GS/LAC: Which team is better with Brand?

[nbenmargi]

So a decision from Elton Brand was expected Wed night and I'm assuming it's not coming for at least a few more days. Let's take a look at his options.

Sign with the Warriors for 5yrs/90M

Warriors:
PG: Monta Ellis / CJ Watson
SG: Stephen Jackson / Kelenna Azubuike
SF: Al Harrington / Michael Peitrus / Anthony Randolph
PF: Elton Brand / Brandan Wright
C: Andris Beidrins / Richard Hendrix




Sign with the Clippers for 5yrs/75M (the max they can offer)

Clippers:
PG: Baron Davis / Dan Dickau
SG: Cuttino Mobley / Eric Gordon
SF: Tim Thomas / Quinton Ross (?)
PF: Elton Brand / Al Thornton
C: Chris Kaman / Paul Davis/DeAndre Jordan (?)

(this lineup assumes that the Clippers renounce rights to Corey Maggette, Brevin Knight and Josh Powell to clear cap room to sign Brand)


Which team would be better?

[WarFan]

We wouldn't be able to keep Pietrus if we signed Brand, and the Clippers could up that 5/75 offer to at least another year. Overall, I'm not sure that the difference is that wide or important to Brand's decision.

[nbenmargi]

We wouldn't be able to keep Pietrus if we signed Brand, and the Clippers could up that 5/75 offer to at least another year. Overall, I'm not sure that the difference is that wide or important to Brand's decision.

in order to sign Baron Davis to his five-year, $65 million deal, the Clippers will have to renounce their rights to both Brand and Corey Maggette. Which means the Clips will become subject to the same salary cap constraints as any other team. Which means they cannot add a sixth year onto Brand's deal. Which means that five years at about $75 million is roughly their limit.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfg ... y_id=27815

[WarFan]

^^^
I don't think she knows what she's talking about. As long as Elton signs his deal first, they can use Bird rights to up the dollars and add the 6th year and then sign Baron to the agreed upon deal.

[Warriorfan]

Clippers are not below the the cap until the 18 mil Brand cap hold is released. Baron is being put into the Magette, Knight, Powell renounced spot. Clips can over the cap to sign their own free agent like GS is doing with Biedrens and Monta.

Clips team is better today. Baron and Kaman are all star caliber players in thier prime.

Warriors have a chance to get better because the Biedrens, Monta, Wright, Randolph, Bellenilli, Hendricks are all 22 and under.

GS has no post presence without Brand, Clips have no pg without Baron.

[St.Nick]

The Clips are probably better although if Baron or Brand is injured--which are real possibilites-- then they will likely be a 30 win team due to their complete lack of depth at PG and PF. But a healthy Brand/Baron/Kaman/Mobley/Gordon/Thornton combo is pretty dangerous, at least on the offensive end.

The Warriors would likely have a 50 win team with Brand coming aboard but I don't think that they would become a championship contender. Monta is not likely to be ready to be an elite point guard next year and many of our key pieces still have a lot of growing up to do-- Andris, Brandan, Randolph, Marco. I see a 2nd round exit in the playoffs.

Quite frankly, the best thing our team could do would be to sign and trade Brand to a more championship-ready team in exchange for draft picks, young players, and expiring contracts. But that would just be too wacky to even conceive of...or is it?

Yeah it is.

[WarFan]

Well, since you brought it up, I got a good laugh from this thread on the Milwaukee board:
http://www.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=821633

Highlights:

Re: Warriors offer Brand huge contract

New postby Profound23 on Wed Jul 02, 2008 4:09 pm
Supposedly this is what is going to happen next:

The weirdest sign and trade deal EVER.

The Warriors being one of only a few teams who can sign Brand to a 100 mil contract will sign him to it, then trade him to Miami for Shawn Marion filler. This would be genius on GS part as they take Brand away from LA without having to carry that huge contract and they get Marion who is good but expires at the end of the year.

This is being talked about right now and could very well happen. The Clippers can match the contract, and not allow Brand to go to GS or MIA but then they would not be able to sign Baron to anything outside of the MLE. Baron would then be forced to go elsewhere.

This deal is also forcing Gilbert Arenas to move quickly because if he doesn’t ink his deal soon, GS will lose cap space and Arenas’ offer from the Wizards will drop dramatically.

The Clippers are fooling around with the idea of inking Monte Ellis to a huge deal just to throw a wrench GS’ plan…..but there is doubt on their side because if the Warriors call their bluff then the Clippers overpay for Monte and perhaps lose Brand and Baron.

