Showtime87

I'm on that page too, you guys make me so proud.

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“Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war and until there are no longer first-class and second-class citizens of any nation, until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes. And until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race, there is war. And until that day, the dream of lasting peace, world citizenship, rule of international morality, will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued, but never attained... now everywhere is war.”
- Haile Salassie

REMEMBERING #44: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Gathers

yamaneko

Not "to me." Its just a fact. He has not carried THIS team to anything significant, nor a similarly moderately talented bull team. But most important is THIS team.

They havent been on the CLippers so we really DONT know what kind of impact they do. But there is upside there. With Brand we already know what he can and cant do for us. AK 47 id love here, not as a replacement for brand but rather as part of a bigger trade involving others. Tell me one person in the league (even more than Jr.) who is not tailor made for what dunleavvy wants in a wing player. Kidd at his age still is probably going to have (if he doesnt already) the most tripple doubles that anyone has had in one season in the nba in who knows how long. Hes still got it. As history has shown PG is an important position to have someone who can both score and dish. Carter is a superstar wing. The guy who doesnt get shakey at the end of games like every single clipper not named sam does. Sure he pouts sometimes, but if youre going to use that history, look at what he did after he was traded from toronto. Averaged 26 points a game the 3 years after the trade. Not to mention 6 boards, 5 assists. Have we ever had a wing player have that kind of ability? So no, were not guaranteed to win with them, but it is at least an effort to shake the status quo of being mediocre, and on paper it does look like what this system needs.

No, i value our team being in a position to win a championship more than brand. Like i said before, my first two choices would be to trade brand, so that were guaranteed were getting something back. But i still would prefer that we let him go for nothing guaranteed instead of overpaying him, giving him a max deal, in effect paralyzing this franchise for the next few years.

Youre kidding, right? You want to give 17 million a year to start to a 29 or 30 year old who has proven that he cant play the role of the superstar the team needs? And no one better for that money in the league than he? I could name 10 people easy id give 17 million to before brand, probably 20. I love the guy, but to say hes worth more than anyone else is a bit much.

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yamaneko

Livingston has been injured for like a year now, you cant say this off season, before brands injury you were expecting him to be a difference maker. No, I dont think brand would have made a "HUGE" difference. First of all, he would have taken away from kaman's output, so its not like were talking a linear addition of 20 and 10 to our front court totals. And with one extra guy, who did you see us overtaking? You do realize that were not even at the all star break and were already 14 wins behind the LAST playoff position? And we would have overtaken who exactly? Golden state? Alredy doing great, and now added webber? Denver who has suffered a lot of injuries, and is getting healthy? San Antonio?

Well, yes. For two years now its been common knowledge in the media and generally that Maggette is opting out for the dual reason of his percieved missuse by dunlevvy, and he thinks that he can get better money elsewhere. (personally i doubt it, but who knows).

Its still way too early to call thornton more than adequate, especially when were talking about replacing maggette's 18-20 points. He has shown nothing yet that tells us he can consistently put up those kind of numbers. Im hoping he shows something by the end of the year to make the maggette loss less felt, but i really dont think anyone here on this board thinks he will immediately become a consistent 20 point scorer by next year.

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qross1fan

For those that are talking crap about Brand, I got no remaining respect for you guys. After what this guy has done to this franchise, 20/10/2/2 with 50% shooting, he gets hurt, and we flame him? Stupid, stupid, stupid. Is it his ****ing fault the owner is in love with the biggest waste of talent I've seen in Maggette[yes more then guys like Darius] or that the front office was all over Livingston's **** and didn't deal him for Pierce nor AI, **** even Artest? Is it his fault that the front office drafts Yaroslav Korolev over Danny Granger and we can't draft to save our lives?

Brand got to the playoffs once, and was one coaching mistake away from making the WCF. Gasol led the Grizzlies to the playoffs twice, and got swept both times.

Sure, Gasol might hit the clutch shots, but have you MAYBE thought that the coach DRAWS up plays for him, while we don't run any for EB? That game we had @ New Orleans last year with Elton making a 18 foot jumper to send it to Over-Time, that was pretty damn clutch. To say you'd prefer Pau over Elton is really stupid. Even ask the Laker fans, they'd take Elton over Pau as well because Elton is a BEAST on the defensive end and can score 20 points per outing on 50% shooting.

And we have Sammy this year, but no Elton, and look at where were at.


ELTON BY HIMSELF CAN NOT LEAD THIS TEAM ANYWHERE. LOOK AT GARNETT IN MINNESOTA, IS HE A LOSER BECAUSE HE COULDN'T LEAD THAT TEAM ANYWHERE? GOD DAMN, GARNETT MUST SUCK THEN AND BE AN OVERRATED PIECE OF CRAP WHO DOESN'T DESERVE THE MAX

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Free Arsenal

The problem with the Clippers is that what should be our bench is our starting Five. Corey Maggete would be part of a deep bench on a Championship team, not a starter who makes bone headed moves even early on when it is harder to get on a roll.

I feel like we've messed up and should find a way to start over.

