Grading the LA Clippers at the halfway point of the season

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Role Players

RS: We’ll move to some other role players now. Would you give Landry Shamet a grade or an incomplete? What grades do you give to other guys like JaMychal Green, Patrick Patterson, and Maurice Harkless?

LS: Landry might not be JJ but he can run off screens and shoot at a high clip, I’m high on him. He’s just hasn’t been utilized the way he should.

CW: I’ll give Landry an incomplete just because I don’t think the grade I would choose would be very high. He’s been worse than his lights-out half season with us last year, but I have faith that he’ll turn it around

LS: Maurice when he’s aggressive he is the forward that can cut and get easy buckets

SK: As the founding member of the Landry Shamet fan club, there aren’t enough pluses on my keyboard. A+++++++

LS: Settle down Seth Kimbrell

CW: I disagree, Leo. For me, Moe gets two grades. An A on defense and a D on offense. I think he is one of the most offensively challenged players on the roster.

RS: We’re undefeated when Moe scores 10+, I believe.

SK: I agree with Cannon. Moe is incredible on defense, but he can basically be ignored on offense right now. We have to figure out how to change that.

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CW: Yes, we still are, but that’s only like 7-0, or so… out of 41 games.

RS: I know how we can change that, Seth.

SK: How’s that?

RS: Trade him, of course. That seems to be all the buzz.

CW: He’s making a lot of money to be as unuseable as he is on offense. That $11 million or so could be used to bring in someone else that will help more.

SK: Yeah, but having someone who can give Kawhi and PG a break on defense is huge. I don’t know about trading him.

RS: Right. Doc said he loves giving Moe the toughest assignment to start a game.

CW: I know the Knicks sound like they want to keep him, but Marcus Morris is similar on defense and great on offense. Just saying…

RS: He just needs to go to the Luc Mbah a Moute school of corner threes.

SK: The 5 guys Moe has guarded the most are Bradley Beal, Jrue Holliday, Russell Westbrook, Pascal Siakam and Damian Lillard. That’s huge.

MC: Landry is a cool B- for me. He did miss a good chunk of time, and that’s never going to help, but I think he’s been fine. The shooting hasn’t always been what it was last year, but he’s absolutely still capable of catching fire. I have faith in the kid to pick it up.I’d give Moe a B+. He’s an awesome on-ball defender and omnipresent in passing lanes. Having him available to guard an opposing team’s best player, rather than Kawhi or PG, is a sort of underrated asset. He isn’t a huge threat offensively, but he’s shooting about 34% from three, and for me that’s fine. Now if we factor in handsomeness, oh man! That right there is the easiest A+ of them all.

CW: Robert Covington from Minnesota is someone else I’d love to have. As good, if not better on defense, but he can actually hit shots consistently.

SK: I mean yeah, if we could get RoCo I’d be thrilled.

CW: Well, what would it take?

LS: Ain’t happening but he would be solid

RS: Price has to be too steep there.

LS: More than what we would give

RS: What about JaMychal and PatPat? I have to say the latter has impressed me more than I ever thought was possible.

SK: I’ll keep beating the drum on targeting Frank Ntilikina and/or Nerlens Noel in trade talks

RS: The former has been a little depressing to the eye test. He’s had moments, but I think I had too big of expectations after his playoff run last season.

CW: On what it would take for Covington: Moe for the contract, plus Rome and Shamet? That’s kind of steep with what we’ve seen from Shamet last year, but maybe we get Minnesota to throw in Napier as a backup ball handler? I’d have to put more thought into it.

RS: Nope. Overpay.

LS: Negative, Take Shamet out and find someone else maybe Pat.

SK: We’re sort of derailing the Slack chat now, but I don’t think we need to make a big move. Our biggest issue right now is building chemistry, and a big trade is not going to help that

CW: JaMychal earns a B -, and I’ll give Pat Pat a C+. Pat Pat has surprised me, though, as I thought he would make no impact at all.

MC: I’ve also been a little bit disappointed with J-Myke, but overall I think he’s been good. His three-point shooting is down about five perfect from last season (currently sitting at 35%), but it’s been decent. I’d definitely like to see him regress to the mean, relative to his last couple of years. I think he’s a solid C+ for me. The most surprising thing for me about Patrick Patterson hasn’t necessarily been that he’s found his shot again, but that he’s such an energy guy when he’s on the floor. There have been times when the team was beginning to look listless and Doc threw PatPat in to give them a jolt–and it worked! I think there are times that he’s on the floor and maybe shouldn’t be (just because there are other guys I’d rather have out there), but he’s been good. I’d give him a B-.

LS: Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard, a trade might not make sense but adding talent to a rotation that can and likely be shorten in the post season doesn’t hurt. Adding talent to a culture of working hard seems to pay dividends. It’s almost like the team is too deep at the moment.

SK: There were a lot of Thunder fans whose sentiment when we got PatPat was basically “Ha! Good luck with that.” I think he’s come in and been a solid contributor off the bench. As Cannon said, he’s a guy that can come in and give the team a kick when needed, and he can hit shots. That’s good enough for me. I’ll give him a B. For JaMychal, it seems like something is just off so far with him. The shooting is rough, and you can expect a travel off of a pump fake at least once a game. But the rebounding is nice. I’d give him a C+

RS: I haven’t seen a JaMychal travel in a few games, thankfully. I think he fixed it when he was out rehabbing his butt.

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