Tuesday, July 01, 2008

B Diddy Runs the City

Baron Davis is coming home.

The L.A. native just agreed to a five year, $65 million deal to play with the Clippers. This comes amid speculation that Elton Brand will take a slight pay cut and re-up with the Clips as well in an attempt to pull a "Mini Celtics" and take the franchise from zeroes to heroes overnight.

Will it work? That remains to be seen, but I'm not going to be among the many doubters who will point to things like a thin bench, limited leftover cap space, and a lack of winning pedigree among the star players. That's because people were saying the same exact things about Boston last year, and, as we saw in Beantown, the hunger for a title can transform a whole lot of things.

I expect L.A. to make a run at a few Posey/P.J. types such as Ruben Patterson (had a brief sting for the Clippers last year) and Alonzo Mourning. Heck, maybe they will even go after Posey and P.J. The bottom line is that the new vogue in the NBA is not to glom on to an established contender ala Michael Finley to the Spurs or Malone/Payton to the Lakers, but rather to get a bunch of vets together and go rejuvenate a dreadful franchise. So I'd be shocked - shocked - if people don't follow Baron and Brand to the Staples Center.

Throw in the fact that they have Chris Kaman at center, Al Thornton at small forward, and the Mobley/Gordon duo at shooting guard and you could argue that they have the pieces to finish in the top four in the West and then make a run at a title.

I know it seems crazy that the idea of adding one oft-injured, shot-mongering point guard would be enough to warrant title aspirations, but I'm telling you, this is the new way to go about buying up these O'Brien trophies.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Title team? Umm, no. I really just don't see that. Playoff team? Fo sho! Upper half of the West? Definite maybe. The Nuggets just got demoted, and those poor Bay Area fans just watched their team sink back into the cellar. Oh, yeah, and the Lakers just lost those 2 extra home games they get every year.

The Clips are going to sneak up on a lot of teams who are going to show up to play the uniforms and are going to get run out of the gym by the guys inside them. Injuries (avoiding them) will be a
key factor, but this sure looks like a 50+ win team and another major obstacle for the rest of the West powers to deal with.

Jordan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jordan said...

Let's try this one more time, with some proofreading. Lol.

The thing that gets me about all this talk is that everyone's just assuming Chris Kaman will play as well as he did last season. The caveman put up some damn good games, without Brand. The question is, how will that translate in to how he plays alongside not only Brand, but another player who needs the ball in his hands quite a bit? He sort of became "the guy" on the Clippers this past season, and now he's gonna go back to being a third option. Will he still play as well as he did?

The other thing is, everyone's mentioning staying healthy, but that's easier said than done. Baron Davis didn't miss too many games last season, but he is notorious for being injury prone, and Brand is of course, coming off of that Achilles tendon injury. I'm hoping that they stay healthy and play some great basketball, just so they can be a team I like in LA, but it's not a given just yet.

Also, does anybody know the news on Livingston? How's he looking, coming off that horrific knee injury?

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