Elton Brand and Baron Davis Opting Out (NEW: Davis agrees to terms with Clippers)

Vlade4GM said:
They have Thornton to replace Maggette. Maggette's defense comes and goes and Beno does not play D. Baron is an injury risk, but him, Brand and Kaman could make a very good team.
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Yeah, the Clips actually have some decent scorers and role-players to assemble around Brand and Davis. If their main players could stay healthy they would actually be a force to contend with.
 
nbrans said:
Yowsers. Sucks to be the Warriors!
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Wowsers, lots of thoughts here...
1) I would love it if the Lakers were the 2nd best team in LA.
2) Why did we sign Beno so quickly, with his primary option other then Sacto now gone?
3) Davis, Brand, Kaman is nice, strong core.
 
wow....whos going to be their sg? gordon or mobley? that could be a bigger, stronger version of the warriors....

baron
gordon
thorton
brand
kaman

damn... that team could so give it to the lakers... kobe would murder them and still lose...
 
wow clippers can be as good as any team in the west with that lineup :eek:

sucks for the warriors though
 
BMiller52 said:
The Clips can't sign Baron unless they renounce the rights to Brand or come together on a contract that's significantly less pretty much immediately. They don't have that much cap room and EB's contract counts against them until he's signed by them(in which case it's replaced by the new one) or another team. They'd both have to play for like 8-10 mill a year which I doubt happens. Philly could pay Brand more than that, he can play with his former PG Andre Miller AND Iguodala, etc.

Baron could go to the clippers though I guess. IMO Elton is basically gone.
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Looks like they're going to sign them both. I wouldn't be surprised if Elton and Baron got together on this one.
 
Bricklayer said:
Yikes -- did NOT see that coming 24 hours ago.

Baron with an actual frontcourt. The Clippers shelling out for an actual star? What's the world coming to?
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It seemed kind of obvious to me. Brand and Davis both opting out were somewhat surprising. Brand is the kind of guy who would take less to be on a competitive team, and Baron would definitely take less to play in his hometown. They're taking less money, but they're both in ideal situations in every other regard. All the clips need to do now is shore up their bench.
 
kept hearing on the radio that baron and brand's decision is partly due to the celtics. stars giving up less shots/PT/whatever (in this case money) for the cause of a ring. celtics put together 3 allstars and turned around a team in one year. i wish the kings coulda put together a sign and trade to get davis here. in 2010 im sure another big star would be more attracted to sac if they had davis/martin/artest, then going to sac with martin/artest or martin alone.
 
nbrans said:
According to Sam Amick's blog, Elton Brand opted out to give the Clippers "flexibility" in free agency.

http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/sports/kings/archives/013619.html

Read between the lines and it seems like Baron and Brand want to make a run together in LA. Could be really interesting.
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LoL good luck with that. Brand has sat for a year and neither is getting younger and they need more than just those 2 in fact it would take more than 3 they need 2 more legit stars to even be tops in the west much less take on Boston.
 
Think the Warriors might also be calling for Artest now that they just lost an impact player for nothing?
 
nbrans said:
Think the Warriors might also be calling for Artest now that they just lost an impact player for nothing?
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They should have called on him before they lost that impact player for nothing, and maybe it would have shown him that they were serious about winning now and they would not have lost him at all.

In a perfect world though this maneuver gets at least 3 teams (Clips, Warriors, Lakers) interested in Artest and even in a little bit of a, if not bidding war, at least a situation where they become more willing to sweeten a pot knowing that there are other teams out there in pursuit. Be nice if the Spurs chimed in at some point too, although with the seeming collapse of their stash 'em overseas strategy -- since surprisingly nobody seems to want to come over to play for the Spurs -- not sure what they really have to offer.
 
Even though BDiddy and EB are going to make more money in their upcoming contracts that many of us combined will in our lifetimes, I still respect them for taking less. Its rare to see a star take less to play on a good team. Kobe had a chance to do it with this very same team 4 years ago, and instead desired to take a (relatively) measly $20m extra to stay with the Lakers. I'm glad to see the Clips finally doing something.

Also, why can huge players like BD and EB forego their huge egos to play for less and a roleplayer (no matter how amazing he is) like James Posey can't do the same? Him opting out just annoyed me for some reason....
 
tradepeja said:
...Also, why can huge players like BD and EB forego their huge egos to play for less and a roleplayer (no matter how amazing he is) like James Posey can't do the same? Him opting out just annoyed me for some reason....
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I almost overlooked this part.

