigging stacked.

- Sean Banks: Sean Banks was in the NBA once, believe it or not. It's a period of time easily forgotten, but it did happen - after declaring too early and going undrafted in the 2005 draft, the Hornets signed him as an undrafted free agent, and assigned him to the Tulsa 66ers. He was the sixth player ever to be assigned to the D-League, but he didn't do much there, averaging roughly 12/3. The Hornets waived him before his contract became guaranteed, and he never appeared in an NBA game. He hasn't made it back since. However, in the 2007.08 season, he averaged 21.7 points, 5.4 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game for the L.A. D-Fenders, which got him back into NBA contention, and he signed with the Raptors summer league team last year as a result. After that, he went to Turkey and played for Darussafaka, averaging 13.1 points and 5.1 rebounds. Banks would do himself a big favour if he either improved his jumpshot, or put it away; he shot 101 three pointers in 30 games last season, accounting for one in every three of his shot attempts, yet he hit only 21 of them.

More importantly, Banks is rumoured to be trying to become a British national. His father was born in England, and still lives here, which entitles Sean to a British passport. He may soon be one of us. If he is, expect me to get biased.

- Nik Caner-Medley: Caner-Medley spent last year in Spain, playing for Cajasol Sevilla in the ACB. He averaged 10.7 points and 8.0 rebounds in 25 minutes a game during domestic competition, but he still hasn't developed a great outside shot, shooting 23% from three point range on the year. More notably, Caner-Medley was kicked off of the team at the end of the year for getting into a drunken fight with a team mate at a party thrown by the team to celebrate their season. The team mate, Michel Diouf - who reports say came off worse - was also suspended but later reinstated. Considering that the Clippers other small forwards are the specialist Steve Novak, the past-it Ricky Davis and the frankly crap Al Thornton, I'd like to think that Caner-Medley had a chance. But he doesn't, really.

- Dionte Christmas: Temple graduate Christmas averaged 20 points per game on 46% shooting in his sophomore year, then 20ppg on 43% shooting in his junior year, and then 20ppg on 41% shooting in his senior year. If he'd done them the other way around, he might have been drafted. His turnovers also trended the same way, which isn't good, although his assist numbers also got better, which helps. Christmas might be able to carve himself a nice career as a catch and shoot specialist, but he'll first have to improve on his 35% three point percentage from last year.

- Eric Gordon: Way too good to be in summer league again. Way too good.

- Blake Griffin: Same. But I suppose everyone has to have at least one year.

- DeAndre Jordan: DeAndre Jordan sucks, and a lot of people don't seem to know it. A lot of the time, you hear about players who are just athleticism and no technique, but rarely is it more true at the NBA level than it is with DeAndre Jordan. Yet some people still think he's good for some bizarre reason. The evidence says otherwise; Jordan's PER of 14.1 is quite good, but his PER against is 23.5, his win share rating was 1.5, his Roland Rating -7.6, his +/- rating a mere -7.5. His FG% and eFG% are both a tidy 63%, but that's easy to do when 58% of your field goal attempts are dunks (almost all assisted) or tip ins - he shot 18% on jumpshots, and 38.5% from the free throw line. Even on the night that he put up 23 points, 12 rebounds and 4 blocked shots, he let his matchup Andrew Bynum score 42 and 15. For him to ever be a backup calibre NBA centre, his effort will have to roughly double, and his skills will have to improve about tenfold. If he doesn't, then the guaranteed contract that he has for next season might be the last one that he ever sees.

- Marcelus Kemp: Kemp played on the Lakers, but totalled only 13 points in 3 games. He spent last year in Italy, playing for Basket Livorno, a team fortuitously sponsored by a wicker basket making company. (Not really.) Kemp averaged 20.7 points and 4.9 rebounds on the season, but must have had a bad Christmas or something, because he only recorded 6 assists in the whole of 2009 (assistless in 10 of his last 11 games). He had 265 field goal attempts in that time as well. He's a one on one type of player, and apparently it shows. Nevertheless, if he wanted NBA attention, he seems to have gotten it.

- Kyle McAlarney: Kyle McAlarney's great. His offensive game is solely three pointers, from between 21 to 34 feet, and the limit of his point guard play is driving baseline every one in a while. He's a little shooting guard with a dynamite shooting stroke, and no other complimentary skills. He's awesome. He's going to be a brilliant player next year. Guaranteed. It just won't be at the very highest standards of basketball.

