Tag Archives: Los Angeles Clippers

Clippers vs. Grizzlies wrap up: Reggie Evans to the rescue

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And with a statement victory on Sunday both Los Angeles teams advance to the second round. This is the first time that both residents of the Staples Center have advanced to round two in the same year. The Clippers got an infusion of talent when a lucky trade fell in their lap. The Grizzlies were coming off a year where they shocked the world. Let’s break down this thrilling series.

The Regend continues in Los Angeles

2012 Los Angeles Clippers Playoffs Round 1 Totals

Player Pos G MP WP48 WP PoP/48 PoP/G
Chris Paul 1.0 7 271.6 0.243 1.38 4.5 3.6
Reggie Evans 4.0 7 155.9 0.271 0.88 5.3 2.5
Eric Bledsoe 1.9 7 97.2 0.209 0.42 3.4 1.0
Bobby Simmons 3.0 1 22.4 0.126 0.06 0.8 0.4
Kenyon Martin 4.6 7 128.8 0.107 0.29 0.3 0.1
DeAndre Jordan 5.0 7 150.5 0.086 0.27 -0.4 -0.2
Blake Griffin 4.5 7 247.5 0.077 0.40 -0.7 -0.5
Nick Young 3.0 7 134.8 0.057 0.16 -1.3 -0.5
Randy Foye 2.1 7 184.7 0.035 0.14 -2.0 -1.1
Mo Williams 1.6 7 149.6 -0.060 -0.19 -4.9 -2.2
Caron Butler 3.0 6 161.9 -0.129 -0.43 -7.1 -4.0
Total  7  1705  0.095  3.37  -0.6  -0.7 

Reggie Evans is really good The best offseason acquisition for the Clippers was Chris Paul. Surprisingly though, the second best one may have been Reggie Evans. In the regular season he averaged less than 14 minutes a game. In the playoffs that was upped to 22 minutes a game. He was the second best player for the Clippers, best on a per-minute basis, and even came through in the clutch.

Chris Paul is really good His first round performance quite the same as last year’s. That said, Chris Paul was the reason the Clippers made the playoffs and their best player in the playoffs. What’s scary, is that history has shown us that Chris Paul is capable of even more. We’ll have to see if he breaks out in the second round.

Where did Griffin and Jordan go? The Clippers were a three-headed beat of Paul, Jordan, and Griffin. Yet, Griffin and Jordan both played far below their normal levels in round one. Here’s hoping it was a fluke, or first time jitters. The Clippers will need them to have any hope in round two.

Kenyon Martin and Nick Young were ok Both of these players were bad pickups. With Kenyon Martin the Clippers bet on age and injury. With Nick Young they bet on potential that had no backing from the stats. In round one Martin put up a great game seven and had an average performance. Nick Young, who is typically a negative player, managed to at least play at a “not terrible” level. Had these players kept up their regular season routine, this would have been a shorter series.

Why oh why did the Clippers pick up Caron? Last season when Caron Butler went down it was actually a good thing for the Mavericks, who had a much better Marion on the bench. The thing is Butler was once a good player, but hasn’t been close in several seasons. He was bad in the regular season and was downright terrible in round one. The Clippers have him on the books for around $8 million a season for two more years. No good comes from this.

Randolph and Gay are no Randolph and Battier

2012 Memphis Grizzlies Playoffs Round 1 Totals 

Player Pos G MP WP48 WP PoP/48 PoP/G
Mike Conley 1.0 7 276.8 0.170 0.98 2.2 1.8
Quincy Pondexter 2.4 7 113.9 0.244 0.58 4.5 1.5
Hamed Haddadi 5.0 4 20.7 0.509 0.22 12.8 1.4
Marc Gasol 5.0 7 260.9 0.159 0.86 1.9 1.4
Marreese Speights 4.5 7 100.1 0.137 0.29 1.2 0.4
Dante Cunningham 4.0 7 49.1 0.125 0.13 0.8 0.1
Josh Selby 1.0 1 0.0 0.041 0.00 -1.8 -0.0
Zach Randolph 4.0 7 247.8 0.094 0.48 -0.2 -0.1
Tony Allen 2.1 7 170.2 0.089 0.31 -0.3 -0.2
Rudy Gay 3.0 7 279.1 0.055 0.32 -1.4 -1.1
Gilbert Arenas 1.0 6 23.1 -0.427 -0.21 -16.4 -1.3
O.J. Mayo 1.7 7 163.2 -0.081 -0.27 -5.6 -2.7
Total  7  1705  0.104  3.68  0.8  0.8 

Randolph isn’t back Zach Randolph had a crazy mid-life crisis when he joined the Grizzlies and somehow became a great player. He was a big reason for their playoff success last season. The injury bug hit Randolph though, and this season he has not been the same player. Losing a top big hurts a lot.

