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Then who is the solution? How does this team PROGRESS without Brand? You don't throw away a cornerstone player because your PG gets old, or because your SF opts out of his contract. This team CANNOT build around Chris Kaman, hasn't that become apparent?
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There are plenty of answers out there, arenas just being the most obvious due to contract situation and previous interest in this team. Brand is NOT a cornerstone player for a Championship team. Tell me a championship team that won when the best player was someone on brands level, and then a bunch of average players (outside of kaman). Detroit was probably the closest team to no superstar championship lately, but billups has that end of game cassell-superstar type skills. They had a multiple defensive player of the year, and plenty of other guys better than anyone clippers will have next year. And were not saying to "throw away" Brand .Were saying trade him to get a superstar if possible. But even if he does take off for nothing, we have the "upside" to get someone here that could get us a championship. With brand on the squad there is zero upside since he caps us out, and we already know what we can do with him.
Also i dont see why we cant build around kaman. He only makes 10 million a year, which is a relative bargain for a center of his skills, and compared to potentially paying brand 20 million a year. But regardless, even if he wasnt able to be built around, we pretty much have no choice...kaman is the only guy that dunleavvy, baylor, and sterling have all placed the untouchable tag on, so its highly unlikely he doesnt play out his contract.
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It's not like Brand is 32 or 33 and nearing the end of his career, if that were the case I would probably agree with you. The fact is he's still 28 and has at least 5-6 more very productive seasons in him.
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He has peaked 2 years ago. No player that i can recall around his age in any sport has come back from achilies rupture to actually have career years...and remember, brands superstar career year with PLENTY of talent still want enough to get us past 2nd round of playoffs. If we extend him, he will be 30 and a half when that contract starts, and a max deal means about 6 years with an average of 20 million+. Youre SERIOUSLY saying that we should do that?
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I just don't see the logic in letting him walk in order to sign a gunner like Gilbert Arenas, how does that help?
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How can you not see the pure Vulcan Logic in this? Even dunleavvy and sterling have always said they need a superstar wing to be sucessful , and they have tried their darndest to get one. Is it 100% guaranteed to work? No, but we havent tried it yet, its the logical step to take inasmuch as having a near all start PF has not worked the last 6 years. Worse case scenario were just as bad as we were with brand, so its no loss. But the best case scenario is much better than with brand.
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Hell, Washington has been thriving without him! Look at any perennially successful team in this league, they all have an all-star caliber PF or C at their core.
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And didnt the lakers have a better record without kobe when he was out for a while? Doesnt mean they dont need kobe for a shot at a championship. Look at championship teams say since 90-91. and who the MVP was. 9 years it was an all star guard, the rest of the time, a super, super, super star PF/C (Hakeem, shaq, duncan), who also had all star help (Clyde, kobe, robinson, etc.).
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I just do not understand how you now think that this team is headed nowhere WITH Elton. I did not hear you saying this before the injury, if you did I would like to see an example please. Or at least offer some realistic alternatives should Brand opt out of his contract or become available for trade. Who do you acquire and how do they make this team better than they were with Brand in the lineup?
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How can you not understand it? For 7 years we havent gone anywhere with Elton, now as he starts his decline, were all of a sudden going to head somewhere with less talent surrounding him? And we covered it before, why would we mention this last year or the year before when he had 2-3 years left on his contract...especially not when he came off the superstar year, and cassell we thought was still healthy...Also not during the time when we thought the clippers were going to man up and trade livvy for iverson, pierce, or any other superstar we had a chance at. But since livingston is no longer a possible trade piece, and now that brand only has 1 year left (if that) on his deal, i dont see why its such a surprise that were bringing this up? I have come up with a lot of potential deals that would make sense for the clippers and the other team.
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who is out there (and available) that will do as much for this team as Brand?
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Who is out there that can make the playoffs once in 7 years for us? Im sure theres plenty of guys. lol