Los Angeles Clippers

By David Friedman(noreply@blogger.com) Six Lakers scored in double figures and all 12 players contributed at least four points in a 117-79 rout of the L.A. Clippers. Kobe Bryant led the way for the Lakers with 16 points. He also had eight rebounds, three assists and two steals but it was hardly a vintage performance for the 2008 MVP considering his 5-12 field goal shooting and game-high five turnovers. Pau Gasol authored a nice all around effort (13 points, nine rebounds, six assists), while point guards Derek Fisher and Jordan Farmar each scored 15 points. Al Thornton led the Clippers with 16 points. Baron Davis had 11 points, seven assists and four turnovers while shooting 4-13 from the field in his Clipper debut; he had a strong first quarter but was largely invisible the rest of the w...   [read the full post]

By noreply@blogger.com (David Friedman) Any Denver fans who entertained notions that Carmelo Anthony and Allen Iverson would ever lead the Nuggets to playoff glory received a very rude awakening when Nuggets management "traded" starting center Marcus Camby to the L.A. Clippers for the right to swap second round draft picks in 2010. Camby is 34 years old but he is still a highly productive player: he won the 2007 Defensive Player of the Year Award and he has led the NBA in blocked shots the past three seasons and four times overall during his 12 year career. Last season, Camby averaged a career-high 13.1 rpg to rank second in the league. He has been selected to the All-Defensive Team for four straight seasons, including First Team nods in 2007 and 2008.   [read the full post]

By noreply@blogger.com (David Friedman) Now you know why I don't write lengthy articles to analyze "proposed trades" or "proposed free agent signings" five seconds after a "breaking news" banner scrolls across the crawl on ESPN: "proposed" means that nothing has officially happened yet and therefore something else could very well take place. I don't know how much bandwidth, air time and newsprint have been wasted in the past week or so "analyzing" the "new look" Clippers featuring Baron Davis and Elton Brand but the current "breaking news" is that Brand is going to sign with the Philadelphia 76ers, who just shipped Rodney Carney and Calvin Booth to Minnesota in order to create enough salary cap room to offer Brand a five year, $82 million deal that he reportedly has accepted.   [read the full post]

By David Friedman(noreply@blogger.com) Does that mean that the Clippers are wrong to sign Davis? No, not at all. The Clippers desperately need a top notch point guard, whether or not Shaun Livingston completely recovers from his devastating injury. It appears that they will renounce their rights to Corey Maggette and then re-sign power forward Elton Brand. Assuming that Brand and Davis stay healthy, the Clippers now have an All-Star caliber low post scoring threat and an All-Star caliber point guard. Their potential starting lineup of Chris Kaman, Brand, second year forward Al Thornton--a beast in training--Davis and Cuttino Mobley is quite potent. The main questions for the Clippers are their health, their dedication at the defensive end of the court and the lack of depth on...   [read the full post]

By noreply@blogger.com (David Friedman) ESPN's Jeff Van Gundy called Beasley a "Hall of Fame" talent. I respect Van Gundy a lot but I just can't go that far about a guy who has not played one minute yet in the NBA. Beasley is very talented but only the elite of the elite make it to the Hall of Fame, guys who deliver year after year. Jay Bilas said that Beasley has "great presence in traffic. This guy can operate in a crowd." I agree completely with that assessment and those two qualities are why I expect Beasley to be more efficient and effective than Durant has been so far. One of the most interesting things about this draft is that there is a decent chance that none of the most ballyhooed players will win Rookie of the Year; Greg Oden, last year's number one overall selection, could very well earn t...   [read the full post]