Gay and Mayo aren’t good Both of these players hover in the average zone. The problem is the team thinks they are stars. In the playoffs unfortunately these two were the worst players on the team to suit up more than 100 minutes. Cap wise Gay hurts a lot and O.J. Mayo may be costly if they re-sign him. Here’s hoping the Grizzlies can somehow sweep both out.

Gasol and Conley are good These two were the bright spots on the team. During the regular season these two are the one-two punch for the Grizzlies and the playoffs were no different. Neither had that much support though and sadly they couldn’t hold off the Clippers.

Summing up

This first round battle was very interesting. Both teams have some good players on the top but have had some questionable management moves that have constructed the rest of the team. Sadly, the lack of Randolph was enough to tilt this to the Clippers. As a consolation prize the Grizzlies can point out that they in fact outscored the Clippers. As for the Clippers, I don’t suspect they will be able to get outscored by San Antonio and still advance.

-Dre

Reggie Evans: the Regend continues

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Last night, with his team trailing the Grizzlies by a point in the final minute of the game, Chris Paul passed the ball to Reggie Evans. Evans made a layup, putting the Clippers up by one for the game’s final margin. It was, as Henry Abbott called it, a triumph of Team Ball over Hero Ball, with Chris Paul — the superstar — electing to pass the ball to Evans — the unheralded bench player — in crunch time, instead of forcing a tough shot for himself.

We shouldn’t be surprised about Chris Paul passing the ball in late game situations. But should he have passed to Reggie Evans, he of the 4.0 PPG career average?

With the exception of an injury-riddled 09-10 season (in which Evans was limited to 311 minutes), Reggie Evans has always been an above average player.

Table 1: Selected individual career statistics for Reggie Evans

Season WP48 Wins Net Poss/48 eFG% TS% Points!/48
02-03 SEA 0.216 6.1 15.1 47.1% 51.0% 7.5
03-04 SEA 0.154 4.1 14.9 40.6% 47.1% 8.1
04-05 SEA 0.248 9.7 17.6 47.6% 51.2% 9.9
05-06 SEA 0.196 3.2 15.8 50.9% 53.6% 14.7
05-06 DEN 0.133 1.7 15.7 45.3% 49.0% 10.7
06-07 DEN 0.234 5.5 17.4 54.4% 55.0% 13.8
07-08 PHI 0.145 5.7 15.0 44.1% 46.3% 10.9
08-09 PHI 0.132 3.1 14.0 44.4% 51.4% 11.0
09-10 TOR 0.091 0.6 15.0 49.3% 49.8% 14.7
10-11 TOR 0.269 4.5 20.2 40.8% 46.6% 8.0
11-12 LAC 0.192 3.1 16.1 47.2% 50.4% 6.5
Career 0.190 4.7 16.1 46.6% 50.1% 10.2
Average PF 0.099 3.1 10.0 49.3% 53.5% 19.9

Note: Net Possessions = Rebounds + Steals – Turnovers

Evans is a good player because of his exceptional ability to gain extra possessions, which is largely driven by his excellent rebounding. But as we can see, Evans doesn’t score many points and is not a good shooter. Luckily for his teams, Evans doesn’t take very many shots, which mitigates the impact his bad shooting has on his productivity. By focusing on his strengths and minimizing his weaknesses, Evans can be a very valuable part of a successful team.

Last season in Toronto, Evans was the Raptors’ fourth best player. Now it’s true that the Raptors weren’t a very good team — they finished the season ranked 14th in the Eastern Conference — but that was because some very bad players. Evans was also the fourth best player on the 76ers during the 07-08 season (finished 7th in the East), the second best player on the Nuggets during the 06-07 season (6th in the West), the best player on the Sonics during the 04-05 season (3rd in the West), and the third best player on the Sonics during the 02-03 season (10th in the West). All this despite the fact that Evans has never played big minutes — the most he’s totaled in a single season is 1881, during the 04-05 season, and his highest minutes per game was last year, at 26.6.

