ESPN NBA

• Kyle Weidie of Truth About It offers up a multimedia presentation of how Deron Williams tied the Wizards in knots with ball screens.
• The Heat posted unsightly numbers against the Celtics' zone on Tuesday night but, as Zach Lowe of The Point Forward writes, the Heat had a coherent strategy to combat it: "A great example came with about 3:30 left in the game, when the Heat flashed a key potential zone antidote they used a lot: starting a possession with one of their wing stars (Dwyane Wade on this one) as the only person on one entire side of the floor (the left side in this case). That forced the Boston defense to tilt heavily to the right, where James handled the ball on the outside, near all his teammates except Wade. As LeBron dribbled, Chris Bosh flashed from the top of the three-point arc to below the foul line, drawing the man closest to Wade (Dooling) down into the paint, and forcing him to temporarily turn his back to Wade. At that exact moment, LeBron tossed a pass to Wade, who caught it on the move toward the middle of the floor, his momentum taking him the opposite direction as Boston’s defenders, including Dooling, now tilting madly from James’ side of the floor to Wade’s. Wade did not hestitate: With Dooling wrong-footed, Wade drove into the paint, where Dooling fouled him. Without a shot, the play almost vanishes from game logs everywhere, but it represents one key way the Heat can combat a zone; both James and Wade got layups against it out of action just like this."
• Historiographers have identified the origins of sports panic -- the phenomenon dates back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 17th Century. Is it time to panic in Boston?
• Tony Allen kindly asks that you set up your voicemail already.
• You should buy the full 2011-12 PDF from Basketball Prospectus, but if you want the crib notes from Kevin Pelton -- a single paragraph and projected record for each of the 30 teams -- click here.
• An interview with Clippers vice president of basketball operations Neil Olshey at Yahoo! Radio.
• Be Milwaukee!
• The Trail Blazers are 2-0 and when you take inventory of LaMarcus Aldridge's versatility as a big man and the smart pieces around them, they look primed for a pretty decent season. Tom Ziller of SB Nation: "[T]he way in which the Blazers have played, mixing the tough defense you know Gerald Wallace and Wesley Matthews will bring with the smooth scoring ability of LaMarcus Aldridge and deft shooting of Matthews and Nicolas Batum, mixed with able playmaking from Raymond Felton and Marcus Camby -- despite the caveats and despite the great misfortune of losing Brandon Roy forever and Greg Oden for a while longer, Portland looks like a real contender in the West."
• The Bucks led the Timberwolves 94-84 with under 4:00 remaining. Then Minnesota ripped off an 8-0 run to close the deficit to two points. The lineup on the floor for the Timberwolves? Ricky Rubio, Luke Ridnour, Michael Beasley, Kevin Love and Anthony Tolliver. Zach Harper describes the final play call of a frustrating night for Minnesota: "Finding themselves down three with seven seconds left, they devised a play without much action away from the ball to free up Kevin Love for the game-tying attempt. Love set a down screen for Luke which enabled Luke to catch the ball roughly 35 feet from the basket. Love then set a screen for Wes near the top of the arc and then ran to the other win. Luke took two dribbles passed it to Love and he took a contested 3-pointer with four seconds left. It was one of the most basic plays you would ever find coming out of a timeout and it resulted in Love taking a contested 26-footer to try to tie the game."
• Bret LaGree of Hoopinion on Joe Johnson: "Can still get anywhere he wants on the floor, presuming where he wants to get isn't within 15 feet of the basket."
• Want to talk Pacers-Raps after tonight's game? Visit with Jared Wade and Tim Donahue on Pacers Talk Live at Eight Points, Nine Seconds.
• Ricky Davis will start his NBA comeback as a Red Claw.
• NBA commentators put Google+ hangout to use.

It was all so odd.

Not just that the Clippers trampled the Lakers in a preseason game, or that the media scrum outside the Clippers' locker room after the game dwarfed the crowd waiting to get inside the Lakers' inner sanctum.

Not even Donald T. Sterling, inside the Chick Hearn Media Room after the game, lecturing his guests about the virtues of making basketball a physical -- not a cerebral -- contest.

The strangest moment of the night was more basic than that. It was the sensation of looking out on the floor at Staples Center and seeing the two most trustworthy guards in basketball manning the backcourt for the Clippers.

