A little over a month ago, we all sang, and drank, and were merry in celebrating that Mike Dunleavy had stepped down as coach of the Clippers. I’ve got nothing against the man himself, other than the fact that he’s a bit more than partially responsible for how bad the Clippers have been for the better part of this decade. It’s not all on his shoulders — after all, who’s to say what would have become of the Clips had they not blown a 3-1 lead against the Suns in the 2006 playoffs, or had lottery pick Shaun Livingston not had the injury nightmare of a lifetime, or of the one successful core not inexplicably regressed, or if Elton Brand hadn’t bolted in free agency — but he’s had more than a hand in the horrible management of the worst franchise in basketball.

It’s honestly a bit impressive that the Clippers have been so bad for so long; you’d figure that eventually, Dunleavy and Sterling were bound to stumble into success. Maybe their brush with hope was back in ‘06, but it left as quickly as it came. Dunleavy has had chance after chance to not only justify his position as head coach, but rectify the mistakes he’s made as a general manager. He’s had no right to complain about his roster, or his coach’s use of the roster, because Dun is one of those guys in a rare position to both build the team to his liking and manage everything from the contracts to the minutes. He’s blessed with considerable power but cursed with accountability for everything…or at least he should have been cursed with accountability. Few GMs or coaches could have gotten away with losing so consistently, but give Dunleavy credit: he managed to stay alive, even if it’s only because the man signing the checks was a cheapskate who inked him to a foolish deal and refused to cut him loose.

But that’s enough dancing on MDSr’s grave; there will be plenty of that going on today, and I feel like I’ve already done plenty of it before. Enough is probably enough, if only because this move should have come long ago. I come to praise Caesar, not to bury him. This particular man and this particular franchise are so easy to hyperbolize that he’ll get his share of criticism and he probably deserves it. But not everything turned to dust under Dunleavy’s watch, and while his roster moves on the whole can’t be called a success given that Dunleavy coached the Clips to a winning record just once in seven stints, L.A.’s selections in the draft during his time as GM have actually been pretty successful.

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2003:
Chris Kaman, 6th overall pick – Kaman is still the starting center of the Clips today, and though he’s battled injury and some pretty wicked consistency issues, he’s had a solid season. Kaman has found success despite playing a very different style than Baron Davis, which isn’t easy. But post-heavy sets have been a staple of the Dunleavy era, and as the Clips shift directions next season (assuming that Kim Hughes doesn’t return as head coach), it should be interesting to see how Kaman is utilized in the future.

Sofoklis Schortsanitis, 34th overall pick - Schortsanitis never made it to the U.S., but is still playing professionally for Olympiacos.

2004:
Shaun Livingston, 4th overall pick – There’s no telling whether or not Livingston would have put it all together and actualized the star potential that pushed him to the top of his draft class straight out of high school. The Dislocated Knee Cap Heard ‘Round the World not only closed Livingston’s season, but significantly lowered the ceiling on his career.

Lionel Chalmers, 33rd pick – After a short stint in the NBA (two years of salary but only one year with minutes played), Chalmers went across the pond and across another, smaller pond to play in Italy. He’s now a fixture in Russian basketball, where he led his league in scoring last season with 21.4 points per game. He did have some value to the Clips, though: Chalmers was part of the trade (along with Marko Jaric) that brought Sam Cassell to L.A. for the ‘06 playoff run.

2005:
Yaroslav Korolev, 12th overall pick – Swingandamiss. The big draft blunder of Dunleavy’s tenure, Korolev was a lottery pick that did anything but pan out. That said, it’s not like MDSr overlooked any obvious stars; the best players still on the board at 12 in the ‘05 draft were all hidden gems (Danny Granger, David Lee, Monta Ellis), and while it would have been nice for the Clips to pick up a talent of that caliber, you could say the same for almost every GM in the league.

Daniel Ewing, 32nd overall pick – Two seasons, about a million in salary, and over 120 games in the league. Ewing never made his mark, and now he’s trying to make a buck and a name for himself playing professionally in Poland.

