If you want to delude yourself into thinking the Rox can put the best deal in front of the Clipps, go right on with it. If you have the opinion that the Rockets management is going to sit by and idely twiddle their thumbs waiting on a negotiation process between Sterling, Falk and Brand to conclude before they do anything...go on with it. I've got other conclusions from the data.
minor correction on the minor correction. Rookie scale 4th yr options are exercised after the 2nd yr, not 3rd. Brand (like Francis, like Kenny) had is 4th yr option exercised in the summer of 2001.
Once again I agree with you on this one Gater. What i think many people are forgettinng is that the team in Utah, the one we love to hate is really a frontrunner for Brand and Miller. They can really force the issue because they will have almost 20mill in cap room after maole moves on and stocton retires. They could come in and offer Brand 12mill per and Miller 8 mill per and probably get both, then what. They have a really good tough coach and a couple of pieces in Harpring and AK-47 to build with. Ostertag comes off the books next yr and with the depth of international players, they could draft someone this yr and let them stay in Europe another yr to develop like they did AK-47. Miller,Harpring,Ak-47 and Brand as a combination is pretty good. Getting brand is a pipe dream so I'm not even going to imagine.
Are you calling him AK-47 cuz 1.it's cool to say or 2. you can't spell Kirilenko? hahah just kidding. I agree with you 100%. Utah will be after Miller and Brand and will try to get a second coming of stockton and malone. They have good players to work with and i'm pretty sure Sloan would stick around to coach Miller/Brand.
just to clarify: the <i>qualifying offer</i> is required to be made by June 30th in order for him to even become restricted. So, they go together...one is required for the other to occur. If the qualifying offer is not given, he becomes an <i>un</i>restricted free agent on July 1st. he sure does like his lottery parties, doesn't he? my feeling on this is Brand is the first legitimate max player to face a restricted scenario...all others got the extension, and I don't think Miller and Odom are maxable. i don't think this is going to go down like Olowakandi...or other restricted free agents who aren't close to being offered the max. something about the financial aspects of this (taking a ~$100m contract vs risking injury on a measly 1yr/$5m to become free) make me think that if someone does the max offer sheet, brand will sign it, and then sterling has the 15 days to decide. i don't view a 7yr contract at max being a sentence to serve entirely in clipperdom. he can be moved another time.
Probably a mixture of both. When the Rockets were coming to the end of the hakeem era, I was hoping they had the kind of flexibility that Utah will have and now SA will have with Robinson career about to be over. They killed that idea by signing Cato,Taylor,Norris and trading for Rice. One could only imagine the thought of having a chance at a max type player this yr had we not makde those mistakes. Even with the Cato signing and the Francis extension, if thats all we had , we would be in line for a J'Oneal,Elton Brand or whoever we wanted to go after of. The Spurs with a little luck and sticking to their guns did just what they wanted to do. They didn't overpay for avg players like the Rockets , plus they drafted pretty good. Had the Rocket gave Hakeem about 8mill per for 2 seasons, he'll be coming off the books this yr. Had we let Taylor,Anderson, and Norris walk, would this team be any worse than it had been?Probably not. I hate to think about what could have been this summer even with the success we had this past yr. We talk about the prospects of getting this bruiser pf or possibly turning the team over to Francis and Ming, but just think about that 12 or so mill we would have without the Norris,Rice, or Taylor contracts. Think about the players who live in Houston and in general like to live in houston. I hate to even go any further.
I can see the possibility of Brand signing a max offer with another team and making Sterling choose whether or not to match. Who wouldn't consider a max offer seriously? Where is the offer gonna come from? Is Utah the only choice? Has Brand expressed any interest in going to Utah? What other teams have room to give him the max? Denver? SA? I still say that the Rockets are gonna see how this shakes out before they do anything serious. After all, if Brand and Miller do wind up in Utah which is a good possibility, it is going to effect what the Rockets do. Utah is on our division and the Rockets have to consider the matchups and how to best position their team to overtake the other playoff teams. There are a lot of ramifications to what happens in Clipperville.
This may hurt to say, but I would give up Mobley, Griffin AND Boki for Brand. Even this might not be enough to get Brand. But it would send enough salary to the Clips to allow the Clips to max out Brand in a sign and trade to us. Come July 1st, we can incite Brand into demanding from the Clips a max contract and/or trade by telling him we will give him a max contract if the Clips agree to a sign and trade. This would put the pressure on the Clips bigtime.
