Never mentioned as a possible Clippers free agent acquisition, Jason Richardson could prove to be a smart and underrrated signing. Citizen Dawool Huh's fanpost about free agent targets led to the mention of Richardson, and the more I think about the idea of J-Rich as the Clip's starting SF, the more I like it.  

      I'll start with some background. Richardson has spent the better part of his career  playing as a SG, but this season in Orlando he has spent a lot of minutes as a SF.  Over his career, he has also been a top rebounder as a SG, and over the past 4 seasons he has averaged around 40% on about 5 3pt. attempts per game. Two small forwards who will be upcoming free agents as well, Tayshaun Prince and Andrei Kirilenko, share comparable career rebounding statistics to Richardson's, however they are also minimal three point threats who average less than two 3PA per game over their entire careers.   

      Remember, AK47 played with D-Will who is now in New Jersey under Russian team owner Mikhail Prokhorov. The Russian connection is important, as Prokhorov has already shown interest in AK47, so if the Clippers really want him they will have to overpay in dollars and years, something they likely won't do for a host of reason.    

      Some may have heard Clippers VP of Basketball Operations Neil Olshey's remark that the team is finished "disguising twos as threes", however, it would be shortsighted to look past Richardson, who is 6'6" and 225lbs. Comparatively,  Andre Iguodala, one of the Clips targets at SF, is listed at 6'6",207lbs while both players have freakish wingspans. Also, over Clipper broadcasts Ralph Lawler has gushed about the idea of Griffin playing with two shooters in Mo Williams and EJ. If the Clips added a third marksman like J-Rich, I honestly don't know how Ralph would handle it.  

       From my understanding, Clippers would like to trade for a third piece to add to their core of EJ and Blake, specifically Nicolas Batum, Danny Granger, or Andre Iguodala, rather than fill the void at SF with a free agent. In any  trade, Chris Kaman and Al-Farouq Aminu would most likely have to be shipped out, but the question that begs to be asked is whether a team with Richardson, Kaman, Aminu, and other assets would be better off in the long and short term than a team with one of the aforementioned small forwards instead. 

     While the Clippers FO ponders whether or not to make a deal for Carmelo Anthony, many fans here have been creating their own potential trades for the talented forward. Most of these trades include center Chris Kaman, forward Al-Farouq Aminu, and the rights to the T'wolves unprotected 2012 draft pick, however, I wonder if we are undervaluing the Minny Pick.

     Since hiring GM David Kahn 2009, the T'wolves FO have made a number of questionable decisions starting in the 2009 NBA draft where they drafted three point guards, shortly after trading Ty Lawson to Denver for a future draft pick.This past offseason, the team drafted SF Wesly Johnson which is odd considering they already have a talented SF in Corey Brewer and that both players can't create their own shot. This is especially confusing because they passed up on the talented headcase Demarcus Cousins and opted to resign center Darko Milicic while trading for another talented but troubled player in Michael Beasley. They made another strange move when they traded star Al Jefferson, who, just two seasons ago averaged 23 points and 11 rebounds, for two future draft picks from the Utah Jazz. They have loads of cap space, but they will have a hard time convincing top free agents to come to Minnesota. The best use of that space would probably be for a salary dump for a multi-year contract.

     Kahn claims to be building for the future, for when Ricky Rubio joins the team, however, Rubio may not come to the US until the 2012 -2013 season, as explained here:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=sheridan_chris&page=Rubio-090902

     If this is the case, the T'wolves will spend the next two seasons without Rubio. As of now, Minnesota has one of the worst teams in the NBA. If they don't draft an instant impact player in the 2011 draft or aquire a major player through a trade, they may be one of the worst teams in the league in 2012.

     Many have floated the idea of a Kaman, Aminu, and Minny pick trade for Melo. What would the Minny pick have to be in 2012 for you to pull it off the table? Neil Olshey seems like a talented GM and he claims that his best skill is finding players through the draft.

Carmelo is a star but is he worth Chris Kaman, Al-Farouq Aminu, and the Minny Pick? I don't think so.

  As of now the Clippers have about $10.7 million in cap space when you factor in $1.25 million for Cook, 4 million for Gomes, and $4.25 for Foye. I'm confident that Warren will sign later and i think the team will sign Sofo also but i won't include them in my cap estimate. The Cook signing showed one me one route that the Clippers will not go down and that is taking a salary dump of Prince, Deng, or another high priced SF. Without the minor signing of Cook the Clippers had enough cap space to take on one of those contracts but by signing a benchwarmer they have lost that option.