That's because the defining characteristic of Clippers fandom has always been fear. Fear that basketball possessions would be squandered carelessly by players without the talent or inclination to get the job done. Fear that the organization would choose caution over risk and fumble an opportunity to change course. Fear that supernatural forces would conspire against the Clippers ... just because that's what supernatural forces do.

That fear wasn't present Monday night, and its absence was the most profound epiphany during an entertaining preseason game from which very little about basketball could be gleaned.

We know the Clippers are a dangerous unknown -- only a tad less unknown than they were 24 hours ago. Their regular season opens on Christmas Day in Oakland against the Golden State Warriors, after which they'll play the Bulls, Lakers and Heat at Staples Center over a 15-day period. How do we know if the Clippers are for real? Here are some guideposts to follow:

Have Chris Paul and Blake Griffin developed mental telepathy?
All this talk of seismic cultural shifts in Los Angeles boils down to one essential ingredient: the level of havoc these two All-Stars can wreak in the pick-and-roll.

Everything else is just scene-setting.

We saw what Paul was able to do with an exacting partner like David West in a pick-and-pop game. Now Paul will have the most explosive power forward in a generation at his disposal. How quickly can they get into their dance steps? When opponents play Griffin for his signature spin, or when the entire defense sags and drops into the paint, how can the dynamic duo make them pay? Paul and Griffin's proficiency will not only determine how lethally they can punish the league, but how many open spot-up jumpers can be generated for Chauncey Billups and how easily Caron Butler will be able to dart off down screens for quick looks.

It will take a little time, but once Paul and Griffin become fluent in their common language and the need for cues and verbal direction melts away, the true potential of this team will be much clearer.

How is Chauncey Billups acclimating to playing off the ball?
Billups is a combo guard by origin, but it's been a long time since he was asked to defer ballhandling duties to a teammate and make a living off the ball. Last season before being moved to New York, Billups' numbers as a catch-and-shoot threat were superb (1.36 points per possession). In 2009-10, Billups finished 15th in points per possession as a spot-up shooter for players with more than 100 attempts, and in 2008-09, he was fourth in the league.

Billups is prideful. Telling him that, at 35, the best way for him to extend a prolific and celebrated career is to go stand over there on the wing away from the action is easier said than done. Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro reiterated on Monday night that he doesn't see 1s and 2s and 3s on a whiteboard so much as he sees "basketball players." If Billups can buy into the practical implications of this and make himself comfortable as a floor-spacer and secondary playmaker, he can help the Clippers score a ton of points.

Is Vinny Del Negro the man for the job?
The big winner of Monday night?

Del Negro. Not because he outcoached anyone, but because what transpired on the floor suggests that Del Negro's shortcoming will be mitigated by circumstance.

The league is moving away from systems and intricately choreographed play calls from the sidelines. Today's NBA is about getting the ball up and finding clean looks at the basket before defenses can get set. And if you have a couple of floor generals such as Paul and Billups on the roster, there will be plenty of margin for error because they're more than capable of manufacturing opportunities for themselves and others when the shot clock begins to tick down. The thickness of Del Negro's playbook measures only a 10th of the thickness of what Mike Dunleavy toted to work every day. With this team at this moment, that might do the trick.

But sometime in late spring, a critical moment will arise. The Thunder will use Kendrick Perkins and Nick Collison to clamp down on Griffin. The Mavs will identify a fatal inefficiency in the Clippers' defense. When it's time for Del Negro to counter, will he have a solution?

Are the Clippers treading water with their reserve units?
DeAndre Jordan gets hit with two early fouls. Griffin walks off the court toward the tunnel for examination in the trainer's room. These things aren't worst-case scenarios -- they're inevitabilities in the NBA. Young, high-flying centers become overexuberant, and bouncy power forwards turn ankles.