That being said, Evans is not necessarily a good option if you are looking for a bucket — regardless of the time or situation during the game. But if you watch the clip, Evans was pretty open, and the Grizzlies’ shot blocker, Marc Gasol, was out of the play. The only Grizzlies’ player who could have affected that shot was Zach Randolph, and although Randolph is a good rebounder, he is a historically bad shot blocker for a big man. I’m sure that Evans knew this — Evans is on that same list, and we all know that it takes one to know one (yes, this is tongue in cheek). There’s also the fact the Randolph is still recovering from a knee injury, which further inhibits his jumping ability, and that it’s unlikely that anyone was expecting Evans to take a shot in that situation. When you put it all together, there was a good chance that Evans was going to hit the shot. Credit Chris Paul for creating the play, and have some respect for Reggie Evans, one of the league’s most underrated players.

-Devin

What’s up with the Clippers?

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It all started on February 18th. The Clippers lost to the Spurs in overtime and then lost their next game to the Warriors. This was the first time the dynamite combination of Paul and Griffin had lost two in a row since losing to the Spurs and Bulls at the very start of the season. After a 19-9 start and a spot at the top of the Pacific division, the Clippers went 8-12 over their next twenty games. The Lakers retook their spot at the top of the division and we were left to ask what happened to the Clippers? Was it chemistry, coaching, nerves? The answer is much more simple.

Los Angeles Clippers from February 18th 2012 to March 25th 2012 ordered by minutes per game
PLAYER POS G MPG WP48 WP POP/48 POP/G
Chris Paul 1 20 37.2 0.305 4.73 6.4 5.0
Blake Griffin 4.4 20 35.6 0.144 2.14 1.4 1.0
Nick Young 2.6 5 29.9 -0.026 -0.08 -3.9 -2.4
Caron Butler 3 19 29.3 -0.083 -0.97 -5.7 -3.5
Mo Williams 1.6 19 28.9 0.012 0.14 -2.7 -1.6
Randy Foye 2.2 19 27.4 0.02 0.22 -2.4 -1.4
DeAndre Jordan 5 20 24.5 0.246 2.5 4.6 2.3
Kenyon Martin 4.5 19 19.6 -0.062 -0.48 -5.0 -2.0
Bobby Simmons 3.3 14 18.9 -0.001 -0.01 -3.1 -1.2
Reggie Evans 4 20 15.1 0.184 1.16 2.6 0.8
Eric Bledsoe 1.9 19 8.8 0.063 0.22 -1.1 -0.2
Ryan Gomes 3 7 3.7 -0.218 -0.12 -9.9 -0.8
Travis Leslie 2.8 2 3.3 0.202 0.03 3.2 0.2
Trey Thompkins 4 7 1.7 -0.141 -0.04 -7.5 -0.3
Brian Cook 4 4 0.7 0.648 0.04 17.1 0.3
TOTAL 20  243  0.093  9.48  -0.9  -0.9 

We can easily rule out any chemistry myths about Chris Paul and Blake Griffin. While we’d hope a young Griffin would improve a bit in his sophomore season, the fact is both Paul and Griffin are playing at the same levels they were last year. Using Points over Par we can see how valuable this is. Starting Paul and Griffin gives the Clippers a six point edge each game. Additionally, DeAndre Jordan and Reggie Evans have been playing great as well. Age is definitely an excuse for not playing Evans more. However, why the Clippers aren’t giving more minutes to a 23 year old center putting up terrific numbers is beyond me.

That brings us to the rest of the Clippers. Much like the Suns, the Clippers are four good players and nothing else. Paul and Griffin are a dynamic duo. Guess what? Their contribution is completely undone by Butler and Young each game. Jordan is a fantastic young big. His contribution is wiped clean by K-Mart’s time on the court. And after all of that the Clippers still play Mo Williams, Randy Foye and Bobby Simmons, who all hurt the Clippers even more than Reggie Evans’ limited time could hope to undo.