- Kevinn Pinkney: Pinkney is a fine scoring big man, particularly from the mid range game and within. It's annoying, then, to see him take more and more threes. Pinkney averaged 14.2 points and 7.2 rebounds for NGC Cantu last year, shooting 71% from both inside the arc and at the foul line. But he shot only 335 from three point range. Why, then, did he take two and a half three pointers per game? I don't know. But stop it, Kevinn. And Google your own name if you need to know how to spell it.

- Mike Taylor: Portland drafted Mike Taylor very late in the second round last year, then traded his rights to the Clippers for L.A's second rounder this year. That was quite a high price to pay, considering that the Clippers then proceeded to suck and the pick wound up being number 33 (which the Blazers then used on Dante Cunningham, another fringe Brit). Taylor showed some ability to score last year, although his defense is quite a way short and he's not going to become a pure point guard at any point (his turnover numbers are still huge). He should make the team again, given that the Clippers don't really have any alternatives to explore, but his contract is unguaranteed until the end of the month. And therefore, so are his chances.


Additionally, it was expected that Sofoklis Schortsanitis was going to join the team. He tried to, at least. But FIBA ruled that, because he was still under contract to Olympiakos, he wasn't allowed to play in summer league. This only appears to be a rule that applies to him, and not anyone else, so I must be missing something here. But that's the gist of it, at least.

It is obligatory that any mention of Sofoklis Schortsanitis is accompanied with a progress report on his weight. So, here goes.

The latest reports out of Greece state that Sofoklis has lost a staggering 105lbs since the start of last season, which is a huge amount to lose. Their target weight for him is 340, which he's damn nearly at, supposedly. Yet those reports also state that he now weighs 349 pounds.

You can do that math yourself. That's a formerly 454 pound man we're talking about. That's documentary worthy-big. It's unfathomble.

Those reports also claim that Sofoklis is down to 12% body fat, which seems like it can't be plausible when talking about a guy that size. But be honest, I kind of believe them. It's obviously impossible for a 6'8 350lb guy to be carrying around anything less than a crapload of excess fat, but I'm also willing to believe that the guy is chiselled underneath the wobbly bits. Watching several Olympiakos games last year, I never quite got used quite how spectacularly massive Sofo is. He would go up against players like Nikola Pekovic, giants amongst men, and yet he'd dwarf them all. He'd be shorter, and obviously fatter, but it's not just weight; the guy is freaking.....huge. I can't really explain it, really. There's a better way to explain it then this half hearted attempt I've just managed, but I don't know what it is. He's just magnetically massive. He's also pretty spritely for such a giant, pretty smart and highly skilled. He's an enigma.

But Sofoklis is still not going to be a factor at that weight. He's too big. And this weight cycle has been going on for at least six years. It's fun to be optimistic about how good he could be, but maybe we just shouldn't bother trying to be any more.

Like a Camby in the wind

Fuck the NBA.

Seriously, fuck it. Fuck it hard. Right in the face.

The Denver Nuggets traded former DPOY Marcus Camby to the L.A. Clippers yesterday, for absolutely nothing. The Nuggets got no more than the right to swap second round picks with L.A. in 2010, a year in which the Clippers will have the lower pick anyway, meaning that Denver won't be exercising the option. That's it. That was their return. That was what they got.

That was what they got for Marcus, freaking, Camby.

I am really annoyed by this.

Marcus Camby is a former DPOY award winner. He may have another one left in him yet, too. Camby is a high calibre player - last year, he averaged 13.1 rebounds and 3.6 blocks a game. 3.6 rebounds per game is a lot of rebounds. And 3.6 is a hell of a lot of blocks. He can pass, and also shoot 20 footers, if you give him a week and 40 feet of elbow room.

Camby is a rare commodity in this league; he is a centre that isn't crap. He is at the peak of his career, and strangely also at his peak physical conditionm having set his new personal best for games played in a season, with a commendable 79 games last season. Without wanting to go overboard and do something silly, such as calling him a dynamic two way player, it's safe to say that Tampon is one of the best at his position, the position that is so hard to fill that General Managers will consistently try any old shit to try and strike gold. In a league where most executives would willingly sacrifice their closest family memebers to get an elite centre, the Clippers now have two. And they're not even overpaid.

They got one of them for freakin' nothing.

How does Marcus Camby fit alongside Wolfgang Kaman? I don't know, but it doesn't matter. He's going to better their team simply by not being Aaron Williams. The Clippers just bagged a huge infusion of quality to their team, and all they had to do was not overpay Luol Deng. If they can now trade for Vince Carter using little more than Cuttino Mobley and Tim Thomas to die, then suddenly they're dancing. A front seven of Carter, Camby, Kaman, Baron Davis, Al Thornton, Quinton Ross and Eric Gordon could break 50 wins, even without Elton Brand or a bench.