Honestly the only way the Clippers make it out of this alive is if Brand decides to be loyal and turn down basically 30+ mil to stay in a bad organization, in a tough conference just to play with Baron Davis who is quite overrated anyways. GS, knowing Brand would probably turn down that money just to come to a team who is at best equal to his old team figured out an offer Brand might not be able to refuse. 30+ mil more over the same time frame, playing in a weaker conference and next to Dwayne Wade.

This a huge Chess match and makes for a very entertaining offseason. I knew this was coming.

Re: Warriors offer Brand huge contract

New postby Profound23 on Wed Jul 02, 2008 4:30 pm

raferfenix wrote:If the heat give Shawn Marion to the sixers or grizzlies, would they be under the cap enough to offer Brand this kind of deal?

Also, is Baron's deal locked up or is it still being decided?




The heat can't just give Marion away....they would have to take back contracts. Now if they traded Blount to GS for their trade exception they would be able to. But then GS is getting nothing out of it.

Baron's deal is not inked yet apparently. Because GS is doing everything they are doing to blow up LA's entire plan. By inking Brand, the CLippers are stuck. They can sign Brand and Baron goes elsewhere, or not sign Brand but then Baron probably still goes elsewhere.

MickeyDavis wrote:Interesting. I always thought the original team could offer one more year than anyone else for their own free agents.



LA may offer one more year. But GS can still offer more money since their cap space is now next to nothing. LA can offer 5 yrs 65-70mil which apparently is what was agreed on. They can also offer 6 yrs at around 80. But GS can offer 6 yrs 100+ mil. Right now LA is offering 70 and GS is offering 100, if LA ups it a year and more money then GS can keep it the same amount of years and still offer more.

Re: Warriors offer Brand huge contract

New postby Profound23 on Wed Jul 02, 2008 10:04 pm

GrandAdmiralDan wrote:
There has never been a 21 day or 30 day waiting period to trade free agents in the modern CBA era (1995 CBA and on) and possibly never (I am not an expert on CBAs prior to 1995).

There was a major change in the 2005 CBA that changed the waiting period for trading a signed rookie to 30 days instead of being the same as a free agent like before, but that's it.


Profound23 wrote:They can't sign and trade him immediately. But if they agree under the table to deal him after the time limit is lifted they may.

Per NBA rules Baron was not supposed to negotiate with the Clips before opting out in GS, but he did just that so we see it is not hard to work around this rules.



Now mind you, I let everyone here know what Baron and Brand were going to do before they even opted out.


I understand what you are saying about Brand not able to be traded until a certain amount of time. What I am telling you is Golden State worked something out with Brand.

They basically offered him more money. GS then called Miami and put out feelers for what Miami would offer for Brand. They then went back to Brand and told him that on top of being able to offer him more money, if it was the fact he just wanted to play with another allstar they would ship him to Miami whenever possible. So he is now contemplating being able to get more money from GS and then if it does not work out being traded to Miami for Marion and filler, even if that means during the season.

As for my proof of the Clippers-Brand-Baron doing something dirty it is again in the fact that I predicted it before it happened. How did I know Baron and Brand were going to opt out in order to both sign with the Clippers together before they even opted out? Because they had something in the works, they did dirt. Can the NBA prove it? I am sure Stern could if he wanted to.....but I am just as sure that he does not want to.

Teams can go around these rules somehow or another. GS can't offer as much as LA, all though they can up their offer to get a lot closer than they are now. If they do that, they are in the luxury tax area and I doubt Sterling would do that. And even then, if they go in the luxury tax to do it then GS still gets a small victory out of it by making sure another team doesn't try to pull one over on them like that again.

Comparing the Celts to the Clippers is far off. Baron was never as good as Pierce, Brand is no KG and they would only be a two man team with no bench. Celtics big three was better than anyone the Clippers have now. And the main thing being, they are in the West. If the Clips were in the East then all of these moves might mean something........but in the West they would be a team in the Luxury Tax who is competing for the 8th spot of the playoffs at best and full of injuries at worse. They could end up buying high and selling low.

[nbenmargi]

A Brand for Marion deal would work out pretty well for all parties, although I'm not sure I favor that over us just signing Brand outright.

Marion fits perfectly into our up-tempo system and his expiring contract would give us a lot of financial flexibility. If it's true that Brand just wants to play with an all-star then he could get the best of both worlds playing with Dwayne Wade in the East AND earning a lot more CASH.

If it turns out that Brand doesn't want to play for the Warriors, I think the S&T with Marion would be a great option to ensure we don't let Baron walk for nothing while simultaneously screwing over the Clippers AND Baron Davis!