The question is if any of these players should be a surprise. Here’s a quick rundown of unproductive players that the Clippers are trusting with major minutes as they looked last season:

PLAYER TEAM POS MP WP48 WP
Kenyon Martin Denver 4.0 1233 0.114 2.93
Randy Foye LA Clippers 1.9 1551 0.018 0.60
Caron Butler Dallas 3.0 867 0.019 0.34
Bobby Simmons San Antonio 3.0 16 -0.325 -0.11
Nick Young Washington 2.6 2034 -0.010 -0.44
Mo Williams Cleveland-LA Clippers 1.0 1788 -0.022 -0.81

Other than Kenyon Martin the rest of the players were not good. Kenyon Martin is also old and as we’ve pointed out: players over 30 age like milk. The Clippers have definitely done well to give major minutes to Griffin and Paul. Making DeAndre Jordan share minutes with Kenyon Martin doesn’t make a lot of sense. Giving the rest of the minutes to unproductive players is a recipe for disaster.

If we look at the Clippers in terms of Arturo’s Half Baked Theory they’ve already done most of the hard week. Here’s a recap:

  1. Get a superstar to have a shot at contending (check)
  2. Get a strong top three to have a shot in the playoffs (check)
  3. Get a strong top six to be a playoff force (working on it)
  4. Get depth to survive the regular season (working on it)

The hardest part of being a contender in the NBA is getting great players. The Clippers have taken care of that. The next step is just getting average players to round out the team. The Clippers have failed miserably here. Of course, replacing players with average players is a far simpler task than getting great players. While the trade deadline has passed and the Clippers made some questionable moves, the Clippers can easily rectify things in the off season. For now my advice is to increase DeAndre Jordan’s minutes, glue Nick Young to the bench and get Chris Paul the ball and minutes come playoff time. As Arturo has stated “With Chris Paul, you always have a shot.” and I agree. That is of course, you try to play Nick Young and Caron Butler lots of minutes.

-Dre

Is Derrick Rose better than Chris Paul?

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Editor’s Note: For those of you looking for Wins Produced Numbers for this year you need to look no further than The NBA Geek. You can find a plethora of easy to look through stats here: NBA Geeks – NBA Players

With the player comparison engine it’s also remarkably easy to compare players like say Chris Paul vs. Derrick Rose.

Enjoy!

Rose Has a Long Way to Go Before He Catches Paul

The general consensus in the media seems to be that if Derrick Rose isn’t as good as or better than Chris Paul, he isn’t far off. This is most clearly evidenced by Derrick Rose’s MVP trophy and his spot on the All-NBA First Team last season over Paul, who was named to the Third Team. Of course, in this kind of voting, the media generally only takes two things into account: Team Wins and Points Per Game. Despite the unambiguous reality that basketball is a team game, a great player on a bad team will probably never win an MVP. In addition, a great player who doesn’t score a lot of points probably won’t win either. This of course is due to the Yay! Points! thesis. While Chris Paul probably scores just enough points to be considered for the MVP award, the teams he has been on have never been quite good enough to get him there. Derrick Rose on the other hand was on the team with the best record in the NBA last season and he scored more points than all but three other players. But we know that scoring a lot of points isn’t all there is to being a great player, don’t we? In fact, out of context, a particular player’s points per game or total points is essentially meaningless with respect to that player’s contribution to his team’s winning percentage. Shooting efficiently, creating more possessions to give one’s team more opportunities, and taking care of the basketball in order to limit the opponent’s opportunities are much more important. So how do Rose and Paul stack up against the average point guard in important aspects of the game over each player’s career?

Paul vs. Rose in Career Numbers

Player Chris Paul Derrick Rose Average PG
eFG% 0.503 0.488 0.482
FT% 0.853 0.817 0.821
STL48 3.07 1.07 1.86
AST48 12.93 8.67 8.74
TO48 3.20 3.73 3.51
ORB48 0.93 1.33 0.90
DRB48 5.07 3.73 3.86
BLK48 0.13 0.53 0.32
PF48 3.33 2.00 3.45
STL:TO 0.96 0.29 0.53
AST:TO 4.04 2.32 2.49
NetPoss48 5.87 2.40 3.11
PPG! 18.6 20.9 10.2
WP48 0.304 0.113 0.100

