Brand New Day for the Sixers, Same Old Same Old for the Clippers
Now you know why I don't write lengthy articles to analyze "proposed trades" or "proposed free agent signings" five seconds after a "breaking news" banner scrolls across the crawl on ESPN: "proposed" means that nothing has officially happened yet and therefore something else could very well take place. I don't know how much bandwidth, air time and newsprint have been wasted in the past week or so "analyzing" the "new look" Clippers featuring Baron Davis and Elton Brand but the current "breaking news" is that Brand is going to sign with the Philadelphia 76ers, who just shipped Rodney Carney and Calvin Booth to Minnesota in order to create enough salary cap room to offer Brand a five year, $82 million deal that he reportedly has accepted.
After reports surfaced last week that Davis was leaving the Warriors to sign with the Clippers, I
wrote a six paragraph post about the proposed deal and devoted exactly one paragraph to the possibility of Brand and Davis playing together in L.A., concluding, "Their potential starting lineup of Chris Kaman, Brand, second year forward Al Thornton--a beast in training--Davis and Cuttino Mobley is quite potent. The main questions for the Clippers are their health, their dedication at the defensive end of the court and the lack of depth on their bench. Still, on paper this looks like a team that could certainly be in the Western Conference playoff mix if those three concerns are properly addressed." Although Brand initially gave indications that he was willing to accept less money to stay in L.A. if the Clippers upgraded their roster he apparently decided upon further reflection that moving to the Eastern Conference has several benefits, including being closer to his home town of Peekskill, New York, a seemingly easier path to the NBA Finals and the supposedly greater opportunity to make the All-Star team (the latter speculation is courtesy of ESPN's Ric Bucher). Of course, the only thing that is really guaranteed for Brand (besides the money) is moving closer to home, because beating Boston, Detroit, Cleveland and/or Orlando in a seven game series will not be easy for the 76ers and LeBron James and Kevin Garnett are virtually guaranteed to be the starting forwards for the Eastern All-Stars (barring injury). In the wake of his Finals MVP performance I expect six-time All-Star Paul Pierce to be selected as an All-Star once again, so that leaves Brand battling with Chris Bosh, Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison, Rasheed Wallace and Shawn Marion for the remaining forward spots.
If he remains healthy, Brand certainly fills the 76ers' glaring need for an effective low post scorer, a deficiency that became painfully--and fatally--obvious during last season's playoffs when they pushed the Pistons to six games but simply could not score enough points in the half court set to keep pace when the Pistons slowed the tempo down and limited their turnovers. The Sixers have several young, talented players plus a very underrated point guard/floor leader in Andre Miller. However, it does not take a basketball mastermind to figure out that unless the Sixers also improve their outside shooting that teams will be able to feed Brand a steady diet of double teams without worrying about getting burned. Still, this is no doubt a major coup for Philadelphia and a major blow to the Clippers, who most likely will be trading tales of misery with the Warriors during next year's Draft Lottery. If Davis stays healthy then this season will be a good opportunity for him to prove that he truly is an elite point guard, because the Clippers will need an All-NBA caliber season from him to have any chance of making the playoffs in the West. The Warriors have enough talent left to contend for a playoff spot--and they will apparently be adding Corey Maggette to the mix as well--but with Portland on the rise and last year's eight West playoff teams looking strong Golden State will probably miss the cut for the second year in a row.
If there is such a thing as karma then what did Clippers' fans do in their previous lives to deserve the ACL tears, ruptured Achilles tendons and assorted other injuries, mishaps and boneheaded moves that they have suffered through in the past 25 years or so?
Labels: Baron Davis, Elton Brand, Golden State Warriors, L.A. Clippers, Philadelphia 76ers
posted by David Friedman @ 5:19 AM
Baron Davis Leaves the Warriors for the Clippers--And Both Teams Are Happy
It has been reported by multiple sources that Baron Davis will sign a five year, $65 million contract with the L.A. Clippers as soon as the NBA's annual moratorium on signings and trades ends on July 9; the moratorium is necessary because the next season's salary cap--which is based on the league's overall revenues--must be precisely determined in order to calculate bookkeeping issues such as whether or not certain deals are permissible and if these moves will force some teams to make "luxury tax" payments (any team that exceeds the salary cap must pay a dollar for dollar "tax" that goes into a fund that is divided among the teams that did not exceed the cap).
On Monday, Davis surprised many people by opting out of the final year of his contract with the Golden State Warriors, giving up a guaranteed $17.8 million to explore his options in free agency. Davis played in all 82 games last season, the first time he has done that since 2001-02, and he had thought of the 2007-08 season as something of an audition to validate that he is not only talented enough but also durable enough to justify receiving a big dollar extension from the Warriors. When it became apparent that the Warriors were not going to offer him that extension--essentially making the 2008-09 season another contract year for Davis--he decided getting $65 million over five years is a better move than getting $17.8 million for one year and hoping to receive a long term deal next offseason. Considering his age (29) and injury history that is very sound reasoning on his part. It is not likely that as a 30 year old guard in 2009 he would be able to negotiate a better deal than the one he is getting now and he would be running the risk that an injury plagued season could cause his value to plummet, potentially costing him tens of millions of dollars.
So this is a no-brainer for Davis and anyone who considers him a "traitor" for leaving the Warriors is missing the point and does not understand business. NBA players have a finite number of high earning years and--depending on various factors--they may only get one or two chances to be a free agent and have a certain degree of leverage. Davis took the best deal he could reasonably expect to receive and anyone who has any sense would have done the same thing given his choices.
Although the Warriors may have been playing a bit of high stakes poker--gambling that Davis would play next season for $17.8 million and take his chances about the future--they are far from heartbroken about the way things have turned out. Granted, if they had known Davis' intentions they may have elected to use their $10 million trade exception before it expired on Monday but, as one source in the Warriors' organization told the
Sporting News' Sean Deveney, with Davis' contract off of the books,
"It means there's lots of cap room for us now. It's a chance to remake this team with our young guys a year earlier."In three seasons with the Warriors, Davis led them to one playoff appearance. While it was no doubt exciting for Golden State fans to knock off the number one seeded Dallas Mavericks in 2007, it should be obvious that the current nucleus of players was not going to lead the Warriors to the Western Conference Finals, let alone win a championship. It makes perfect sense for the Warriors to reload--they will still contend for a playoff berth next year and as their young players develop perhaps they can make a run at a title in a few years after adding one or two more pieces.
Does that mean that the Clippers are wrong to sign Davis? No, not at all. The Clippers desperately need a top notch point guard, whether or not Shaun Livingston completely recovers from his devastating injury. It appears that they will renounce their rights to Corey Maggette and then re-sign power forward Elton Brand. Assuming that Brand and Davis stay healthy, the Clippers now have an All-Star caliber low post scoring threat and an All-Star caliber point guard. Their potential starting lineup of Chris Kaman, Brand, second year forward Al Thornton--a beast in training--Davis and Cuttino Mobley is quite potent. The main questions for the Clippers are their health, their dedication at the defensive end of the court and the lack of depth on their bench. Still, on paper this looks like a team that could certainly be in the Western Conference playoff mix if those three concerns are properly addressed.
Labels: Baron Davis, Elton Brand, Golden State Warriors, L.A. Clippers
posted by David Friedman @ 4:46 AM
