RealGM

http://basketball.realgm.com/src_wiretap_archives/53345/20080702/warriors_offer_brand_huge_contract/

Would be kind of funny to me to see Brand sign with the Warriors after Baron signs with the Clippers.

LOL

For those that don't want to click the link, the story surmises that the Clips can only offer a $70mm max contract but it doesn't specify the years. The Warriors can offer a 5/$90.

If the Clips are 6/$70 and the Warriors 5/$90 then we've got a Carlos Boozer situation on our hands. I wonder what Brand will do. Great move by Golden State.

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.

GAD has to weigh in. I don't think you can sign a guy to a big FA contract and then subsequently trade him.

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?

paulpressey25 wrote:GAD has to weigh in. I don't think you can sign a guy to a big FA contract and then subsequently trade him.

If you sign another team's free agent you can't trade him for a certain amount of time, I think 21 or 30 days but after that you may. Now my question is when does Stern get involved. There is a lot of slimy stuff going on right now and any real commish who doesn't want to see L.A. teams and players like Baron Davis/Brand or better yet Wade/Brand unite would step in and say there is a lot of tampering and under the table deals going on here.

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

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.

I giggled like a schoolgirl (where's that twirly bat signal again?) when I read about this move by GSW. Whilst I am sure it probably isn't, I passionately hope that it's a GM purely playing a "Yeah? Well take this baby!" move.

This reminds me of when the Queens signed Steve Hutchinson to an enormous contract and the Seahawks countered by giving Nate Burleson a ridiculous deal. I like the cat and mouse game. Seems like the Clips and Warriors could take it to a new level.

Profound23 wrote: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.

You cant S&T a guy without his Bird Rights. The Clippers are the only ones that could offer him a S&T. Im not buying that the Warriors can offer more either. Remember, the Clips can offer bigger raise %'s and a 6th year. So even if it starts out lower it could be more.

I've been told I need to come in and clean up a few things here, so I would suggest that everyone pause until I clarify some details in a minute

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

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

Elton Brand is a Clippers free agent, so the Warriors cannot sign-and-trade him. All they can do is sign him and keep him.

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.

for you guys who like to get down better get in while the Clippers are 100-1

paulpressey25 wrote:For those that don't want to click the link, the story surmises that the Clips can only offer a $70mm max contract but it doesn't specify the years. The Warriors can offer a 5/$90.

If the Clips are 6/$70 and the Warriors 5/$90 then we've got a Carlos Boozer situation on our hands. I wonder what Brand will do. Great move by Golden State.

With a $58 mil salary cap, the Clippers can work things out so that signing Brand and then Baron gets them to 8 cap holds (including Eric Gordon) while having $25.6 mil to divide in some fashion between the first year salary of Brand and Baron. Then they'd have to sign 5 minimum salary guys to get to the 13 man minimum. Or they can try to make a trade or two in which they receive more players than they send out (Mobley for two players or Tim Thomas for two players, etc.) to reduce the amount of MSE guys they have to sign.

Since Baron and the Clippers came to terms apparently on a 5 year $65 mil contract, let's look at what his first year salary would have to be first.

I'll round up slightly and use a first year salary for Baron Davis of $11.25 mil
His annual raise could be 8% of that, or $900k.
His contract would then look like this:
11.25
12.15
13.05
13.95
14.85
Total: $65.25 mil

That leaves $14.35 mil available to use for a first year salary on Elton Brand.
The Clippers can submit Brand's paperwork before Baron's which would still allow them the bird rights advantages of offering Brand a 6 year deal instead of only the 5 year deal that the Warriors can offer, as well as offering an annual raise of 10.5% of the first year salary as opposed to only 8%.

So here's what that would look like:
14.35
15.85675
17.3635
18.87025
20.377
21.88375
Total: $108.70125 mil for 6 years.
$86.8175 mil for the first 5 years.


Now if the Clippers want to be able to keep QOs and cap holds on some lesser players like Quinton Ross, Nick Fazekas, etc., then they will have to reduce that figure accordingly, but I can't see them being so concerned with those lesser players that they risk Brand going to the Warriors.

