Keep an eye on the Philly pick.

[UTJazzFan_Echo1]

The Philly "insider" on their board officially labeled the #2 and Brand for AK and #9 (and these minor variations) as being crap. They also deny the rumors from Chad Ford that they would move the #2 pick to move Brand. I think its time to stop beating that dead horse...

More likely scenario is that they don't want to seem desperate so teams don't try and take advantage of them in a deal.

Who excatly is your insider anyways?

[StocktonShorts]

Yeah, we got inundated with BS for AK.

This is reminding me somewhat of the crap offers we always hear for AK, imagining that we're so desperate to be rid of him that we'll take garbage in return.

But there are some significant differences. At this point Brand still has $51M owed to him, $35M of which will be on the next CBA. You can look at that a few different ways:

1) The new CBA will have a smaller cap and/or smaller max deals, so contracts that are bad now will be even worse.

2) Just like (1), but there will be some sort of amnesty clause that lets a team waive one player (similar to what happened back in 2005)

3) There will be a lockout that will shorten the 2011-2012 season, so what a player actually makes in that year will be a reduced, pro-rated amount from what he's scheduled to make.