Apologies if this has been discussed elsewhere on this board, but don't the Lakers want to finish as the #4 seed? Because San Antonio seems likely to get the #1 seed, given that they own the season head-to-head tiebreaker over OKC. And the Thunder, with their interior size and perimeter talent, are by far the worst potential matchup for the Lakers, right?

Memphis may be a tough squad, but the Lakers would have the three best players in that series. And are the Grizzlies really that much scarier than the Mavericks? Also, the Clippers may be the worst matchup for the Thunder, so them getting the 3 seed might well result in the Lakers not having to face OKC at all.

And if the Lakers best route to the finals is through SA in Round 2 instead of OKC, then the best way to ensure that happens is to lose again to SA on Fri. So perhaps Kobe should sit out one more game ...

Eric Pincus on his twitter feed suggested that we should trade Baron to Charlotte for Dampier's expiring contract. Other than saving Donald some money, I don't really see the point-- we're already 10M under the cap, which is  more than enough flexibility to sign the remaining second-tier FAs out there.

I suppose we could use the $13M we save on Baron's salary in 2011-12 to go after a max FA next summer-- but honestly, based on what happened this year, I don't think someone like Melo is going to consider the Clippers until we post at least a .500 record-- which will be more likely with Baron than without. Besides, if we need cap space next year, Kaman will be fairly easy to deal in the last year of his contract (as will Baron in 2012-13 during the last year of his contract).

Anyway, just wondering if anyone in Clips Nation thinks getting rid of Baron in a pure salary dump is a good idea.

So after the Randolph for Richardson trade, we'll have exactly one year to use a 7.3 M Traded Player Exception (TPE) before it expires. Assuming that we don't want to take on any players with guaranteed contracts in 2010, below are some teams over the luxury tax (~$68M) that we might be able to deal with (salary figures from hoopshype):

(1) HORNETS ($77.6 M total):  Antonio Daniels (6.6M) + Julian Wright (2M) for TPE + Ricky Davis (2.5M). Daniels is useless now but Wright, although he regressed a bit this year, could provide us with a defensive stopper at SF.

(2) LAKERS ($90 M projected w/ Artest & Odom): Adam Morrison (5.3M) + Jordan Farmar (1.9 M) OR Shannon Brown (probably re-signs for 1-2 M) straight up for TPE. Not sure Lakers would do this deal-- but might be something to consider at mid-season if one of the two Lakers PGs falls out of the rotation, and if Taylor and Jones aren't playing particularly well.

(3) WIZARDS ($75.6 M total): Mike Miller (9.9 M) for TPE (only works if we're 2-3 M under salary cap).  I'm not convinced that Miller's going to get much playing time, given all of the WAS wing players (Butler / Foye / Stevenson / Young / Crittenton), so Miller might be available fairly early in the season. If we don't re-sign Novak, then Miller could be someone we really need. 

(4) JAZZ ($78 M projected w/ Millsap re-signed): Matt Harpring (6.5 M) + #1 draft pick straight up for TPE.  Harpring hardly plays any more, and I think Utah has the Knicks #1 in 2010, so they'd probably be willing to give up whichever of their two pick is  worse to save $13 M.  Also, I think Harpring could be kind of useful on the Clips.

(5) KNICKS (as much as $80M w/ combination of Lee / Robinson / Kidd / Hill): Chris Duhon (6.0 M) straight up for TPE (don't think Knicks will be giving up more #1 draft picks). If Baron doesn't rejuvenate or gets injured again, Duhon might be a decent one-year rental.

(6) NUGGETS (up to $75 M with Anderson/Jones/Kleiza): Stephen Hunter (3.7 M) and Renaldo Balkman (2.0 M) straight up for TPE.  Not really sure this is worth our while with Griffin but Balkman would be a pretty good backup PF.

[Actually, the Nugget I most covet is Kleiza-- I think it might be worth sacrificing some 2010 cap space to sign him to the MLE-- after all, if we really needed to, we could renounce Thornton in 2010 if Lebron or Wade came calling. As for 2009, I think Kleiza would be a better starting SF than Thornton.]

I guess if I had to pick the best way to use the TPE, it would be options (1) or (2) so that we wind up with Wright, Farmar, or Brown, each of whom I think could crack our top 8 rotation for several years to come. Mike Miller would be nice, too, though keeping him beyond next year would probably mean that we don't land a superstar in 2010.

Thoughts?

