Los Angeles Clippers: Why The Doc Rivers Trade Does Not Make Them Contenders Yet

ESPN's Jackie MacMullan has broken the news of former Boston Celtics head coach Doc Rivers heading to the Los Angeles Clippers for a first-round pick.

The media perception of the feasibility and materialization of the deal from, "The deal is on," to "The deal is off" changed so many times, it was almost like watching Dwight Howard try and decide what team he was going to play for.

Getting Rivers wasn't just a good move, it was a great move. It was good simply because they hired a coach not named Vinny Del Negro. It was a great move because the odds are now heavily in their favor that they will retain Chris Paul as their franchise player. But the notion that they're a whole lot better than the team who just got bounced by the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round because of it? Nonsense.

On the surface, it looks like the picture-perfect move to vault the Clippers into contention. Or at least something close to it, right? Sure. But some are comparing the magnitude of his move akin to when the crosstown-rival Los Angeles Lakers hired Phil Jackson.

The parallels exist, given that the Clippers' results don't match their talent level and were saddled with an owner who had developed a reputation for being frugal when paying for talent on the bench. And now they are trading for a coach who commands a $7 million per annum salary and has championship experience. More importantly, he has has all of the requisite accomplishments as a head coach to command the respect of headstrong superstar Chris Paul.

And yet I'm really struggling with how this guarantees they'll be all that much better. As good as a coach can make your team, this is a player's league and ultimately, you won't succeed if you have gaping roster holes like the Clips do. 

They have two big weaknesses right now. First off, their only source of crunch-time scoring comes from Paul and Jamal Crawford, which is a problem because they're at their best when Paul is facilitating. And to describe Crawford as erratic is an egregious understatement.

Ultimately, the only player on the roster with enough star power, physical ability and raw potential that can be forged into a reliable crunch-time weapon is Blake Griffin, and his lack of post-game refinement and disastrous free-throw shooting manage to submarine that possibility. Could Rivers correct that? I'm not so sure. 

The other weakness I felt led to Memphis overcoming a 0-2 deficit to win four straight was directly tied to Griffin not being able to be big enough to stand up to the bruising style of Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol. Griffin is probably the Clips' best matchup against the Randolphs of the world, and it wasn't a tactical thing that prevented him from being able to guard Z-Bo; he was simply not as big or strong enough. Ultimately, that is a physical matchup problem that no coach can overcome with any amount of X's and O's. 

For all we talk about Doc's "championship experience," the guy only has one championship. Not to discount that championship because there are plenty of exceptional coaches who don't have one. But digging deeper, Rivers either missed the playoffs or got bounced from the first round in nine of his 14 years as a head coach. He did manage to win that title; but it was plainly obvious that Tom Thibodeau and Kevin Garnett were the ones running every aspect of the defense.

The Celtics won 65 games in their championship season and should have dominated the playoffs, yet they went to two Game 7's against completely inferior teams (the Atlanta Hawks and the Cleveland Cavaliers) in the first two rounds, needing 26 games to win the title (the most in NBA history). Any Celtic fan that watched knew the Celtics changed their lineups too often, playing too many washed-up veterans and refusing to exploit obvious matchup advantages until the Finals. All of those moves are directly attributed to the coach.

Once again, is Rivers a great acquisition? Sure. Am I picking nits with him? Maybe.

But Clippers fans probably should be if they hope for this guy to make this flawed roster into a legit contender.