The career numbers of the two players are barely even comparable. Paul is above average in almost everything. Rose is not. Rose has shot slightly more efficiently than the average point guard, and that is probably what has kept him above average for his career. But Paul’s numbers are better almost across the board. In particular, Paul’s steal to turnover ratio is over three times higher than Rose’s, Paul has shot much more efficiently, and Paul’s net possessions (a stat that captures all the possessions a player has created for his team minus the possessions he has given up to the opponent) are well over double Rose’s. To put it bluntly, Paul has helped his teams win much more than Rose has helped his. But Rose is still young, and has undeniably improved since his rookie season, so perhaps looking at last season will be more accurate:

Paul vs. Rose in 2010-11

Player Chris Paul Derrick Rose Average PG
eFG% 0.502 0.485 0.482
FT% 0.878 0.905 0.821
STL48 3.15 1.35 1.86
AST48 13.10 9.88 8.74
TO48 2.97 4.41 3.51
ORB48 0.64 1.28 0.90
DRB48 4.84 3.95 3.86
BLK48 0.08 0.81 0.32
PF48 3.28 2.14 3.45
STL:TO 1.06 0.31 0.53
AST:TO 4.41 2.24 2.49
NetPoss48 5.66 2.17 3.11
PPG! 15.9 25.0 10.2
WP48 0.309 0.161 0.100

Rose has improved with respect to free throw percentage, assists, and defensive rebounds. This has been enough to markedly improve his overall production. Indeed, Rose is well above average. However, Rose still struggles noticeably with respect to steals and turnovers. In fact, Rose’s net possessions were lower last season than they have been over his career. Also, Rose has not improved his field goal shooting efficiency. Consequently, Paul was nearly twice as productive as Rose last season.
J.A. Adande used Friday’s Bulls-Clippers game (a small sample size by anyone’s measure) to assert that Rose may now be the best all around point guard in the NBA, and not just “the best player at point guard.” Adande had previously used the latter title to describe Rose because he believed Paul was better at fulfilling the traditional duties of the point guard position. But, Friday’s game aside, Rose has not only failed to fulfill the position’s “traditional duties” as well as Paul, he has failed to perform any of the important duties of a basketball player as well as Paul has. Proponents of Rose can always point to the “eye test” just like they can point to the existence of Bigfoot, ghosts, and the flying spaghetti monster, but the numbers don’t lie. Paul is superior to Rose in the most important aspects of basketball: shooting efficiency, possession creation, and efficient use of possessions. Rose has a long way to go to catch up. He’s still young and can improve. That said, he’ll need to double his performance to match Paul.

Rose’s recent win over Chris Paul was impressive. We know from past experience that a single game may be enough to skew voters in regards to Chris Paul. We’re not sold just yet and it will take many more games from Derrick Rose before we’re ready to declare him better than Chris Paul.

-James

Awesome NBA links

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With the season in full swing there’s actually been some pretty cool basketball related blog posts.

Mosi Platt(@MIA_Heat_Index) over at the Miami Heat Index has been keeping busy.

wiLQ(@Exploring_NBA) over at Weakside Awareness has had some real gems including

Patrick Minton(@nbageek) over at the NBA Geek has been on an absolute tear.

Jamie Vann Struth(@JamieVannStruth) over at Raining Buckets has forecasted the 2011-2012 season. Of course Jamie admits there are many things out of his control with his predictions and as such we shouldn’t think of them as written in stone. However there are some cool takeaways based on how the lines currently stand:
  • People are sleeping on Denver and the Clippers. Jamie has them finishing in the top 3 out west.
  • The Hornets will miss Chris Paul and their new young players will not even come close to making up for it.
  • Dallas is nowhere near the contender people are making them out to be. Jamie has them missing the playoffs!

Ben Gulker(@brgulker) at Pistons by the Numbers is back! Sadly the news isn’t happy – it’s insanity to think Pistons will win even 30 games.

In case you missed this: Ian Levy(@HickoryHigh) over at Hickory High compiled a holiday wish list of pretty much every NBA blogger on the net!

If your team is still scrambling to make a move Arturo Galletti(@ArturoGalletti) has a complete breakdown of the NBA Free Agents

Enjoy! And as much time as our talented staff puts into combing the web for awesome basketball content, we have no hope of reading it all. If you see a cool link or post you think we should mention feel free to shout it out in the comments.

-Dre(@NerdNumbers)