Game, set, match, Clippers, IMO (when it comes to Brand).

Some of the confusion in thinking the Clippers would be more limited would probably be with the thinking that the Clippers have to renounce their bird rights on Brand because of agreeing to terms with Baron Davis. That's simply not true. They just have to sign Brand first using a salary low enough to accommodate the terms of Baron's deal as well as whatever smaller stuff they want to do that I mentioned.

Now, if the Warriors really want, they can start Brand off at a much higher salary than $14.35
Here's what the Warriors could offer:
16.801301
18.14540508
19.48950916
20.83361324
22.17771732
Total: $97.4475458 mil for 5 years which is $10.6300458 mil more than the Clippers can offer over the first 5 years, however, the Clippers can tack on $11.2537042 mil more in guaranteed money than the Warriors can, simply by offering that 6th year.

If you're Elton Brand, do you take the Warriors contract and then bank on being able to make at least $11.2537042 mil in the year following your 5 year Warriors contract? Considering the current circumstances with Baron Davis coming on board, I doubt it.

But we'll see.

The main point is that the Clippers are not being put in as precarious position as some are making it out to be.

It is more a question of if they are willing to pay Brand enough to keep him, not if they are able. If worse came to worse they could try and squeeze out some more cap room by making a downward salary trade with someone like Mobley or Tim Thomas, maybe even using a future 1st round pick to get that done. But I can't see them not going all out for Brand after bringing in Baron.

Profound23 wrote: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.

I'm not sure where you are hearing all of this, but quite a bit of it is grossly inaccurate.

You can't S&T someone else's player. You have to have SOME form of bird rights on them (non-bird, early bird, full bird).

The Warriors could sign Brand and down the road trade him to the Heat, but there is a waiting period of the later of 3 months and December 15th before you can trade a free agent you just signed.

So there is no way what you are hearing is correct.

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?

Only rookie contracts can be actually signed during the moratorium.

Nothing else is at all binding during the moratorium. You can only negotiate and then agree to terms.
However, going back on the terms you agreed to during moratorium negotiations would be REALLY looked down upon (barring some extraordinary circumstance like the player committing some crime or something in the interim) and any player, agent, or team that backed out of that would be metaphorically wearing a scarlet letter for a long time.

Profound23 wrote:

paulpressey25 wrote:GAD has to weigh in. I don't think you can sign a guy to a big FA contract and then subsequently trade him.

If you sign another team's free agent you can't trade him for a certain amount of time, I think 21 or 30 days but after that you may. Now my question is when does Stern get involved. There is a lot of slimy stuff going on right now and any real commish who doesn't want to see L.A. teams and players like Baron Davis/Brand or better yet Wade/Brand unite would step in and say there is a lot of tampering and under the table deals going on here.

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.

You have heard of this being provable?

I have heard solid info of Brand and Baron discussing doing this, but in purposely vague terms. Like as it related to the Celtics winning it all.
It could have gone something like this (the following is just an example, I have no idea preceisely what was said)

Baron: "Gee, it sure would be nice to be able to be on a team with that much talent. I'd love to play on a team with at least one other superstar."

Brand: "Yeah, me too. Maybe that will be you and me someday. I'm sure those three never really envisioned themselves seriously being all on the same team. I'd even play for less money if it enabled me to play alongside another star player. I could use my ETO and sign a smaller contract this offseason, actually, which could create room for another star."

Baron: "Interesting. That gives me an idea..."

Now, if they got specific enough, you could make a tampering case out of that. But you would need evidence, witnesses. I doubt Baron or Brand would rat each other out.

Also, there would need to be proof that the Clippers themselves were involved. If this was just Brand or Baron, the Clippers wouldn't be punished directly at all. The most that would happen would be Brand and/or Baron get a fine levied against them. It could theoretically be a pretty hefty fine, but the NBPA would appeal I'm sure so if Stern wanted it to hold up in front of an independent arbitrator, he'd have to make it reasonable.

GrandAdmiralDan wrote:

paulpressey25 wrote:For those that don't want to click the link, the story surmises that the Clips can only offer a $70mm max contract but it doesn't specify the years. The Warriors can offer a 5/$90.