A healthy Clippers squad is stacked at the guard spots. But right now, they have a frontcourt reserve corps of Brian Cook (a stretch-4), Ryan Gomes (a smart 6-foot-7 tweener) and rookie Trey Thompkins, who John Hollinger projects to be the next Brian Cook. None of the three can be fairly characterized as a banger, and the Clippers are likely to sign a brawny big man over the next 72 hours. That understudy could prove to be fateful for the Clippers. Small sample-size theater has never been more hazardous than in a shortened season, but whether you watch the progress of the Clippers' five-man bench units on Basketballvalue.com, or just eyeball the team's rhythm and flow when Griffin takes a seat, we'll learn something about the Clippers' prospects in late May and early June by how well those second units perform.

Will Donald T. Sterling stay out of the way?
Longtime Sterling consigliere Andy Roeser and general manager Neil Olshey have put the Clippers in a position to reverse decades of futility. Selling Sterling on the vision was likely every bit as challenging as swinging the deals themselves.

Whatever liabilities remain for the Clippers on the roster or in the locker room, they pale in comparison to the damage that could be unleashed if Sterling were to decide to meddle in the progress. He insulted Gomes and Randy Foye in August 2010, soon after the two veterans were acquired. He embarrassed himself, Baron Davis and the franchise by loudly heckling the team's former point guard courtside.

With Paul and Griffin weighing their long-term options over the next 18 months, the Clippers can't afford to have Sterling do anything to disrupt the aspirations of everyone involved in this project -- not Roeser or Olshey, not the superstars, not the supporting players, nor the fans in Los Angeles. Sterling has earned several lifetimes of fortune. He can add to it by simply letting basketball people conduct basketball business and basking in the glow of the winter sun at the Malibu compound.

After wrapping up a call with Chauncey Billups on Monday night, Clippers general manager Neil Olshey got a chance to slip out of the team’s training facility and head home for the first time in a couple of days. At his Monday afternoon media availability, Olshey was sporting stubble and the white Clippers polo shirt he'd been wearing during the all-nighter he pulled on Sunday night in the Chris Paul talks.

While all eyes were on the state of negotiations on Monday, the Clippers filled out the league's automated amnesty form and filled in $2,000,032 in the amount field for the rights to Billups. (Why 32? That's Blake Griffin's jersey number.) While the Clippers haggled with the NBA over a deal for Paul, they cleverly exploited one of the league's newest instruments -- the amnesty bidding process -- to give themselves a little more leverage in negotiations.

The addition of Billups gives the Clippers insurance at the point guard position, where they currently employ Mo Williams (young backup Bledsoe is recovering from surgery). And if somehow a deal for Paul came together, then they could slide Billups over to the off-guard slot where he'd spot up for kickouts -- or just use him off the bench as a microwave.

Leverage has been a funny thing in the Paul negotiations. For a while, we thought Paul had all the leverage. He's the guy who can opt out of his contract in 29 weeks. When he named the Lakers as his preferred destination, that seemed to give Mitch Kupchak the upper hand. Once the league rejected the proposal submitted by the Lakers, Rockets and Hornets, the Clippers stepped in to fill the vacuum. The Hornets wanted youth, valuable picks and expiring deals, and the Clippers had all the above -- along with a promise from Paul that he'd opt in for 2012-13. Now the Clippers had leverage. Where else could the Hornets and/or the NBA possibly find that kind of package? The league wouldn't consider allowing Paul to walk for nothing, would it?

Even with a dwindling field of trading partners, the Hornets demanded all five of the Clippers' prime trading chips -- Eric Gordon, Chris Kaman (whose deal expires at the end of the season), Al-Farouq Aminu, Eric Bledsoe and Minnesota's unprotected 2012 first-round draft pick. The Clippers rebuffed that offer, knowing they won't be outbid for Paul.

In the meantime, nobody was crying at the Clippers' facility at Tuesday's media day. Gordon has never been uber-gregarious, but he pleasantly brushed off questions about having his name batted around in trade talk. Bledsoe and Aminu followed suit. With Billups on the way and a team they feel is playoff ready, the Clippers will continue to listen but, with a little more leverage, are well aware that if the offer was there yesterday, then it will be there tomorrow.

But leverage is designed to get the opposing party to come back with a more lenient offer, and there's little evidence the Hornets have any intention of settling for anything less than the moon, even if Paul opts out of his contract on June 30, 2012. The Clippers are unlikely to lose Paul before the trading deadline to another NBA team, but they could place second to None of the Above.

So if you're the Clippers, why not roll the dice, even if it means parting with all five trade assets?

