RealGM

http://www.realgm.com/src_wiretap_archi ... _clippers/

This isn't a surprise to anyone, but I'm happy to see it in writing. I hope he shifts their focus from Smoove to some degree. I worry that the Clippers current disperate situation will end with them offering Smoove more than he is worth, if not the max. I think that we would match that, and as much as I like Smoove, that contract would hurt our team. Any thoughts on how the Clippers interest in Okafur affects our changes of retaining Smoove, and our chance of doing so at a reasonable price?

My gut feeling tells me they will make an offer to Smith first although it's just a guess. I just hope they don't offer the max because our future would look much darker regardless if the ASG matches or not.

It probably doesn't affect us too much. All their top targets are RFAs, so they need to be realistic in that any offer might be matched. They could decide to go after Okafor or they could just be talking with him as a backup if they come up short with Josh Smith. Even if they go after Okafor, Charlotte could match and then we'd be back in the cross hairs.

The best scenario for us would be that the Clippers decide they want Josh Smith, but that a max salary offer would not be in their best long term interest and they make a lower offer to him. If we can match with out the label of max player being attached to Josh it gives us more freedom to improve the roster. I guess talking to Okafor can help us in that maybe they see there is more than one way to skin a cat or at least by doing some due diligence they take more time and calm down a bit from the emotion of Brand skipping town.

I don't think it impacts us at all. Maybe you can read into it and say that since they have another plan in place, they don't have to go balls out after Smith.

I would imagine that talking to both at the same time means LAC is trying to get one of them to bid the price down. Okafor's dug a deep hole for himself and may drop his price. If so, Smoove would have to either lose the only bidder he has left (other than us) or agree to sign cheaper, as well.

If Smoove's agent can't drum up another team to bid on him, he may be in trouble.