James Posey opted out? James Posey who just earned a ring with the Boston Celtics thinks he can do better elsewhere?

Whoa. I don't know if that's annoying but it struck me as incredibly stupid.

What a mar-oon.

:p
 
VF21 said:
I almost overlooked this part.

James Posey opted out? James Posey who just earned a ring with the Boston Celtics thinks he can do better elsewhere?

Whoa. I don't know if that's annoying but it struck me as incredibly stupid.

What a mar-oon.

:p
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$$$
 
Yeah, Posey had signed wiht Boston well below market value, and really raised it in the Finals. He knows that he can almost pick his team now, including his old one, and get himself one last juicy contract. Or just go year to year nabbing MLE money every time. But in any case, all the contenders want him now so opting out was pretty much just a straight win for him personally.
 
tradepeja said:
Even though BDiddy and EB are going to make more money in their upcoming contracts that many of us combined will in our lifetimes, I still respect them for taking less. Its rare to see a star take less to play on a good team. Kobe had a chance to do it with this very same team 4 years ago, and instead desired to take a (relatively) measly $20m extra to stay with the Lakers. I'm glad to see the Clips finally doing something.

Also, why can huge players like BD and EB forego their huge egos to play for less and a roleplayer (no matter how amazing he is) like James Posey can't do the same? Him opting out just annoyed me for some reason....
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If you look at things a little differently, Baron might have actually chased the money in a way. He is VERY injury prone, if I remember right this was like the first year he played 82 games. He only had one year left on his deal. Say he gets injured next year then when he looks for a contract it is going to be for far less. But if he opts out now he gets the security of a 5 year deal. When he opted out the warriors made an offer but it was for less than what the clippers offered.
 
nbrans said:
Wow, now the Warriors are looking for Clipper payback: they just offered Elton Brand between $85-90 mil. The most the Clips can offer is $70 million.

$15-$20 million is a whoooole lot of cash to leave on the table even if he does want to play with Baron.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/02/SPRN11IP2K.DTL&tsp=1
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The Warriors are just idiots at this point.

So you lose your franchise player because you refuse to try to win now, and instead deal you assets away to get kids for a (yet another) youth movement.

Then, once you have already lost your franchise guy, you get desperate for a face saving move and turn around and throw stupid money at a different vet undersized PF coming off of major surgery who just so happens to play exactly the position of the young kids you have been drafting (B.Wright, Randolph).

Oh yeah...good move Mullin! Where's Gary St. Jean when you need him?
 
Bricklayer said:
The Warriors are just idiots at this point.

So you lose your franchise player because you refuse to try to win now, and instead deal you assets away to get kids for a (yet another) youth movement.

Then, once you have already lost your franchise guy, you get desperate for a face saving move and turn around and throw stupid money at a different vet undersized PF coming off of major surgery who just so happens to play exactly the position of the young kids you have been drafting (B.Wright, Randolph).

Oh yeah...good move Mullin! Where's Gary St. Jean when you need him?
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Seriously. I don't know why they're not making a serious play for Josh Smith right now, even if they overpay him.

Ellis, Jackson, Smith, Harrington and Biedrins, with Wright, Bellinelli and Randolph off the bench is good, exciting, promising. Jackson and Harrington can either stick around as the wily vets or they can trade or let them expire and go for more talent. But right away, Ellis, Smith and Biedrins is one of the best young cores in the league, and that's even before you consider the youth they have on their bench. They could be good for years, rather than mediocre for a couple years with Brand on board.

But hey, Mullin is the guy who thought it was a good idea to pay half a trillion dollars to Troy Murphy and Mike Dunleavy, so he's proving the last few years were quite an aberration.
 
The Warriors' are fools. They had the opportunity to extend Davis last summer and didn't. You play the “business” card, you get the same response back. They're left scrambling offering big money to players who've barely played last year because of injuries. Some reports are saying the Brand offer was to get a S&T going for Baron by getting Brand to request more money; messing with the cap space and Davis' offer. A dumb strategy considering reports all had Brand and Davis in cahoots together from the beginning.

The Warriors are better off going after Iggy and Josh Smith and not wasting time with nonsense.
 
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