[St.Nick]

Brand/Harrington for Marion/Daequan Cook/re-signed J-Will (1 year, $4M)


Monta/J-Will
Cook/Belli
S-Jax/Azu/Randolph
Marion/Wright/Hendrix
Biedrins/Kosta/Croshere

Put Marion and S-Jax up for sale to the highest bidder and play the youngsters like crazy.

[WarFan]

[St.Nick]

:banghead:

The reason we would trade for Marion would be to get that expiring contract and a very, very valuable trade commodity. I don't think its because our team sees him as the missing piece or anything.

Granted, we would have an interesting lineup...

Monta
SJax
Harrington
Marion
Biedrins

...but I don't see that team going much beyond the first round. Therefore, commit to the future, insert Marion in the role of Baron as the semi-superstar in the last year of his contract, and see what our very astute front office (a shocking revelation to many here) can get out of the situation.

[WarFan]

The whole deal is completely illegal, I only posted it for a laugh and I can't believe you think it's a good idea. Even if they made some sort of secret agreement to trade Elton to Miami later it would have to be after December 15. That would be the dumbest move possible. What happens if Elton get's injured or isn't the same player? You think Riley would be okay with that? Still make the deal? Not to mention there would almost certainly be a tampering investigation.

[St.Nick]

Why would we not be allowed to do a sign-n-trade of Brand to the Heat for Marion? I believe that any team with the cap space can facilitate such a trade.

[WarFan]

http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#76

76. Can a free agent be signed and immediately traded?

Under no circumstances can a team sign and then trade another team's free agent.

[St.Nick]

Gotcha.

[Hopper15]

Warriors:
PG: Monta Ellis / CJ Watson
SG: Stephen Jackson / Kelenna Azubuike
SF: Al Harrington / Michael Peitrus / Anthony Randolph
PF: Elton Brand / Brandan Wright
C: Andris Beidrins / Richard Hendrix

Clippers:
PG: Baron Davis / Dan Dickau
SG: Cuttino Mobley / Eric Gordon
SF: Tim Thomas / Quinton Ross (?)
PF: Elton Brand / Al Thornton
C: Chris Kaman / Paul Davis/DeAndre Jordan (?)

Which team would be better?

I don't think it's as big a disparity as the general fan would make it out to be. Just as individual players, Ellis isn't far from Davis. I'd take Jack over Mobley, Harrington over Thomas. Biedrins isn't far from Kaman. The Warriors bench also looks better to me.

Everyone seems to be assuming that the Clippers would be a playoff team with Brand, while the Warriors wouldn't. I'm not so sure.

[loflin3hree5ive]

If the Clippers really think Brand is going to leave, they would just break their "verbal commitment" with Davis and use the money to re-sign Brand and offer Brand the max or close to it.

[Warriorfan]

From a marketing standpoint Baron is more valueable than Brand. Plus they already have a post guy in Kamen who can become 20 10 center. Thorton may develop into a standout PF.

[Chris Cohan]

A better question may now be:

Are we more scared of Baron's good days next to Elton Brand in LA or next to Marion in LA?

If Miami has Brand's ear the way it sounds, the Clippers are about to drop a load in their pants.
They might get stuck with an expiring year Marion next to a heavily discounted and pissed off Baron Davis. Pat Riley is apparently not putting Michael Beasley anywhere near the table in his S&T negotiations for Brand (which ORIGINATE with the UNRESTRICTED free agent, Elton Brand, and his HOF agent, David Falk).

However, Elton Brand can still be the LA sweetheart if he'll now give up the max money AND no state income tax!

The Clippers are BACK, baby!!!

[The_Believer]

Well, since you brought it up, I got a good laugh from this thread on the Milwaukee board:
http://www.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=821633

Highlights:

Re: Warriors offer Brand huge contract

New postby Profound23 on Wed Jul 02, 2008 4:09 pm
Supposedly this is what is going to happen next:

The weirdest sign and trade deal EVER.

The Warriors being one of only a few teams who can sign Brand to a 100 mil contract will sign him to it, then trade him to Miami for Shawn Marion filler. This would be genius on GS part as they take Brand away from LA without having to carry that huge contract and they get Marion who is good but expires at the end of the year.

This is being talked about right now and could very well happen. The Clippers can match the contract, and not allow Brand to go to GS or MIA but then they would not be able to sign Baron to anything outside of the MLE. Baron would then be forced to go elsewhere.

