I've heard that Elden Campbell and the Jazz are supposed to reach some sort of buyout agreement, possibly today, so that he can be released. I guess there was a wink wink deal with Detroit that would allow Elden to come back to them after he's release. But, can't he be claimed by teams under the salary cap (ala the Rockets) before Detroit has a chance to pick him up? If he is released, would the Rockets have any interest?
A friend of mine suggested that teams that were under the salary cap were capable of picking him up (sorta along the lines of picking someone off of the waiver wire) and if he wasn't picked up, then he'd become a FA and could resign with Detroit. I'm not a capologist or a rule-ologist so I'm definitely in the dark as to how this works.
Chances are Detroit wont have a shot at him. If Campbell is put on waivers you can bet that the NJ Nets will be ALL OVER him before Detroit gets a crack at him.
Well CD suggested it will be Detroit who will most likley be picking Campbell back up this morning on 610.
Speaking of over the cap, looney GM Isaiah Thomas is trying to ease his self-induced cap pain by convincing Houston to retire. What an idiot... http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/story/275194p-235634c.html
NJ can use one of their trade exceptions to claim Campbell and it's rumored they will do just that. Campbell won't particularly help them much, but Rod Thorn is doing it to "get back" at Dumars for getting Rasheed Wallace for nothing last year and then Boston letting Detroit have Hunter back (by releasing him and Detroit re-signing him). Thorn was very vocal in his displeasure at that, and claiming Campbell will be his attempt at tweaking Dumars.
Campbell's threatening to retire if NJ claims him, btw. I think Detroit is able to do it because Dumars is a god. Well, maybe just a minor deity, but he's in the pantheon. He's yet to make a bad trade.
Too early to really tell on Darko. Once he's out from under Brown, we'll see (Darko's still younger than most draft picks). Darko's yet to have a summer league season too. He's actually played well when put in real game situations, but obviously doesn't care when he's thrown in there at garbage time. We'll see how he turns out. But, at least he knew Anthony was a selfish pile of crap. Oh, and Dumars won the championship. The Nets did claim Campbell and he's supposedly going to retire now. The Nets knew that in advance, so they basically claimed him to be jerks. Way to spread that positive karma about the Nets, Thorn. I can see guys lining up to play there and to trade with you.
Why would we do that What is the point in gaining the expiring contract of a guy who is just about to retire - basically we'd be giving them a TE in exchange for nothing
This is a very funny and bitter article from the Detroit News about the Nets picking up Campbell. I mean the writer actually rants about the ethics of Rod Thorn ... as if Detroit making a wink-wink-trading-Elden-but-not-really deal is all on the straight and narrow. Please! He went on waivers... quit your whining. http://www.detnews.com/2005/pistons/0501/30/D06-73901.htm Thorn upsets Pistons Nets GM claims Campbell off waivers more to spite Detroit than help his team. By Chris McCosky / The Detroit News AUBURN HILLS--You can drink the Kool-Aid if you want to. You can buy New Jersey Nets CEO Rod Thorn's spin that he took a chance at claiming Elden Campbell off waivers only because the Nets are desperate for help inside and Campbell was the best available big man. Personally, I think that's a load of garbage. Thorn's snatching of Campbell was done out of spite, out of petty vengeance against the Pistons, and Joe Dumars and, maybe most of all, against coach Larry Brown. Do you know that Thorn waited until 5:55 p.m. to send in his claim for Campbell? The deadline was 6 p.m. But he waited and waited, making the Pistons believe they were going to pass, then, boom, snatched Campbell right out of their grasp. You could almost hear Thorn giggling to himself. Well, congratulations Rod. You paid out some $2.2 million for a 36-year-old center who doesn't really want to be there. I am sure your new owner will be thrilled, especially when he sees how mismatched Campbell will be in the Nets' system, trying to run up and down the court with Jason Kidd and Vince Carter. Thorn's bitterness against the Pistons goes back a long way. It goes back to the Bad Boys era, when Thorn was the director of operations for the league. He made it clear that he thought the Pistons' roughhouse style of basketball was bad for the league and fined them liberally. Yet, he often looked the other way when teams committed flagrant fouls and acts of violence against the Pistons. Last year, Thorn tried to thwart the Pistons' trade for Rasheed Wallace. He made phone calls to both Boston's Danny Ainge and Atlanta's Billy Knight, trying to strong-arm them into backing out of the three-team deal. That was a blatant act of tampering, of course, but Thorn, having worked for the league, apparently has special privileges. He tampered again last week, when he told reporters he was interested in Campbell. At the time, Campbell was under contract with the Jazz. That's tampering, folks, and any other general manager in the league would've been called on it. Thorn also displayed his bitterness toward the Pistons when he absurdly blamed Chauncey Billups for the season-ending injury to Richard Jefferson earlier in the season. Perhaps the root of all this hostility, though, is Thorn's long-standing feud with Brown. The two NBA lifers have seemingly quarreled for three decades. There is some deep-seeded hostility there, and it was brought back to the surface last year. Brown ripped Thorn and the Nets for firing his protégé, Byron Scott. He also made a snarky comment about replacement Lawrence Frank that didn't sit well with Thorn. So, put all of that together and you kind of get the picture. This is a petty act by a petty man, who, ironically, played two seasons for the Pistons back in the mid-1960s. Lord knows what happened to sour him back then. The joke might still be on Thorn, though. The Pistons are still a better team by acquiring Carlos Arroyo. And the Nets? The only reason they have any hope of making the playoffs is because they play in the worst conference in the league. The player they needed to get them over the hump as Cliff Robinson, but Thorn refused to part with a draft pick. The real shame of this, though, is that the person most hurt is Campbell, a classy veteran caught in the middle of this sad, juvenile grudge match. He now has to choose between early retirement and uprooting his family again for half of a season. Again, congratulations Rod.
