After seeing Ian Clark regress badly from his last year in Golden State to his first year in New Orleans, which was last year, you might have thought that he was done regressing. Or you might have hoped that he wouldn’t regress anymore. In both scenarios you would be wrong, because Ian Clark has definitively shown us this season that his potential to regress into a clump of flesh animated by a smattering of dimly-firing synapses is unlimited. Based on his track record of regression, I would state with confidence that he could easily regress even further from his currently-regressed state and be averaging -5 PPG on -10% shooting in three years.
In fairness to Clark, he has played relatively well in the past week, scoring in double-digits four times after not scoring in the double-digits since early November. His bottomless, neverending regression has halted somewhat, and while Pelicans fans (all four of them) might not have regained any fondness for the dude, Alvin Gentry sure has. Or maybe he hasn’t, and Clark is only playing 20 PPG because of an injury to E’Twaun Moore.
I wonder if Warriors fans even remember that this guy was on their team. Remember, they’re a bandwagon fanbase, so they will quickly forget about any player who isn’t an established star or high-profile role-player. Clark was probably a better role-player than the misfit assemblage of scrubbos that they’ve got now; maybe a trade can be worked out. How about Ian Clark for a future first? The Warriors get to see if Clark regains his lost mojo, and the Pelicans get a pick so that they can reduce their trade demands towards the Lakers from twenty-three first-round picks to twenty-two first-round picks.
And the Bucks will throw in Thon Maker to make it a three-team trade. Those are always fun. We don’t even need to receive anything back. Ten dollars cash should be plenty.