And yet, somehow, Denver couldn't even get a first round pick for him? Is that even possible? Is instant salary relief really THAT important? Why has this come up now? Why could they not use the Warriors' and Sixers' cap room, before they spent it, as leverage for a better deal? Not even Memphis's? They couldn't take back even a BIT of salary if it meant getting soem assets, like young players or draft picks? Not a bit? Really? You mean to tell me that a team heading in no particular direction and capped out like buggery can afford to give away its best players for absolutely no return whatsoever? How can any team out there justify spending $23 million on a fourth choice power forward while already nursing one of the league's highest payrolls, paying $60 unnecessary million to a guy who played 3 minutes the season before, as well as giving Chucky Atkins $13 million to do big fat Fanny Adams, can now somehow justify giving away its first round draft picks and frittering away quality players like confetti? This from a team that made the ultimate let's-give-this-shit-a-shot trade only 18 months ago?

Sod that.

Somewhere, somehow, someone is systematically wrong. Either Nuggets owner Stan Kroenke woke up with the arseache and ordered General Manager Mark Warkentein to do a dramatic about-face and cut payroll immediately at all costs, or Warkentein is a pillock. Or both.

Whichever it is, they have a problem. They're still cap strapped, they're still a lottery team, they still have no exciting internal future, they're still a badly assembled veteran team that isn't getting anywhere, and they're still being mismanaged. I'd feel bad for them, but they've annoyed me, so I owe them nothing.

The fans, however, have my sympathy. When teams make bad personal moves to save money, purely as collateral damage from their own previous stupid move, then the fans become the victims to the folly that is the NBA and its old boys network. Believe me, as a Bulls fan, I know that pain. I miss Tyson Chandler every day.

However, in a rare but special first here at eddiebasdenslegacy.com, I'm going to try and think positively. The sole solace for the Nuggets in this deal is the $10 million traded player exception that this deal created. Then again, it will probably go unused. However, if the Nuggets let Allen Iverson expire this summer, they will finally be out, barring widespread changes, from the tax territory in which they currently reside. If that happens, they will still have the TPE to use until July 15th, 2009. And at that point, they'll be able to add salary again. Whether they do this or not is another matter, but the ability to do so remains. And that's a small solace that Nuggets can take away and keep.

Who knows, they might even use it to bring Camby back.



By the way, while we're sort of on the subject of the Clippers and Elton Brand, let us tangent for a minute as you explain something to me. As I understand it, the time line of events in their negotiations go like this;

1 - Brand opts out.

2 - The Clippers and Brand verbally agree to a new deal rather quickly.

3 - The Warriors top this offer, just to see if they get lucky. The Sixers follow suit.

4 - Brand and his agent David Falk take news of this new offer to the Clippers, looking to use it as leverage with the Clippers to make them increase their offer slightly.

5 - The Clippers say no.


Now, why would the Clippers do this? By all accounts, they had a verbal agreement for a very reason 5 year, $65 million offer. Why would they be so inflexibile in renegotiating that slightly? $13 million is a good price for Elton Brand - if you're overpaying him at the end of the deal, you're underpaying him at the start, so it works out fine. Why wouldn't you add a few million if it kept him here? Why wouldn't you discuss a sixth year? Why would you extend qualifying offers to Marcus Williams and Nick Fazekas, keep the unguaranteed Josh Powell around unnecessarily, and even more unnecessarily sign first round draft pick Eric Gordon before compelting your cap space adventure, needlessly costing yourself almost $1.5 million in cap room, a figure which could add over $10 million to the value of a 5 year contract? A $10 million that would have meant the re-signing of your best player, and a hell of a good starting five to build upon?

The answer: I simply don't know. Maybe they didn't know the rules or something. Maybe they didn't know signing Gordon would cost them cap space. Maybe they think Fazekas actually matters in some why. I couldn't say. But I think the Clippers, in doing this, nearly managed to one-up The Juan Carlos Navarro Experience of this past season. And for that, I salute, pity, humilate and disown them. At least they got Camby as a backup plan.

I will never get over how such multi-million dollar business franchises can be mismanaged by the whims and misinformation of those in charge. All the damn time, too. Fucking dumbfounding.



(Readers note: Never listen to Elton John and blog. It leads to the creation of stupid post titles and slightly aggressive opening gambits.)