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Now that the roster looks pretty set, here's how I see the rotation:

STARTERS: Baron / Mobley / Thornton / Camby / Kaman

HALFWAY through first quarter: Thomas in for Camby (the logic being that either Camby or Kaman need to be in the game at all times to defend the rim)

START of 2nd quarter: Hart / Gordon / R Davis / Thomas / Camby

END of 2nd quarter: Baron / R Davis / Thornton / Camby / Kaman

Next three-eighths of game are same as first three.

END of 4th quarter: Baron / Thornton / Camby / Kaman, and whichever of Mobley, Davis, or Gordon is hot that night.

So the big four would ideally all play ~36 minutes, Mobley 24-30 min, Thomas 24 min, Ricky 18-24 min, Gordon 12-18 min, and Hart 12 min.  

Not that thrilled with Thomas playing 24 minutes, but we can always plug in Powell or Fazekas as needed, and perhaps Jordan can contribute some by the end of the year. I can also see Mobley getting a few minutes/game at PG if Gordon or Davis are playing well.

All in all, I think this looks like a solid playoff caliber team, even in the mighty Western Conference.

(1) Maggette would have stunted Thornton's growth.  They both need to take a lot of shots from the wing, and when they were both on the floor together it seemed that Al played much more hesitantly. And let's face it, any shot of the Clippers becoming title contenders rests on Thornton (or perhaps Gordon or Livingston) becoming an all-star, which is probably something Corey will never do

(2) Having two scoring post options with Brand and Kaman, combined with Dunleavy's lack of offensive imagination, would have resulted in a lot of dull, monotonous offense. But now?  With Kaman and Camby blocking and boarding and Baron driving and dishing and Thornton and Gordon running the wings and finishing, this team should be a lot of fun to watch.

(3) The minutes played by Clipper PGs last year were arguably the worst minutes played by any group of players at one position for any team in the entire NBA.  I mean BK, DD, and a hobbled SC were so inept last year that it felt like we were playing four on five.  So even with Brand and Maggette back at full strength, we would have been hard pressed to make the playoffs with that gaping hole at PG.

(4) We weakened two of our conference rivals for the lower tier playoffs spots. Golden State and Denver are both worse off now that we have Davis and Camby, so it should be less difficult to make the playoffs.

In fact, right now I think we're the sixth best team in the Conference-- after the Lakers, Hornets, Spurs, Rockets (w/ Yao healthy), and Trailblazers (w/ Oden healthy and assuming Rudy Fernandez or Bayless is any good). 

I've always felt that Utah was overrated-- they really haven't beaten a quality team in the playoffs yet-- and I suspect that Dallas and Phoenix will both continue to implode due to their bad trades.

Anyway, assuming no major injuries (not just on the Clippers but conference-wide), I think it's fair to say that we're more likely to make the playoffs than not.  Which is more than we could say a week ago or even three weeks ago.

I think the discrepancy in reporting about Camby's salary is due to the presence of 2M worth of "achievable bonuses" in his contract:

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-clippers16-2008jul16,0,4548364.story

which do count against the salary cap. According to the same article, the Clippers are 2M under the cap.

EDIT: Just read the following in the Rocky Mountain News:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jul/15/nuggets-ship-camby-clippers-draft-pick/

"Camby's base salary next season is $8 million and his cap number is $10 million because of the $2 million in games-played bonuses he got last season. So assuming Camby, 34, plays in 65 or more games next season, the Nuggets would have saved $20 million when the dollar-for- dollar tax is considered.

Camby, whose contract expires after he makes a base of $7.65 million in 2009-10, also has statistical bonuses that kick in if he averages 10 points, 10 rebounds and two blocked shots.

Considering he earned $1.25 million for such bonuses in 2006-07, the Nuggets potentially saved more than $22 million for next season."

The games played bonus should help allay concerns (not my own) that Camby won't try to tough out injuries. More interesting to me is the 10/10/2 performance bonus, which Camby missed last year because he only averaged 9.1 pts. He shot a respectable 45%, so clearly he's enough of a team player that he didn't selfishly jock up a couple more shots a game to make sure he hit his bonus.

btw, someone asked in a comment thread if we have the mid-level exception (MLE). According to Larry Coon's FAQ, the way it works is that every team under the cap is charged with a full MLE slot unless they specifically renounce their MLE, which I don't believe the Clippers had to do in order to sign Baron.

So I think that the Clippers have the full MLE (5.8 M) to use on free agents.

Here are some thoughts on the Clippers-Bobcats game, which I watched on the grainy nba.com feed. There weren't any announcers, and I couldn't make out the numbers, so it took me a while to figure out who was who. In order of importance:

THORNTON had a great game (7-11, 19 pts, 6 rbs, 20 min)-- looked extremely confident shooting, seemed like he could take over whenever he wanted.  Only minor negative was that he had a couple of sloppy turnovers early on-- but hey, it's a Sat. afternoon in Vegas, what do you expect?