     Since the team is very likely to sign either Sofo or Smith to a $2.5-3 million contract that would bring the Clippers cap room down to about $8 million. The new big three in Miami have taken a paycut leaving room for Mike Miller and another player. (Miller's dad says that he will sign with Miami.) Free agent small forwards in the Clippers price range are Josh Childress, Richard Jefferson,  Josh Howard and Sual.  First off, I have read that the Clippers have shown interest in Josh Howard along with a few other teams. Secondly, i wonder if  the team will sign any of these players. The reasons that i wonder are that they wouldn't pay Ryan Gomes $4 million to be a third string small forward and also they have been consistently saying that they want floor spacers. Something must be up.

     If we are shopping for one of these players, there are only two teams to watch out for. Both the Sacramento Kings and the Washington Wizards have enough cap space to sign them and both need help at the small forward spot. The Wizards have been showing interest in Childress and i wouldn't be suprised to see Sacramento give him an offer too.  All other teams either don't have enough cap space or have no need for a high priced SF.

     From what i've seen in the last couple of days it looks like the Clippers will sign a few cheap players with their remaining cap space. If i had to guess i'd say they sign Sual and mabe Al Harrington. I wouldn't mind a J-Ho singing for a couple years either. If the Clippers really want to build though, i think they should use $8 million on Childress. Although he isn't the best three point shooter, he has always had an amazing FG percentage,  plus he's a smart guy who would fit in great with the Clippers new youth/character movement. I could see him playing great in a sixth man role behind Aminu and Gordon too. Hopefully some things will be cleared up after the Vegas summer league. In the meantime let's see what the rookies can do.

Would you trade the 8th pick for Jeff Green? Serge Ibaka will be the Thunder's starting PF at some point and the pick will give them the chance to draft a good center. I don't know a lot about Green but i think Durant and him were both starting wings before Scott Brooks took over as head coach. He's been playing PF for a while but he would be a good fit on the wing next to EJ because of his rebounding and his size.

Start with five players, Kaman, Jordan, Griffin Gordon, and Davis.

Draft WesJohnson as SF/PF that will run and spread the floor, play hard, and rebound

Resign Key                              2.5mil Craig Smith
Free Agents                             3.5mil Travis Outlaw
                                               4.5mil Steve Blake
                                               4.0mil Rasual Butler
Sign&Trade Drew Gooden to Detroit with rights to Sofo for Tayshaun Prince

Prince will be replacing Rasual in the starting lineup and will drain open threes much like Steve Blake does. Do-it-all SF

C- Kaman    DJordan
PF-BGriffin   WJohnson  CSmith
SF-TPrince   TOutlaw
SG-EGordon RButler
PG-BDavis    SBlake
By getting a passing, not a scoring wing, Gordon will be needed as a greater scoring option in the offense. This is a good thing. When he was the 3rd option behind Davis and Kaman he hid from the ball at times. Adding a scoring wing like Gay(40min1.9ast) will probably make Gordon the 4th option in the offense and Gordon is at his best when he is in a scoring role.

This team doesn't have a clear number 1 scoring option. I would make it Davis(less 3balls please), hopefully it will become Griffin.I won't bother filling out the end of the bench but i head this draft has 90+ draft worthy players declaring. It would be wise to try out some undrafted players.

Update: Under another scenario the team could 1st draft WesJohnson for mabe 2.4mil & our salary would be at 35.9mil. Absorbing Iguodala's 12.3mil salary, the team salary would rise to 48.2mil and with 7.9mil in cap space, the team could try to split that money on any combo of Smith, Blake, Outlaw, or Butler. Mabe it's 4.2mil for Blake and 3.7mil for Outlaw or mabe it's 5mil for Blake and 2.9mil for Smith. You get my idea.

The Clippers will have a lot of options this summer, with of course the signing of league MVP LeBron James being the first choice. After that, opinions differ on what the the team should do with its cap space. This post is all about what plan B should be.

 B1 Spend most of the cap space on Rudy Gay or Joe Johnson. Although Johnson would be good now, I don't see the team giving him 20mil when he's 34 years old. Rudy Gay is not worth the max or even close to it, but age is on his side as he would be signed through his prime on a 5 year deal.

 B2 Resign the core bench and use the MLE to sign veterans like Marcus Camby and Ray Allen.

 B3 Resign the core bench and try to make a trade for the heavily paid Paul Pierce or Andre Iguodala. This option is both difficult and unlikely because you either need a third team to complete the deal or you need to give up draft picks and either Baron or Kaman.

 B4 Resign part of the core bench and take a gamble with the injury prone Tracy McGrady or Manu Ginobli

 B5 Resign the bench to expiring contracts and look towards the summer of 2011.

This summer will greatly affect the franchise for many years to come so it's a good thing the team has many options. 

Remember to leave a comment if you disagree or think I missed something.