2006:
Paul Davis, 34th overall pick – The Clips didn’t have a first rounder in ‘06, which was actually okay considering they finished 47-35 and the pick that would have been theirs fell to number 22 overall. There’s still value at that point in the draft, but it’s not like they surrendered a lottery pick.

Guillermo Diaz, 52nd overall pick - You know the drill. Decided to play overseas, still playing professionally in Italy, and the Clips hold his draft rights. Not that it matters all that much.

2007:
Al Thornton, 12th overall pick – Thornton may not look like a terrific pick now, but he started his career the way you’d expect an older rookie to start it: he made an impact with his NBA-ready body and his experience. The problem has been Thornton’s refusal to make a single significant stride since his rookie season, and though Al occasionally shows flashes of something more, he looks like he’ll end up as a role player. Not a great pick, but not exactly a horrible one, either.

Jared Jordan, 45th overall pick – The Clips eventually traded Jordan to the Knicks for cash, but he’s never made an NBA roster. Jordan bounced around a few summer league teams, but he’s currently playing professionally in Germany.

2008:
Eric Gordon, 7th overall pick – I was way down on Gordon when the 2008 Draft was approaching, but he’s been fantastic. It’s unclear whether or not Gordon will ever be capable of being a team’s top scoring option (I’m leaning no), but he’ll be a stellar supplementary scorer. He’s much more efficient than you think (especially if you’re Matt Moore): he gets to the line with incredible regularity, doesn’t turn the ball over, and combines nice touch from mid and long range with a solid handle and driving ability. Not the best finisher, but so proficient at creating contact that it almost doesn’t matter. He’s not the most versatile cat in the world and the defense is definitely a work in progress, but Gordon can score and he can do it efficiently.

DeAndre Jordan, 35th overall pick – There was a time where Jordan was lauded as a potential lottery pick, but he failed to get off the bench for consistent minutes, much less make a consistent impact during his stint at Texas A&M. He’s come a long way since then. Jordan’s development is a crucial part of what the Clippers will do from this point forward. With Kaman, Jordan, and Blake Griffin, the Clips could actually be pretty stacked at power forward and center. Jordan has shown he’s capable of being a pretty dominant NBA player, but I’m sure those in L.A.’s front office would settle for him simply becoming more consistent. Jordan has nothing but time; he definitely has NBA-level talent and athleticism, and he’s just 21 years old. Great, great value for a second rounder.

2009:
Blake Griffin, 1st overall pick – Bust. And by “bust” I mean “he’s awesome.” And by “awesome” I mean “should be playing right now, if not for some horrible, horrible luck.” I know everyone’s waiting to watch the fireworks in free agency and anxious to see who wins the John Wall sweepstakes, but Griffin is a legitimate reason to want to fast-forward to October.

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That’s essentially one blown first rounder in seven years, and even that pick was a late lottery selection in a weak draft class. Mitch Kupchack selected Sasha Vujacic and Brian Cook, albeit with late first round selections. Sam Presti gave away Carl Landry, Rodrigue Beaubois, and Glen Davis. Buford handed over Leandro Barbosa and Goran Dragic. Pritchard picked Greg Oden over Kevin Durant, WHICH IS OBVIOUSLY THE BUSTIEST BUST OF ALL BUST TIME, AM I RIGHT?!?!?!?!

Everyone makes mistakes, and Korolev was Dunleavy’s. MDSr made quite a few more in free agency, in signing or refusing to sign his own players, and in poorly assessing the value of personnel on the Clippers and across the league. But even though he fell well short of deserving the position of power he had been inhabiting, the dark days the Clippers have faced since 2003 weren’t nearly as dark as they could have been. That’s the most solace I can offer a franchise that has seen the playoffs once over that same span, has seen its franchise player walk out the door, and now will try for something completely different beginning with this off-season. With Dunleavy gone, the Clips are on the verge of something. That’s all we can say. Whether that’s some roster turnover with a new coach and renewed hope is up to Donald Sterling.