Kaman isn't coming back anyway. Aminu has some redeeming qualities as a player, but doesn't project to be an elite forward. Bledsoe is a lightning-quick point guard with potential, but he's no Chris Paul.

You can even make an argument for trading both of the Clippers' most prized possessions. The Minnesota pick should be high, but the draft produces few guarantees. If the Timberwolves pick becomes a very decent, but unexceptional, player, do you want to be the team that passed on Paul to preserve the rights to a Jeff Green, Tyrus Thomas or Mike Conley Jr.?

As for Gordon, he might be unaffordable after a Paul acquisition. The Clippers will owe $38.5 million to Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan, Caron Butler, Mo Williams and Ryan Gomes in 2012-13. Paul will require a max contract. Considering the swaths of cap space around the league, it's a fair bet Gordon will too if he has another standout season. And that's before you extend Blake Griffin -- which is really the whole point of all this if you're the Clippers.

Two seasons worth of Chris Paul could be the salve that cures a generation of affliction for the Clippers. Pairing Paul with Griffin for a preseason slate might be enough to talk the pair into setting up shop for the long term -- but the risks are enormous. Getting Chris Paul and keeping Chris Paul are two entirely different tasks.

No matter how loudly Paul shouts he wants to be a Clipper for life -- and he hasn't made any promise of the kind -- what if the knee acts up? Or what if the Clippers sniff a couple of Western Conference semifinals but, with seriously depleted depth, never play past Memorial Day? What if either (or both) Griffin or Paul decides he'd prefer to play elsewhere in 2013-14? Olshey would have to play the role of Dell Demps, trying to extract as much for his superstars as possible with a gun pointed to his head and an irascible owner. When the circus was over, the Clippers would be without Paul, Griffin, Gordon, Bledsoe and Aminu. You can almost hear the barbs, "Leave it to the Clippers to burn through a decade of assets, two superstars and somehow be left with nothing!"

The most important calculus through which the Clippers are factoring their decisions is the probability that Griffin will sign an extension with the team. The NBA's competitive landscape is governed by superstars. The Clippers have one in hand, and keeping him is essential. The $43 million they've committed to Jordan -- Griffin's best friend on the team -- might well be worth every penny if it's a decisive factor in keeping Griffin in a Clippers uniform. The Butler acquisition wasn't a good value play, but spending big money for an upgrade at the team's weakest position sent a signal Griffin's way.

Backing up the truck for Chris Paul might be the Clippers' ultimate statement that they're serious about retaining Griffin for a lifetime. If Griffin wanted Paul above everything else -- so much so that No. 32 would sign a long-term extension tomorrow if Paul arrived on the first flight -- one suspects the Clippers might do it.

But right now, the Clippers have made it clear that nobody is forcing their hand. They won't be rushed by the Hornets' hefty demands or peculiar process. The Clippers have waited a lifetime and they're prepared to wait a little longer.

For a while now, many of us covering the Los Angeles Clippers have been referring to Neil Olshey as the general manager of the team.

So imagine my surprise when I learned, earlier this week, that he was the assistant general manager.

Here's how it happened.

"General manager" is a term that we probably use too loosely. Every NBA organization has someone who is referred to in that general way, but when you look at that person's business card, it often says "president of basketball operations," "senior vice president, basketball operations" or something similar.

Knowing Olshey was essentially the Clippers' GM, (he has been performing the traditional functions of a top executive since the Clippers severed ties with Mike Dunleavy in March) but realizing I didn't know his exact title, I consulted the team's official directory.

And do you know what it said?

It turns out that Olshey is designated on the ledger as "Assistant General Manager."

There are a lot of twists on the title general manager -- but assistant general manager is not one of them. That's a far different position. Top decision-makers do not have titles with the word "assistant" in them. Not to mention, assistant general managers, as a group, earn far smaller salaries than general managers do. People who plan and execute a team's draft and free agent strategy, and sit at the podium introducing new players ... those are not assistant general managers. And Olshey does all that stuff for the Clippers.

So what gives? Was this some kind of typo on the team website? Or have the Clippers been operating without a general manager since March? Perhaps the web directory hadn't been updated?

