RealGM

Here is how:

If Olshey knew Baron trade would cause us a #1 pick, and new CBA would have an amnesty clause;
we could have refrain from that trade, drafted Irving, amnestied Baron, match any offer for DJ, trade a combination of Irving, Aminu, Kaman, Bledsoe for Paul and then S&T Howard for DJ + future picks for Howard. Use Minny pick for Gilchrist.

Our team would have been
Chris Paul
Eric Gordon
Michael Gilchrist
Blake Griffin
Dwight Howard


Only if

If we kept our pick I'm sure it wouldn't have ended up being the #1 pick. We had the 8th worst record, I think the league felt bad for the Cavs to the pick ended up being #1. It's not like anyone knew every team would be able to get rid of a bad contract. We're still in a pretty good position as a team anyways. My main concern is if we lose DJ.

If we would have kept Baron, we would have lost more games and got a different number of lotto combinations. We would have likely ended up with the 8th or 9th pick in the draft as opposed to 1st. I still strongly doubt that Sterling would pay Baron $28M to not play for the team.

Yeah, the Clippers were only separated from Detroit's draft slot by just two wins, but the team played .500 ball for the 20 or so games after the arrival of Mo Williams. Even with Baron's supposed hot-streak of playing, it was highly unlikely the team would have finished with a better record for those same ending games had the trade not gone through, which points to the likelihood that the Clippers would have drafted 7th overall in the weak draft of 2011.

Baron Davis's departure was long overdue. Sterling was never going to eat the remaining dollars left on his deal when he was suing his former coach for relatively a lot less. Now Blake and Gordon can be the face of the franchise and we have good veteran leadership in Mo and now Caron to put us in a position to start out of the gate more prepared. You think Baron's presence would afford us such an opportunity in a shortened season with rushed preseason? Take a look at last year.