If I'm not mistaken, you can't do a sign and trade with a restricted free agent. Once you resign a restricted free agent, he's your's for so many days minimum. I could be wrong, but i think thats the case. Also, if you resign Brand in s&t max deal, you have to deal Taylor somewhere. It makes no sense at all to have one pf making 12mil and another 8 mill. Thats too much money for 1 position.
There are two consequential points at play here. One is that Falk can (attempt to) leverage Brand pretty much where he wants. Two is the reported Odom-loving of owner Sterling. Odom and Cat, continuing the 'reportedly string' are tight. Ergo, Sterling 'needs' Cat to lock up Odom. So, does this mean Brand heads to Houston? Falk would have to 'relocate' MoT and most likely would want a pay-off in the form of a bloated extention for Glen 'Old Man' Rice. I suspect if the Rox target Dre they could land him for Cat -- and paying 115% of Cat's contract extended 6 or 7 years. So, Cat to LAC. Brand to ? ? ? (But I bet it's somewhere not named Staples.)
Xixi is thinking right. Sort of. Agent will be involved. Brand is rox target. Cat in play. Taylor needs to move. Find Taylor a home and combine with Rice's contract for a 2 or 3 (pref Falk client) , satisfy Falk, get Brand.
Here's a deal - Taylor to Philly for KVH (Falk client). Cat & Eg & picks to Clips for Brand. Rice for Picks and Falk 2. Yeah, sux we get KVH, but we get Brand. Rice for a Falk 2 is part of price.
I don't agree with this. A bid that includes Francis would be hard to beat, problem is as talented of an individual and marketing machine Francis is Sterling just seems to want to dump salary. But Francis for Brand and Jaric--pretty fair deal value wise--it is just that the Clips are cheap and Francis is not. Plus Clips might have trouble with the BYC complications of Francis' contract.
Hehe. See! "The Rockets do not, I repeat do NOT have enough trade bait to put the best offer on the table to the Clipps for Brand. Go look at some EC depth charts and you will easily see this." Uhhh........hmm......Steve Francis and Yao Ming for Elton Brand. Surely they would reject that. Just kidding. Pasox2. Philadelphia Taylor Houston Keith Van Horn Elton Brand Los Angeles Clippers Cuttino Mobley, Eddie Griffin, andPicks "Rice for Picks and Falk 2. Rice for a Falk 2 is part of price." What do you mean by that? Okay....first....Philadelphia is not interested in Taylor. Keith Van Horn has not done that well...but why would they want a power forward who can't rebound? All the power forwards on the 76ers just rebounds...that's all they do. Unless for some reason, they want inside presence now...Taylor maybe. Cuttino Mobley, Eddie Griffin, and Picks...does that work salary wise??? Don't know.... And Rice for Picks and Falk 2? What do yuh mean by that?
I doubt Philly would take MoT - they'd then have the rox PF roster from the start of the year... and we all know how successful it was. Can brand sign a "long contract" with a player option after 1 year? that would be an escape clause if they re-signed him against his will & protection against an injury. Would need some kind of assurances from Faulk that he wont walk (from us if we sign him), but no state income tax is a great incentive.
I see this differently, and this "pressure" of Utah and other teams (SA) having big bucks under the cap as the only reason we might get Brand. These are the teams that can steal Brand from the Clips and the Clips get nada, except the oportunity to watch Brand kickin their butts a couple times a year. Houston would at least be trying to provide the Clips with something of value in return for Brand while the teams with all this cap space will just be trying to stiff them. I'm not saying we will get Brand, because it is highly unlikely, but the teams like Utah in my mind are the only reason we have any chance at all.
The ball is not in their court though. Think about this. The 1st day for free agents is July 1st, If Utah has a offer of 7 yrs 84 mill and 7 yr 60 mill for Brand and Miller, The clipps either have to match those offers or they go to Utah. There isn't any if and or buts to it. Its either stay or go when a restricted fa is offered a contract. The T'Wolves offered Ricky Davis 7 yrs at the 4.5 mill exception and he signed it. The Cavs had 7 days to match or let him walk, ut they matched it. Most of the times, sign and trades occur with regular fa's like Hill for Atkins and Wallace to get that player the maximum and the team something in return.