That seemed a little doubtful. Below Olshey's name you'll see head coach Vinny Del Negro followed by the Clippers' updated assistant coaching staff -- all those hires are far more recent than Dunleavy's departure.

Were the Clippers looking to hire someone to be the GM? Was this an open position? What was going on?

And how should we refer to Olshey when writing about the Clippers? Assistant general manager? Acting general manager? The Decider?

I searched through the team's official press releases from the summer, but that process didn't yield much clarity. For instance, the announcement of Randy Foye's signing refers to Olshey only as "Neil Olshey of the Los Angeles Clippers."

Strange.

I reached out to the team, too. After some evasion, they eventually said that the Clippers weren't looking for a top executive and that Olshey has been carrying out all the duties of a general manager.

What they did not explain was why he was still officially being called an assistant general manager more than five months after he assumed the role of top decision-maker. Why effectively give Olshey the job without officially giving him the title? The mind wanders to different possibilities. Did the team expect Olshey to take on the new duties at his old salary, and he balked at taking the new title without a raise? Might the Clippers -- whose lawyers are still duking it out with Dunleavy -- be skittish about paying two different people a GM's salary? Could there be some other legalistic oddity?

It was a big question with little in the way of answers.

But whatever the holdup was in consummating Olshey's role at the top of the Clippers' basketball operations organizational chart, it's apparently over. Olshey is, as of today, officially called the Clippers' Vice President of Basketball Operations, and thus the Clippers have ended one of the NBA's more peculiar little mysteries.

From T.J. Simers of the Los Angeles Times:

A couple of months ago this was going to be the summer of all summers for the Clippers, a fresh start, a chance to hire a new coach, $17 million in cap space to go after LeBron or other big names like him and make a huge splash.

And so they signed Randy Foye and Ryan Gomes.

Or, as Sterling put it, "If I really called the shots we wouldn't have signed Gomes and what's the other guy's name?

"You know, they told me if we built a new practice facility we'd attract all the top players in the game," Sterling adds. "I guess I should have doubled the size of this place."

He's no different than most Clippers fans.

"I swear to you, I never heard of these guys," Sterling says, "but what if the coach says he wants them?"

Try to imagine you're at a business gathering, maybe a trade show. Your boss holds court in one corner of the room. He's surrounded by people who are insiders in your industry -- some of whom know you personally, while others are only vaguely familiar with your work.

The next morning you find out through a third party who doesn't even work for your company that your boss told those insiders he has no idea why the company hired you (only he called you "Whatshisname.").

Or maybe your boss told the circle you have lousy taste in personnel and couldn't lure the real comers in the field, even though that was your job. Your boss complained about how his investments in capital improvement were supposed to attract better talent, only you couldn't close.

The irony of Sterling's griping about his organization's inability to lure top talent is almost too obvious to acknowledge. You might agree with Sterling that the signings of Gomes and Foye represent a failure for the franchise this summer. You might hold Clippers general manager Neil Olshey accountable for that, or head coach Vinny Del Negro for his input in those choices. I think Olshey exercised discipline and deployed a sound long-term strategy given the circumstances -- Sterling being one of the primary circumstances. Intelligent people can disagree about how the Clippers fared this summer in the marketplace. But whichever side of the argument you fall on, there isn't a reasonable excuse in the world for what Sterling did to Gomes, Foye, Olshey and Del Negro.

The Clippers' curse isn't a supernatural phenomenon. It has a name, a face and an unfortunate history of personal failure.

Over the past few years, I've gotten to know a lot of people who work for the Clippers. They exist across the organization in sales, marketing, communications, digital media and basketball operations. These are professional people who are proud of their work -- and they should be because every day they do a solid job for a brand few people think very much of. Yet they do the work, some of them with a sincere hope that one day they'll be able to say that they had something to do with the moment the Clippers became an entity that mattered in Los Angeles and in the NBA.

Although I haven't met Foye, last week I visited with Gomes for the first time one-on-one. I found a thoughtful professional. A very measured executive for one of the league's most well-respected franchises told me that Gomes is one of the best people involved in professional basketball. Olshey is eager to do his job well. He's always courteous, has pretty decent taste in basketball players and is a more creative dealmaker than he's been allowed to be. Del Negro has been with the team for only five weeks, but has brought the kind of charisma and exuberance that vaulted him to the top of Sterling's list of coaching candidates.

