You agree that the pieces didn’t fit, but you think that Miller and Olowokandi were the only wrong pieces? Please. Take Odom in his prime, take Maggette in his prime, and take Q-Rich in his prime (none of them were in their primes way back then), and put them in the same starting lineup. No matter WHO is at PG and C, I guarantee you that team wouldn’t go anywhere. As for reasons why the Clippers were worse in ‘02-03, just look at their big man situation.

In ‘01-02, Brand played 80 games. Olowokandi played 79 games, but just 32 minutes per. Rooks + Ekezie started just 3 games.

In’02-03, Brand played just 62 games. Meanwhile, Olowokandi played just 36 games, but he got a whopping 38 minutes and 12 field goal attempts when he did. When those 2 were out, they had to give Sean Rooks 38 starts and Cherokee Parks 18 starts. As much as Kandi sucked, he wasn’t as bad as Rooks and Parks.

And you know what…we’re talking about the effing Clippers here. That franchise has been a mess forever now. You blame Andre Miller for giving you ONE bad season? How about blaming Donald Sterling for being the cheapest owner in the league and management for constantly making poor decisions? When a team only makes the playoffs twice in 16 years, you shouldn’t be looking at someone who only spent 1 season there.

What I don’t understand about your argument is what separates the Clippers team with Dre that stunk up the joint from the team the year before that was awesome, fun, and loaded with potential? The team the year before won 39 games and looked like they were having the most fun playing hoops out of anyone in the league. There were head knocks left and right, the Polish Rifleman drilling threes, everything you could ask for – and Olowotaser played 32mpg for that team, too. They are the Clippers so we have to keep expectations in check at all times but how does this team then add Andre Miller and get exponentially worse, to the point that they were not even watchable? Miller has to shoulder a lot of the blame for that imo. There were injuries, but injuries don’t even begin to tell the story of how that team went from uber fun to miserable.

Q-Diggity to me looked like he was well on his way to some day being an all-star and then the very next year when the Clips added the #1 assist man in the league he was all of a sudden sulking and regressed in a major way. Dre escapes all blame for this because the team was young? You can put 85 year old Jason Kidd on any team in the league and I guarantee you that the young guys on that squad won’t regress like the Clips did with Dre in the fold and I think that should reflect poorly on Dre. They did have some injuries but Miller was not a leader and clearly did not care. Jonny’s story sounds about right to me; seriously, that’s pretty much how I remember the Andre Miller in Clipperland era. I was expecting Miller to be a playmaker who could help take these guys to the next level, instead they stopped having fun and all went backwards.

As Jonny says the pieces no longer fit and Kandi and Dre really had to go. I think that was a nice young squad that could’ve grown together and I really felt like Dre played a major role in sabotaging that team.

As far as giving Miller another year with a new team to prove his worth, sure. Players grow and mature and things change. For example, I never thought Paul Pierce could win a championship and sure enough he grew up right before our eyes and made it happen. I don’t know if you remember that game against Detroit in the playoffs last year where he pump-faked a three, a defender flew into him while he was shooting, and Pierce made the shot but got called for an offensive foul in one of the more curious calls of the playoffs. Five years ago Pierce would’ve pouted, not run back on defense, hung around and complained to the ref, and infuriated every Celtic fan in the world who just wanted to win the game.

The grown up Pierce just shook his head, ran down the court, played defense, then took it out on the Pistons. That was the defining Paul Pierce moment for me, that was when I pretty much forgave him for elbowing Tinsley in the head nearly costing us a playoff game.

Could Dre similarly mature? Sure. Doesn’t change the fact that he was a punk who dogged it on the Clips when he was younger, and since I liked that team a lot I still haven’t forgiven him

Andre Miller HATED playing for the Clippers and couldn’t wait to jump ship. He was unhappy. Word he used to chill with the homie Shaun drinking Henny and playing blackjack in Vegas talking shit about bouncing as soon as he could.

That team was just bad. The pieces didn’t fit.

…but anyway congrats on winning that league and getting some dough E. Marquis Daniels > Antonio Daniels or was it Juan Dixon?

If he signs with a different team and takes them to the next level, will you give him his props?

