http://www.dailynews.com/ci_8744998

For those of you who have been holding onto him in your fantasy leagues... like me, who chose him in the 3rd round, completely unaware that he was injured. It's okay, I somehow got 1st place after making some trades, but man I'm still pissed I did that.

Clippers have 9 games left & AB is targetting the last 6 to 8 games. Good luck to those of you in your leagues' playoffs who have him on your team.

Considering he's been out of the game for almost a year, he'll take those 9 games to get into game shape. After that, the season will be over.

What game is he predicted to return? Hopefully he shows up big against the Mavs tonight I doubt it though. Even if he plays he probably wont get many minutes and I doubt he'll be all that productive.

He could come back as early as the game on Thursday against Sacramento. That's what it said on yahoo.

I wish there was a way we could get him in a Warriors uni next year

hobbes wrote:I wish there was a way we could get him in a Warriors uni next year

He's expected to opt out this summer... and Miami is going to make a strong push to sign him. Remember that a few years back he signed with Miami and the Clips matched the offer to keep him.



Still, let's suppose we could add him in a sign and trade... I just wonder what the Clips would ask for. Wright, for certain... and probably Azu and Al Harrington (to make salaries work).

Just speculating, but who would go for that trade?. We'd be giving up a lot of young talent (and practically our whole bench), but we'd also be adding an all star PF that would give us the inside touch we lack.

Baron, Monta, Jackson, Brand and Beans looks a lot more like a championship team than the one we have right now. Although that team wouldn't have any proven guy on the bench.

TMC wrote:

hobbes wrote:I wish there was a way we could get him in a Warriors uni next year

He's expected to opt out this summer... and Miami is going to make a strong push to sign him. Remember that a few years back he signed with Miami and the Clips matched the offer to keep him.



Still, let's suppose we could add him in a sign and trade... I just wonder what the Clips would ask for. Wright, for certain... and probably Azu and Al Harrington (to make salaries work).

Just speculating, but who would go for that trade?. We'd be giving up a lot of young talent (and practically our whole bench), but we'd also be adding an all star PF that would give us the inside touch we lack.

Baron, Monta, Jackson, Brand and Beans looks a lot more like a championship team than the one we have right now. Although that team wouldn't have any proven guy on the bench.

I would take that trade!!!..............for me, Brand is perfect to fill all the holes we have..............he will allow Beans to play off the ball/weakside/help defense and rebounding.

Yeah, wed lose Brandan but the simple thing is............Brandan is at best, going to be a much more offesively versatile Beans, ergo = not really solving our inside stregth/toughness issue............losing Al is no biggie, and Azu............thats the toughest for me as I like him alot, good on ball defender (Kobe?) and versatile scorer, good rebounder.

Well, all of those guys can crop up more in basketball than a Brand can............if that was possible, Id pull it in a second, then look at some D-League'ers, some Euros, undrafted guys..........would be much easier to fill the shoes of Brandan, Al and Azu than it would to get a guy like Brand.

If we could know that Brand is recovered, I would also do that trade in a minute. We would become one of the NBA's 5 elite teams.
But what I don't understand is: Are we necessarily obligated to compensate a team that loses a player who chooses to opt out of his contract?
How does that work?
I know we'd have to free some contract room. It would be very convenient if we could offer some of that to the Clippers. If not, I'm sure someone would want Harrington, for example.

War Years wrote:If we could know that Brand is recovered, I would also do that trade in a minute. We would become one of the NBA's 5 elite teams.

I didn't say it in my post but, obviously, me too. That would allow us to have one of the top starting fives in the league... albeit with no bench.

War Years wrote:But what I don't understand is: Are we necessarily obligated to compensate a team that loses a player who chooses to opt out of his contract?
How does that work?

Well, Brand makes around $16 million per year. We can't sign him to such a big deal unless Baron opts out, and even then, we still would have to sign Monta and Beans to extensions.

Which means our only chance to add him would be via sign-and-trade, and we have to compensate the Clips accordingly. In players and money. The trade I posted, and maybe one or two future picks, would be a great deal for them... if Brand doesn't want to stay a Clipper anymore, that is.

War Years wrote:I know we'd have to free some contract room. It would be very convenient if we could offer some of that to the Clippers. If not, I'm sure someone would want Harrington, for example.

Not possible at this point. Well, not really. I guess we could try to trade one of our big contracts (basically, Al) to a team so much under the cap that they could trade us a scrub making less money and take the rest of Al's contract using their available cap room... but no team with enough cap room will want to add Al. There will be better free agents available.

Any trade with other teams would free up cap room, at best, for the 2009-2010 season.