Whether Gomes, Foye, Olshey and Del Negro are basketball geniuses or likable doesn't really matter. As employees of the Los Angeles Clippers, they all warrant Sterling's basic respect, which ultimately requires so little of such a blessed, wealthy man. All Sterling has to do when asked about his employees in polite company is offer an endorsement -- or, at the very least, not publicly humiliate them. That's his only ambassadorial duty as team owner on a day when the Clippers introduce the media to some minor stylistic tweaks on their uniforms.

Imagine it's your world again. We return just as you've found out your boss was trashing you to people outside your company. Now ask yourself:

Is this a place you want to work?

There are only a handful of people with the authority to make consequential personnel decisions in the NBA. Last Tuesday, Neil Olshey joined that fraternity when Mike Dunleavy was fired, and Olshey was promoted to general manager of the Los Angeles Clippers. The Clippers' gig is a mixed bag. The team has set itself up well for 2010 free agent class and has a solid core of talent. In addition, they've built a gleaming training facility and Los Angeles is still a desirable landing spot for a pro athlete. On the downside, the Clippers are forever trying to unshackle themselves from their history of failure. The Clips have had only two winning seasons since they arrived in Los Angeles in 1984. Their volatile owner, though now willing to spend, is still an impediment to the maturation of the franchise.

By many accounts from around the league, the organization's decision to elevate Olshey won't change much of the Clippers' day-to-day managerial operation. Olshey is a known entity in front offices around the NBA, but fans in Los Angeles and elsewhere aren't very familiar with him. We reached Olshey by phone Friday night while he was crisscrossing the nation scouting conference tournaments to talk about what lies ahead for him as the newest general manager in the NBA.

The Clippers' press release stated that you "will assume the duties created by Dunleavy’s departure." How do you interpret that?
To be honest with you, I really don't interpret it. I've been on the road and I didn't want any distractions this week. You know how important this week is. I'm getting to see Kentucky play three days in a row. I'm going to see 19 games in five days. Short of trying to help [Clippers interim head coach] Kim [Hughes] and do everything I can to help the team finish strong these last 16 games, the next big decision for this organization is the draft. This is one of our last opportunities to see these guys in a competitive environment prior to workouts. That's why I didn't go back to Los Angeles and why I didn't hook up with the team on the road. When I get back, I'll sit down with [Clippers' president] Andy Roeser and we'll map out what a lot of this means, but for right now it's business as usual. I was sitting in Madison Square Garden scouting a Big East game when I got the call. The next day at noon? I was back at Madison Square Garden scouting the Big East.

Also from the press release, what does "a full commitment to dedicate unlimited resources" mean?
[Clippers owner] Mr. [Donald T.] Sterling has done nothing less than give us unlimited resources. We've made every trade we wanted to make. We've signed free agents to high-dollar figures. We've drafted the players we wanted to draft. Mr. Sterling let us make moves at the deadline to open up a tremendous amount of cap room, which we intend to use. He's also willing to spend money in other areas. We have the premier practice facility in the League. Mr. Sterling has spent the money; we just haven't delivered the goods and that's going to have to change.

Have you been empowered to hire an assistant GM?
I have not even had that conversation. To be honest with you, when you look at our model, not much has really changed from this perspective: Had Mike [Dunleavy] finished up the season as coach, there really would've been no difference. I would've been on the road scouting. Gary Sacks, our director of college scouting, would have been looking at players. All the guys who are out there watching games for the organization right now are the exact same guys who would've been out there watching games prior to any of the stuff that's happened. Part of the reason the organization has the faith in me it does is because of the freedom that Mike gave me. He knew there would never be anything done behind his back and everything would eventually make it to his desk. The job was never overwhelming for him because he was allowed to think big picture and think about the future of the organization, but he allowed me to handle the day-to-day. I think the presence around the league that created -- the ability to make deals under his guidance -- is why Andy Roeser and Mr. Sterling are willing to move forward with me.