GORDON (4-10, 15 pts, 4 rbs, ~25 min) showed a nice variety of drives and pull-up jumpers.  He definitely knows how to initiate contact, though his FT shooting was off (6-10), as was his 3P shot (1-5), though his stroke looked fine (from what I could tell). His defense wasn't bad-- he had a couple of steals and blocks. Also, he ran the half-court offense fairly well-- nothing spectacular, but at least no TOs.

TAYLOR (4-11, 10 pts, 2 assts, 4 TOs, ~30 min) on the other hand, isn't very good in the half-court, but boy does he like to attack in transition. He attacked the rim with confidence, and even had some nice-looking jumpers. Unfortunately, his half-court defense wasn't very good-- Charlotte got a lot of dribble penetration. I doubt that he'd have made the team last year.  But now that we're in the Baron Davis era, he might be able to crack the rotation if we start running-- in fact, I could see Taylor and Gordon spearheading a half-court press off the bench.

JORDAN (2-3, 4 pts, 6 rbs, ~22 min) looks like a long-term project. Type of guy who's always been a lot bigger than the competition and doesn't quite know what to do now that he isn't. No discernible post moves, and perhaps more disappointingly, no real presence on the offensive glass (even though he had 4 OR, they seemed mainly due to bad shots rather then good hops/position, and he never converted any of them for points). His defense seemed okay though, so he might be able to play 10 min/game by the end of the year. But then again, he had 5 PF, so maybe not.

No one else really distinguished themselves, including Fazekas unfortunately. Charlotte played 15 guys, as opposed to the Clippers' 10, so that doesn't really bode well for the second teamers.

The Daily News

http://www.dailynews.com/sports/ci_9831907

quotes Dunleavy thusly:

"I can show text messages to Falk and all those things, (that we) made a verbal deal. You don't have to keep a verbal deal. It's not binding. You can say, 'You know what? I changed my mind I want to go to the East Coast because my wife's family is there. Or it's easier to make the playoffs. Or I can be an All-Star in the East as opposed to the West.' But just say it: We had a verbal deal and I just changed my mind."

I think this best explains why it took the Clips so long to raise their offer from $70 M. After all, FElton said he was willing to take less money to build a championship team, so why wouldn't they try to keep as much of their bench as they could?

Just saw in the following article on RealGM:

http://realgm.com/src_wiretap_archives/53494/20080710/clippers_renounce_five_including_livingston/

that Dan Dickau, Shaun Livingston, Boniface Ndong, Smush Parker and James Singleton have been officially renounced. The timing of this strikes me as a bit odd, since now that Brand and Maggette are gone the Clippers shouldn't need to renounce anyone to sign Davis. 

So I'm wondering if this might mean that the Clippers are maximizing cap space in order to make a big offer to Smith or Okafor? Then again, it's not like the Clippers were expecting any of these 5 to play significant minutes this year (and of course they can still sign Livingston despite renouncing him).

Looking at the Clippers' roster, they actually have 9 decent-or-better starters and backups (the problem last year of course was that three of the adequate backups wound up playing a lot of minutes)

PG: Davis / Knight

SG: Mobley / Gordon

SF: Thornton / Thomas

PF: *** / Fazekas

C: Kaman / Powell

Future contributors: Livingston, Jordan, Taylor

So really we just need a good--but not necessarily great--starting PF, and hope that Thornton, Gordon, or Livingston blossoms into an all-star alongside Baron and Kaman 2.0.

I think Udonis Haslem might be the perfect fit. He put up 12 ppg and 9 rpg last year, he just turned 28, and has already proven that he can be the third or fourth best player on an NBA championship team. And now that the Heat have drafted Beasley, he's suddenly a 7 M$/yr backup.

The question is, what can we offer the Heat? They have a glut of SGs and SFs, but I'm thinking a lottery-protected first rounder (and the trade exception they would get?) might be worth it to them.

If Elton really wants the extra cash, then we can match Golden State's offer simply by trading away Brevin Knight, who only has one year left at $2M.  We might only have to offer a team under the cap a 2nd round pick, but surely even PG-heavy Memphis would take Knight (and then immediately release him) if we sent them one of our first round picks next year.

That would mean we could sign Baron to 5 yr / 65 M without giving up our Bird rights on Elton, which would allow us to dwarf Golden State's best offer, since we could then include higher raises as well as a sixth year. Problem solved-- if, in fact, there is a problem. But my guess is that Brand would rather that we keep Knight and the future first rounder, and that this hesitation is all for show: Acting! Jon Lovitz would be proud.