If the Clips are 6/$70 and the Warriors 5/$90 then we've got a Carlos Boozer situation on our hands. I wonder what Brand will do. Great move by Golden State.

With a $58 mil salary cap, the Clippers can work things out so that signing Brand and then Baron gets them to 8 cap holds (including Eric Gordon) while having $25.6 mil to divide in some fashion between the first year salary of Brand and Baron. Then they'd have to sign 5 minimum salary guys to get to the 13 man minimum. Or they can try to make a trade or two in which they receive more players than they send out (Mobley for two players or Tim Thomas for two players, etc.) to reduce the amount of MSE guys they have to sign.

Since Baron and the Clippers came to terms apparently on a 5 year $65 mil contract, let's look at what his first year salary would have to be first.

I'll round up slightly and use a first year salary for Baron Davis of $11.25 mil
His annual raise could be 8% of that, or $900k.
His contract would then look like this:
11.25
12.15
13.05
13.95
14.85
Total: $65.25 mil

That leaves $14.35 mil available to use for a first year salary on Elton Brand.
The Clippers can submit Brand's paperwork before Baron's which would still allow them the bird rights advantages of offering Brand a 6 year deal instead of only the 5 year deal that the Warriors can offer, as well as offering an annual raise of 10.5% of the first year salary as opposed to only 8%.

So here's what that would look like:
14.35
15.85675
17.3635
18.87025
20.377
21.88375
Total: $108.70125 mil for 6 years.
$86.8175 mil for the first 5 years.


Now if the Clippers want to be able to keep QOs and cap holds on some lesser players like Quinton Ross, Nick Fazekas, etc., then they will have to reduce that figure accordingly, but I can't see them being so concerned with those lesser players that they risk Brand going to the Warriors.

Game, set, match, Clippers, IMO (when it comes to Brand).

Some of the confusion in thinking the Clippers would be more limited would probably be with the thinking that the Clippers have to renounce their bird rights on Brand because of agreeing to terms with Baron Davis. That's simply not true. They just have to sign Brand first using a salary low enough to accommodate the terms of Baron's deal as well as whatever smaller stuff they want to do that I mentioned.

Now, if the Warriors really want, they can start Brand off at a much higher salary than $14.35
Here's what the Warriors could offer:
16.801301
18.14540508
19.48950916
20.83361324
22.17771732
Total: $97.4475458 mil for 5 years which is $10.6300458 mil more than the Clippers can offer over the first 5 years, however, the Clippers can tack on $11.2537042 mil more in guaranteed money than the Warriors can, simply by offering that 6th year.

If you're Elton Brand, do you take the Warriors contract and then bank on being able to make at least $11.2537042 mil in the year following your 5 year Warriors contract? Considering the current circumstances with Baron Davis coming on board, I doubt it.

But we'll see.

The main point is that the Clippers are not being put in as precarious position as some are making it out to be.

It is more a question of if they are willing to pay Brand enough to keep him, not if they are able. If worse came to worse they could try and squeeze out some more cap room by making a downward salary trade with someone like Mobley or Tim Thomas, maybe even using a future 1st round pick to get that done. But I can't see them not going all out for Brand after bringing in Baron.

Profound23 wrote: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.

I'm not sure where you are hearing all of this, but quite a bit of it is grossly inaccurate.

You can't S&T someone else's player. You have to have SOME form of bird rights on them (non-bird, early bird, full bird).

The Warriors could sign Brand and down the road trade him to the Heat, but there is a waiting period of the later of 3 months and December 15th before you can trade a free agent you just signed.

So there is no way what you are hearing is correct.

Thanks
Just as i suspected the Clippers can offer more than the Warriors in total. also one thing you didnt mention here (but i think it was mentioned in a different thread at least, I know we talked about it) is, to even be able to offer that much to Brand the Warriors would have to renounce a bunch of guys, and also do it before anyone got Monta to sign an offer sheet, since his cap hold would jump from the very small amount it is now, to whatever the first year salary in that offer sheet is, which would negate much of their available capspace unless they chose to just let Ellis walk right away, but I dont see them allowing him to go for nothing.

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.