Odom was 23, Maggette was 23, Q-Rich was 22, Dooling was 22, and Wilcox was 20. Those guys have JUST RECENTLY begun to mature as ballplayers and human beings, yet Dre was supposed to lead them to the playoffs back in 2002? Who are you kidding?

Odom was a headcase who wanted to play point guard back then. Maggette was a selfish one-dimensional player and he still is. Q-Rich wasn’t successful until D’Antoni let him jack up threes all day long. Q prolly spent more time talking to D-Miles on the phone than he did studying film. Dooling didn’t harness him talent until a year or two ago. And a 20-year old Wilcox? Do you think that guy was spending more time working on his game or more time partying?

Oh yeah, not to mention the Clippers 4-headed center of Olowokandi, Sean Rooks, Cherokee Parks, and Wang Zhizhi (bless ya Wang!). Do you think ANY point guard could lead that group of centers to the playoffs? I mean seriously… the Kandi man averaged 38 minutes per game that season!!! How crazy and idiotic is that? And the fool made less than 43% of his shots. Pathetic.

But yeah, go ahead and blame Andre Miller. The guy brings it every night for 10+ seasons, he never misses games, and he manages to thrive despite being below average athletically and not having an outside shot.

In ‘98, Dre led the Utah Utes to the National Championship game, knocking off a North Carolina squad that featured Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison, Brendan Haywood, and Shammond Williams on the way.

This season, without Elton Brand for the most part, with a coaching change mid-season, with chumps like Dalembert, Willie Green, and Donyell MArshall playing key roles, and with Thad Young, Lou-Will, and Speights not even close to being in their primes, he led Philly to the playoffs and helped them win 2 games against a tough Orlando team.

In between all that, he played with a bunch of guys who were young, immature, and not that talented. But go ahead and blame him if that makes you feel better.

Ask an LA Clippers fan what they think of ‘Dre Miller. I remember him leading the league in assists for a terrible Cleveland team and then absolutely dogging it on a much better Clippers team the next year. Maybe it was just my heartbreak over the Clips breaking up one of the two most exciting teams in the league (Q and D!!! Sacramento with Vlade being the other most exciting team at the time, imo), but that was during the two years that I actually had the NBA league pass and was able to watch everything and even being an east coaster I’d stay up every night and watch the Kings or Clippers (of cource also checking to see if Birdman was in for Denver or if Kobe was going nuts for LA). Dre wrecked that team. In addition to that, he got destroyed by Marko Jaric of Jugoslavija en route to a humiliating 6th place finish in International competition. Marko Jaric!! I thought this guy could be a 20-5-10 player in the NBA after the way he handled Dre and also Baron for that matter. And speaking of Yugoslalvia, it is a shame that Dejan Bodiroga from that team never gave the NBA a shot, that dude could ball.

My opinion: Andre Miller: OVERrated in real life!!

I apologize for getting completely off the subject, I just hate Andre Miller.

Also, a little more on topic, never been a huge fan of Hollinger’s stats. If I remember correctly Leon Powe ranked in the top 20 in PER last season (”07-”08) and this to me made the stat unacceptable as a way to rank players. Real GMers love to break out PER in an attempt to tell you thing like Patrick O’Bryant belongs in the NBA and whatnot, and I always counter with the Leon Powe example (before finally giving that site up for good). If I recall correctly the guys at 82games.com did some work with the stat and made NET Per which is an improvement. I agree with Bill Simmons in that it’ll be quite the day when we have access to all of the stats that NBA teams use to analyze players (which seem to be available for baseball).

Simmons gave an example where he was talking to the GM of the Rockets and said “I’d like to see a stat on the percentage of stops a guy can get on an opponent one on one in the post” and Morey replied “Why do you think we have Chuck Hayes?”

That to me says that if this stuff ever became publicly available it could revolutionize the fantasy game, sort of like you synthesizing points format and standard format attempted to do. Imagine fantasy hoops where we were drafting the most valuable players, not the most valuable 9-cat players where certain guys (I’m looking at you Rashard) are more valuable in fantasy than real life. Okay, I’m done ranting..