We've spoken before about numbers and analytics. I was at the MIT Sloan Conference last weekend. There were 16 teams represented -- Denver, Dallas, Houston, Portland among others -- but the Clippers weren't one of them. Will the Clippers eventually be one of those teams that invests in this approach?
There's a ton of stuff there. But before we bow to the great software program, let's remember that Denver has succeeded for a lot of reasons. They moved Allen Iverson for Chauncey Billups. That didn't have anything to do with basketball analytics. Let's not confuse that. Dean Oliver does a great job. And we have people who do this. Jason Piombetti, our scouting coordinator who comes from the Dodgers organization, does a ton of this stuff. We have our own database -- NBA, college, international, NBDL. We might not have a full-time guy sitting in a room running programs, but we use a lot of the same tools. There's a happy marriage between the two. Daryl Morey also has really good basketball people advising him as well. But I recognize that analytics isn't just a luxury, it's a necessity now. We combine all of it. We might not take it to the extreme that Daryl and [Rockets vice president of basketball operations] Sam [Hinkie] do, but we're not sitting in a room saying, "He can play and he can't." Also, the NBA's stat cube platform is as good as anything one of these stats guys can create.

But isn't there a difference between data and information? A team can have the platform, but can they interpret the data?
No question, but from a standpoint of knowing your points per possession with Rasual Butler in versus Al Thornton, or with Steve Blake on the floor -- a lot of that is used by us internally. The unrestricted free agents we brought in at the deadline to get a look at? When we evaluate them, it won't just be how they passed the eye test or the wins and losses. There will absolutely be a diagnosis using basketball analytics when we decide who we want back.

A lot has been said about the idea that very little is going to change in the Clippers' organization structure, but do you bring anything unique to the job?
There are few people in front offices around the League who have more interpersonal relationships with players than I do. There are about 100 players in the League who I have either coached, worked with individually, coached at either the Roundball Classic, the Reebok Summer Classic, or ABCD Camp for Sonny Vaccaro, coached or worked out before the draft, or came through while I was at SFX. There are also all the offseason workouts that Tim Grgurich and I did together back in the days when you could open up the gym and let guys work out. Many of the free agents in this class are guys I worked with individually or coached in some capacity in the past.

You're watching a lot of college basketball this week. Are college players coming into the pro game less refined? Back in the day, if a player lacked that kind of refinement, he was labeled a "project." Now it seems like, with a couple of exceptions, everyone is a project when they're drafted.
In some sense of the word, everyone is a project. I don't care where they got drafted, there are going to be holes in their game. Some guys aren't in the college game long enough to develop a full range of skills. If they show enough upside, all of a sudden they're in the NBA.

In the past decade, have NBA teams become more attentive to player development in order to adjust to that reality?
Probably about eight to 10 years ago, teams became more cognizant that you're drafting these players as assets and you need some help polishing them. So you'll have head coaches and assistant coaches working on the big picture game plan, you also need someone living in the gym with these guys working on their game. There are multiple examples in the League right now of guys who had holes in their game that were helped by the quote-unquote "workout" guy.

You were one of those "workout guys" and you speak with a real passion about the player development process. Is there a part of you that's a little sad that you won't have much time -- if any -- to do that kind of work?
Yeah, I think there is. From a work product standpoint, nothing is going to change. Obviously the thing that will change is visibility or accountability. But the beauty of having the facility for me is that, during the offseason, if I heard a ball bouncing, I'd go downstairs. I'd work with DeAndre [Jordan] or shag balls if Blake [Griffin] wanted to shoot free throws. I worked Marcus Camby out during the preseason process before we hired [assistant coaches] Tony Brown and John Lucas. One nice thing is that players know when they come into the organization, they don't look at me as another suit. These guys remember me. For instance, DeAndre Jordan was on my team at ABCD Camp. 99 percent of the reason we drafted him had nothing to do with what we saw at Texas A & M. It's because I watched him go head-to-head with guys like Josh Smith and Dwight Howard at ABCD camp.

What's the lousy part of the job?
The toughest part of the job is anything you have to do that hurts a kid. If you have to waive someone or let them know you don't want to re-sign them.

