ALERT - JASON WILLIAMS HAS REPORTEDLY RETIRED FROM THE NBA. THE CLIPPERS ARE NOW SEARCHING FOR A REPLACEMENT. WILL IT BE A PG? When Chris Kaman returns home from the Olympics, somebody is going to have to introduce him to his new team. He is one of only 3 players who were Clippers two season ago. This is the largest full scale overhaul of a roster that I have ever seen.
Enter Jason Williams aka White Chocolate. He certainly isn't the player everybody expected. In fact our entire bench is now made up of players we didn't expect. It has been the Clipper's tradition to not invest much in their bench. It has been a perennial weakness of the Clips. Not this year.
I thought we would be down to signing young unproven role players who would work for peanuts. After drafting Eric Gordon and DeAndre Jordan they signed Baron Davis, and made the blockbuster trade to bring in Marcus Camby. They traded for Mike Taylor, Jason Hart and Steve Novak, while signing Ricky Davis and Brian Skinner. It's enough to make your head spin.
Chris Kaman is going to come home and ask, who are all of these strangers? They are going to have to put name tags on everybody.
Jason, 33, started his career in Sacramento and after a stop off in Memphis, he spent the last couple of seasons down in Miami. He has averaged 11 PPG and 6 APG over his career but has been more of a scorer that a shooter. He career shooting percentage is only 40% from the floor and 33% from the 3. It will be Coach Dunleavy's job to bring him in off the bench and convince him to focus on distributing the rock and only be an opportunistic shooter. In other words, only shoot from your best spots on the floor.
It is suddenly very crowed at PG with Davis, Hart, Williams and Taylor already on board. I have a feeling that Hart or Taylor may play some SG. It's possible they would send Taylor back down to the D league. It also brings up the question, is Shaun Livingston done as a Clipper?
One thing seem obvious to me. The old system of making roster moves by committee has never worked that well for the Clippers because you had the Coach, the GM, the Owner, the Prez, and the Chief Bean Counter all voting on the moves. This season I'm convinced they gave the entire job to Dunleavy and Dunleavy alone. If the Clips rock the NBA, Elgin will get consideration as GM of the Year. But this has Dunleavy's fingerprints all over it.
JamFan