That’s a scary thought, isn’t it?

Brian Skinner’s presentation of his paper, “The price of anarchy in basketball,” at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference hits in two distinct ways:

• One hand hand, Skinner’s proposal is so dreadfully counter-intuitive on a conceptual level that it could make a lot of NBA fans turn up their noses.
• But on the other, that concept is such a deeply-seated part of sport as we know it, that any self-respecting follower of sports would be deemed foolish for turning a blind eye.

His work appropriately brings the contrast between macro and micro into broad daylight, but in a completely different way than many NBA fans are used to. The struggles to find balance on a basketball court typically occur in an effort to best determine the optimum method of achieving a common goal…assuming that there is a common goal. One guy may be playing for a contract, another just for the joy of scoring more than anyone else on the floor, one just because doing basketball is the only thing he’s ever been good at, and finally, there are actually some players who want to win some games. Or maybe it’s all of the above, in the form of a veteran athlete drifting through the regular season almost out of habit, and shooting/scoring because that’s what he’s always done.

Somehow, someone has to take all of those intentions and all of the production, potential, and talent that comes along with it, and figure out the best possible way to win basketball games. It’s not an easy task, and the natural inclination is to break the incredibly complex, holistic game on the hardwood into its most basic components: Steve Nash is effective bringing the ball up the floor and running the offense, but Amar’e Stoudemire is probably not. Kobe Bryant is an excellent shooter, and D.J. Mbenga is not. Then, we can take all of these things, take into account all of the players on the floor and their relative strengths and weaknesses, and decide which conceivable outcome will give you the best possible chance of scoring points on a given possession. Our logic and reasoning processes tell us that choosing the option with the greatest probability for success is an easy call. Skinner tells us that your logic and reasoning could be completely off-base.

One example that Skinner highlighted is Ray Allen. Allen’s shot usage over the course of his career makes him an easy candidate; in Milwaukee and Seattle he was called upon to be The Man, but in Boston, he’s simply a man. He’s a shooter, a scorer and leader, and one of the three. He offers plenty on the court but in a completely different capacity, and with a markedly lower percentage of his team’s total shots. There is power in variety, and with the offensive options that have been available in Boston (in 2008, namely, though still today on a theoretical basis, if nothing more), Allen, a talented offensive player, actually benefits his team by not shooting. Not because his teammates are better shooters than he is on a per-possession basis necessarily, but because putting so much of the offensive production on one source creates myriad problems. Fatigue. Defensive attention. Heat checks. Skinner invokes Dean Oliver in stating that as usage goes up, a player’s offensive efficiency goes down, and that makes a ton of sense.

But at the same time, that creates a bit of a boggling result: a team’s best play is sometimes to have their best shooter not shoot. That conclusion naturally led Allen’s former teammate, Brent Barry, to pipe up from the audience and announce that he texted Ray the results of the study with a note to not shoot so much. I’m pretty sure Denzel Washington told him the same thing over ten years ago, though, so I wouldn’t expect some kind of drastic change.

It’s also interesting to note that such an idea is pretty much in direct conflict with the love of excess when it comes to sports. We want a player to one day hold up a piece of paper reading “101″ in a locker room, to waltz into Madison Square Garden and drop 50, to average a triple-double for an entire season. America is a nation of excess and sports are absolutely no exception. But the underlying mentality that drives guys like Michael Jordan or Larry Bird to greatness is, despite each player’s phenomenal success, not the best possible approach.

Think about that. It’s completely possible, supposing you buy Skinner’s basic argument, that Jordan and the Bulls underachieved. If they had achieved the perfect offensive balance — where Jordan may have stopped scoring well before the point which Skinner describes as something akin to the Nash equilibrium, in which a player’s likelihood of scoring is equivalent to that of his teammates scoring — the ‘96 Bulls could very well have improved upon their 72-10 record. Or maybe that’s exactly what allowed that particular team (and all of Chicago’s championship teams, really) to excel compared to some of Jordan’s earlier campaigns.