This deal is also forcing Gilbert Arenas to move quickly because if he doesn’t ink his deal soon, GS will lose cap space and Arenas’ offer from the Wizards will drop dramatically.

The Clippers are fooling around with the idea of inking Monte Ellis to a huge deal just to throw a wrench GS’ plan…..but there is doubt on their side because if the Warriors call their bluff then the Clippers overpay for Monte and perhaps lose Brand and Baron.

Honestly the only way the Clippers make it out of this alive is if Brand decides to be loyal and turn down basically 30+ mil to stay in a bad organization, in a tough conference just to play with Baron Davis who is quite overrated anyways. GS, knowing Brand would probably turn down that money just to come to a team who is at best equal to his old team figured out an offer Brand might not be able to refuse. 30+ mil more over the same time frame, playing in a weaker conference and next to Dwayne Wade.

This a huge Chess match and makes for a very entertaining offseason. I knew this was coming.

Re: Warriors offer Brand huge contract

New postby Profound23 on Wed Jul 02, 2008 4:30 pm

raferfenix wrote:If the heat give Shawn Marion to the sixers or grizzlies, would they be under the cap enough to offer Brand this kind of deal?

Also, is Baron's deal locked up or is it still being decided?




The heat can't just give Marion away....they would have to take back contracts. Now if they traded Blount to GS for their trade exception they would be able to. But then GS is getting nothing out of it.

Baron's deal is not inked yet apparently. Because GS is doing everything they are doing to blow up LA's entire plan. By inking Brand, the CLippers are stuck. They can sign Brand and Baron goes elsewhere, or not sign Brand but then Baron probably still goes elsewhere.

MickeyDavis wrote:Interesting. I always thought the original team could offer one more year than anyone else for their own free agents.



LA may offer one more year. But GS can still offer more money since their cap space is now next to nothing. LA can offer 5 yrs 65-70mil which apparently is what was agreed on. They can also offer 6 yrs at around 80. But GS can offer 6 yrs 100+ mil. Right now LA is offering 70 and GS is offering 100, if LA ups it a year and more money then GS can keep it the same amount of years and still offer more.

Re: Warriors offer Brand huge contract

New postby Profound23 on Wed Jul 02, 2008 10:04 pm

GrandAdmiralDan wrote:
There has never been a 21 day or 30 day waiting period to trade free agents in the modern CBA era (1995 CBA and on) and possibly never (I am not an expert on CBAs prior to 1995).

There was a major change in the 2005 CBA that changed the waiting period for trading a signed rookie to 30 days instead of being the same as a free agent like before, but that's it.


Profound23 wrote:They can't sign and trade him immediately. But if they agree under the table to deal him after the time limit is lifted they may.

Per NBA rules Baron was not supposed to negotiate with the Clips before opting out in GS, but he did just that so we see it is not hard to work around this rules.



Now mind you, I let everyone here know what Baron and Brand were going to do before they even opted out.


I understand what you are saying about Brand not able to be traded until a certain amount of time. What I am telling you is Golden State worked something out with Brand.

They basically offered him more money. GS then called Miami and put out feelers for what Miami would offer for Brand. They then went back to Brand and told him that on top of being able to offer him more money, if it was the fact he just wanted to play with another allstar they would ship him to Miami whenever possible. So he is now contemplating being able to get more money from GS and then if it does not work out being traded to Miami for Marion and filler, even if that means during the season.

As for my proof of the Clippers-Brand-Baron doing something dirty it is again in the fact that I predicted it before it happened. How did I know Baron and Brand were going to opt out in order to both sign with the Clippers together before they even opted out? Because they had something in the works, they did dirt. Can the NBA prove it? I am sure Stern could if he wanted to.....but I am just as sure that he does not want to.

Teams can go around these rules somehow or another. GS can't offer as much as LA, all though they can up their offer to get a lot closer than they are now. If they do that, they are in the luxury tax area and I doubt Sterling would do that. And even then, if they go in the luxury tax to do it then GS still gets a small victory out of it by making sure another team doesn't try to pull one over on them like that again.

Comparing the Celts to the Clippers is far off. Baron was never as good as Pierce, Brand is no KG and they would only be a two man team with no bench. Celtics big three was better than anyone the Clippers have now. And the main thing being, they are in the West. If the Clips were in the East then all of these moves might mean something........but in the West they would be a team in the Luxury Tax who is competing for the 8th spot of the playoffs at best and full of injuries at worse. They could end up buying high and selling low.

If you think that's funny, there was this one article that said we should trade Monta to NY for Z-Bo in order to finally get our "low post presence." Another one also said that we'd lose BOTH BD and Monta.