Kind of like that scene in Bull Durham?
Yes. "This is the toughest job a manager ever has." You bring guys in because you like them, but at some point the relationship has to be broken. Having to get rid of them or move them knowing them, knowing their families, knowing they bought homes, knowing they're a part of your life and they're not going to be any more is hard. Marcus Camby -- that was the right basketball decision for us given the circumstances, but it killed me from a personal standpoint because it fractured my relationship with Marcus a little bit. I love Marcus and respect him, so that was the hardest thing. You build up a relationship over a couple of years and then based on long-term business needs, you have to fracture that relationship.

When the Los Angeles Clippers relieved him of his head coaching duties nearly five weeks ago, Mike Dunleavy conceded that his team needed to hear from a fresh voice. Dunleavy moved upstairs in his role as general manager and readied himself for the trading deadline and the June draft. He took a bow after the Clippers were able wipe $5.5 million off the books at the deadline to put themselves in position to extend a massive contract in the 2010 free agency chase, and scheduled scouting trips to get an up close look at this year's crop of college talent. Dunleavy was slated to be in Greensboro this weekend to catch the ACC Tournament. On Tuesday, those plans came to abrupt halt as the organization completely disassociated itself from Dunleavy. Clippers' assistant general manager Neil Olshey will assume the position of GM.

Olshey's route to the top echelon of the Clippers organization is fascinating. He first arrived in Los Angeles as an actor, having appeared on a couple of ABC soap operas that taped in New York City. Once he came west, Olshey continued to work as a commercial actor, but ultimately ended up in the local high school basketball coaching ranks. He held an assistant coaching job at powerhouse Artesia High School, which has produced a bevy of talent in recent years, from Jason Kapono to James Harden. In 2001, Olshey landed at SFX, Arn Tellem and David Falk's agency, where he served as director of player development and prepped the company's clients for pre-draft workouts.

When Dunleavy got the head coaching job with the Clippers in 2003, Tellem recommended Olshey for a position. Olshey was hired by the Clippers as director of player development, the same title he held at SFX. From there, Olshey moved up the ranks. He assisted Dunleavy on the bench during the 2004-05 season, and was elevated to director of player personnel a season later. Once Elgin Baylor was ousted as general manager in favor of Mike Dunleavy in October 2008, Olshey was promoted to the role of assistant general manager, a job he held until Tuesday, when he claimed the mantle as the Clippers' general manager.

Sources around the league maintain that with Dunleavy focused primarily on his coaching responsibilities, Olshey has been the main pipeline into the Clippers' organization for a while now. Though Dunleavy -- and Clippers president Andy Roeser above him -- had veto power over any personnel moves, Olshey was the guy you called when you wanted to discuss deals. If that premise is correct, then Olshey had a big hand in getting the Clippers where they want to be financially heading into the summer.

The Clippers are placing a premium on flexibility as they strip their personnel down to the bare essentials in preparation for an active offseason. Only Baron Davis, Eric Gordon, Blake Griffin, Chris Kaman and DeAndre Jordan are under contract for 2010-11, and the organization will have somewhere in the neighborhood of $15-16 million to spend in free agency. Removing Dunleavy further enables them to reformulate, rebrand and reload.

In addition to extending a hefty contract to an elite player, might the Clippers also be looking for big names to preside in the front office and on the sidelines? Hours before the Clippers announced Dunleavy's termination, a report surfaced that Larry Brown reached out to the Clippers regarding a possible return to Los Angeles. Given the outcome in Charlotte's ownership situation, the likelihood of Brown taking a second tour with the Clippers seems unlikely, but the rumor does speak to the Clippers' desire for a complete makeover.

The timing of Dunleavy's firing is interesting considering that the Clippers are playing out the string under an interim coach. Evidently, the organization decided that even with one year remaining on his four-year, $22 million contract extension, Dunleavy's presence no longer offered value for the future. Personnel decisions of this magnitude are usually couched in conciliatory language, but the Clippers' press release was especially pointed:

The organization has determined that the goal of building a winning team is best served by making this decision at this time. The team has simply not made sufficient progress during Dunleavy’s seven-year tenure. The Clippers want to win now. This transition, in conjunction with a full commitment to dedicate unlimited resources, is designed to accomplish that objective.

The Clippers have placed themselves in a unique and advantageous position. Last month, they signaled that there's a potential opportunity for a top free agent to name his own coach. On Tuesday, that hypothetical was extended even further -- name your own coach and general manager.

If only the Clippers could say, "Name your owner."