Here are my two main assumptions regarding how to fix the Clippers:

(1) Kaman, Brand, and Thornton are a championship-caliber front court, which makes the three of them UNTOUCHABLE. Furthermore, we should not even bother trading for or drafting quality forwards or centers. It would be a waste of resources.

(2) Livingston can not be relied upon to play starting PG minutes next year. I hope I'm wrong, but he's just too big a risk. So the Clippers' top priority should be to acquire the best point guard that they possibly can.

Incidentally, they should not acquire a new player before the end of the year. They have no shot to make the playoffs, so bringing in a good player now would only worsen their draft pick.

So who are the best point guards that the Clippers might be able to acquire in the off-season? From best to worst ...

(A) Gilbert Arenas.  He wants max money from the Wizards, and said he was willing to take the MLE from a good team to win a championship elsewhere.
If Maggete (8.4M) opts out, and we get rid of Knight (2M), then we'll be about 12M under the cap --assuming it rises to at least 57 M-- which means that we can offer Gilbert about twice as much money as almost any other good team (the MLE is about 6M).  So if Washington doesn't want to pay him 15M, and there's a chance they might balk at that since they also have to resign Jamison, then I don't see why Arenas' first choice wouldn't be the Clips.  But there's probably only a 20% chance that the Wizards won't sign him for the max.

(B) Jose Calderon, who I believe will be an unrestricted free agent next year. Clearly, the Raptors are going to want to resign him, and no doubt lots of teams will offer Calderon the MLE, which Toronto would probably match. But I think we should offer at least 8M a year, which might be tough for Toronto to match, since they're already paying their other PG, TJ Ford, 8M a year thru 2011. So hopefully Ford will come back strong from  his injury by the end of the year so that the Raptors will let us snatch up Calderon.  

(C) Devin Harris. Although MD wanted to trade for Terry, his contract is way too high to justify acquiring. Which is part of the reason why the Mavericks might considering trading Harris after the season, especially if they don't make the conference finals again.  I think we might be able to do a sign-and-trade of Maggete and our 2009 #1 pick for Harris and Trenton Hassell.  (btw, Harris only makes 4M this year but will make 7.8M next year, which is another reason to wait until after the season.)  

(D) Monta Ellis. Like Calderon, this is another situation where a bunch of teams would offer the MLE, so we'd have to start at 8M to have a shot.
Not really sure that we should, given his poor assist numbers, but we'd have to consider it.
I think the Warriors would probably match, but maybe not since they also have to deal with resigning Biedrins, Pietrus, and Azuibuike.

(E) Earl Watson or Luke Ridnour. They both make about 6.4M/yr thru 2010, and I don't think Seattle wants to keep both. So trading for one or the other shouldn't be that difficult-- Brevin Knight and a 2nd rounder might even do it.  Clearly, this would be the last resort, but it's probably better than doing nothing.

(F) Get lucky in the draft and draft Derrick Rose or OJ Mayo with our #1 pick this year, or the best PG next year with Minnesota #1 pick (which would have the benefit of letting us see how Shaun does next year). If we don't get Rose or Mayo, then we should either draft a SG or if possible trade our pick as part of a (sign-and-)trade package for Arenas, Calderon, or Harris.

Obviously, if we get Rose or Mayo then we don't need to explore options (A)-(E) as intently.
That's another reason why we shouldn't acquire any players until after the lottery drawing.

So to sum up my recommendations:

(1) Keep Kaman, Brand, and Thornton,
(2) Acquire a top PG via free agency, trade, or the draft.
(3) Do not resign Maggete when he opts out, unless it's part of a sign-and-trade.
(4) Re-sign Livingston for the qualifying offer, (but not much more), unless we need to renounce him to sign Arenas or Calderon.
(5) Keep Mobley as the starting SG. Cat is probably too expensive to trade (9M) and besides will help tutor the SG that we should draft if we're not in the top 4-- perhaps Jerryd Bayless from Arizona? He's small but might pair up well in the backcourt with Livingston.
(6) If possible, get rid of Thomas, though he's not that expensive (6M) and won't be so bad coming off the bench playing limited minutes.
(7) Re-sign Ross and Powell.

For the sake of argument, let's assume we trade for Harris and draft Bayless. That gives us a 10-man rotation of:

PG Harris/Livingston
SG Mobley/Bayless
SF Thornton/Ross
PF Brand/Thomas
C Kaman/Powell

That looks pretty good to me.

Even if we wind up with Watson or Ridnour, we might still be able to draft a top PG the following year-- unless Livingston blossoms, in which case we could always draft another SG.

Oz