When you think about it that way, it’s the same argument we’ve heard over and over again: Player X should shoot less for the benefit of the team. It’s disguised as “trusting their teammates” and, as Skinner noted, “keeping the defense honest,” but it’s probably as old as winning itself. Where this argument differs from others is the disregard of our micro-obsessed desire to dissect the game’s minutiae. We do possession breakdowns and pick apart the decision-making of every player on the court, but sometimes the view is so narrow that it obscures the bigger picture. Your best player getting a good shot isn’t always the best case scenario for an offense in the long-run…even if it’s LeBron James kicking it to an open Donyell Marshall in the corner.

But Skinner’s study, while deeply theoretical, lacking in obvious applications, and definitely limited and assuming in a lot of respects, represents a pretty interesting intersection that occurs at places like Sloan: new, innovative research confirms something that we already knew, but in such a way that offends even our modern sensibilities. That the Lakers could actually benefit from Kobe Bryant passing to Smush Parker? That the Nuggets could run a more efficient offense by having Chauncey Billups pass up a shot in favor of Joey Graham? It’s not always an easy fact to stomach, but the research shows, at least at a basic level, that those plays are so wrong that they’re right.

You can read Skinner’s paper in its entirety here.

One is an unselfish, accommodating power forward who is a revelation on the glass and is gradually increasing his range. The other is a more established post threat that can milk his face-up game as well as his back-down game, and should, in theory, be one of the most dominant scoring bigs for the better part of the next decade.

In theory, they should be one of the most fearsome pairs of bigs in the league. But they’re not. They’re nice and fluffy. They’re a cute distraction, but hardly a team. They don’t reinforce each other’s strengths, but counter them while magnifying each other’s weaknesses. They are Kevin Love and Al Jefferson, and despite the fact that they’re both immensely talented and incredibly productive, they will never, ever work as a pairing.

Okay, they might. In fact, they probably will at some point, provided they’re kept together. But at this point in their careers, it seems like they’re both forces that while unstoppable, are slowing and hindering one another, despite their best efforts not to.

It’s one of those cases that has oh so little to do with personality, and everything to do with style and system. Despite the particular strengths and versatility of Love and Jefferson’s games, the overlap is such that they haven’t quite figured out how to best play alongside one another. Or rather, Kurt Rambis hasn’t best figured out how his two best players can be effective on the court at the same time, which is not a good thing. The triangle is an effective system if given the right personnel with the right mindset. But when the squad has such strength in its low post game, is the triple post really necessary? Especially when you just drafted Jonny Flynn and Ricky Rubio? Is that the type of core that you construct the triangle offense around? Really? Really, Kahn?

The plan of attack is seriously flawed, and while that may not quite account for how poor the tandem of Jefferson and Love is defensively at times, it’s enough of a starting point to get worked up about it. Those two are such terrific players that they deserve more creative coaching, or a combination of system and players that can enhance their production rather than simply relying on it.

If you look to the numbers, not all that much appears to be wrong. Jefferson is only a slight tick down in production, despite whispers of a more significant drop-off. Kevin Love is averaging a freaking double-double in less than 30 minutes a game as a sophomore and a reserve. But this? Everything they’re doing right now? It’s in spite of the system. It’s in spite of a coach who, while I admire his want to see the installation of a complex system through to the end, is probably engaging in a futile practice that doesn’t for a second fit the roster he’s been given. Rambis is relying on the fact that his team is more malleable than his own philosophy. That’s hardly reason enough for him to be fired, but considering the pieces he has in Minny and the offense he’s still desperately trying to install, it certainly seems misguided.

Maybe all Love and Jefferson really need to thrive is a little space from each other. Then again, maybe all they really need is a little space from the triangle offense and the roster-assembling talents of David Kahn.