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Screw the fan clubs. Jordan got traded, all hope for Clipper nation is lost, we are doomed to go to lottery hell...

yamaneko

In all 4 pages of this thread, I havent seen one person flame brand or talk crap about him.

Yes. We have all said that. But the difference is it was cassell who was the engineer of our playoff run. Brand didnt put the team on his back and carry us down the stretch of games. It was Cassell. Brand turned into a superstar for a year thanks to Cassell. Unfortunately, UNLIKE brand (until this year of course), cassell cant stay injury free for much, the following year his play goes to the toilet, and brand was back to himself. But Gasol, with piss poor talent put his team on his back and got them into the playoffs with some REALLY terrible teams, and won games down the stretch for his team.

We dont know whats been drawn up and not drawn up. Even if what you say is true, we have the same coach as before, so if thats true, why should we expect plays to be drawn for brand if they havent before. However, what does that say about the clutch confidence our coach has in our best player if he never draws up plays for him? But again, this is something we dont really know as we dont know what goes on in timeouts.

Its not stupid at all, its just a reality based on team needs. Could care less what Laker fans have to think. You just look at what we need with our team makeup. We need someone who can make a game winning shot. Something Brand has never done in his entire career with the CLippers. seriously. Even by accident youd think that he would have done. But thats not a diss. Thats just not the kind of player brand is. Hes a workhorse as cassell says. However, this team obviously needs something different than a workhorse. We need someone who can do things for us down the stretch and take that winning shot. Our record the last 4 years in close games shows that. We already signed kaman, no point in lamenting that decision, so we need someone that will help us get the most out of Kaman too. Brand takes away half if not more of kamans low post looks. With any decent PF, kaman is not going to be an 18 and 14 player. Howver, with brand, at his peak were talking 13 and 10 or 11. With Gasol who plays farther away than brand to the basket, it opens things up more for kaman.

We have a sam cassell who is 2 years older than before, still injured much of this year, and is the oldest starting PG in the league. You really didnt expect anything did you? We also dont have brand and livingston while not adding anyone significant. With a completely healthy cassell of 05/06 plus if we had a healthy brand, perhaps a healthy livingston i think we might have made it close again this year to the playoffs.

You must not have read this whole thread. We went over this topic on page 1 or 2. Long story short, theres no doubt garnett is a superstar one of the best to ever play the game. Look at his talent that he has had over the years. And yes, it got to a point where minny was like hey, this guys making like 20+ million now, were capped out, were not going to win a championship with this forumla, lets trade him for something else and see what we can do. Thats all im saying for now. Brand is now at a salary where were capped out, and its obvious were not getting a championship so lets try something that works. Its NOTHING against brand as a player...its just a statement of the current situation.

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qross1fan

2003/04 Memphis Grizzlies:
CE: Lorenzen Wright 9/7/1
PF: Pau Gasol 17/7/3
SF: James Posey 14/5/2
SG: Mike Miller 11/3/4
PG: Jason Williams 11/2/7

With a 2nd unit of Stro, Bonzi Wells, Earl Watson, Shane Battier and Bo Outlaw. That's hardly a piss-poor squad. They had the same squad the following season as well.

Pau has made the playoffs twice, with that squad, and hasn't even won a playoff game, yet, he's a winner and Elton isn't?

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yamaneko

Id say its a very piss poor squad. And im assuming you picked perhaps their best year from the 3 they made the playoffs with?

Lorenzen wright? Hes a career 8/6/1 guy. That was one of his better years. Pau is Pau. Posey? A Career 9 point, 5 rebound guy. Also had one of his best years in his career that year. Mike Miller wasnt anything near the player he is today then. Also was coming off of a big injury. Jason is a career 11 and 6 guy, which is what he got that year. I wouldnt say that is a starting 5 that would scare anyone. Heck bonzi was their 3rd leading scorer and he poured in 12 points off of the bench.

Lets not forget the injuries they had that year. Bonzi missed 24 games. Miller missed almost 30 games, Which Chocclolate missed 10 games, lorenzen missed 20 games. Yet that lineup managed to get 50 wins!!!

Lets compare that to the clipper team of the same year. Statisticall elton and pau almost a wash about the same amount in every major category. Lorenzen had a better year overall than kaman, not by much. Maggette id take over posey. Q Rich over mike miller. (neither of those even close). Offensively j will was better than jaric, but defensively the other way around. The bench, clippers had wilcox, simmons, House, predrag, keyon, barnes. I would say that elton for sur ehad more talent surrounding him (many injuries too like the grizz) than pau did. Sure, there are intangibles like coaching, etc. but the grizz having TWICE the number of wins as the clippers that year?

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bootstrenf

if i concede that the clippers did indeed have more talent than the grizz but managed only half the amount of wins, what does that say about the coaching???

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qross1fan

The West was weaker when that squad won 50 games, but they had superior coaching and they had players who were experienced as opposed to being young. Like I said, Pau has had superior coaching and teammates around him career-wise then Elton and is YET to win a SINGLE playoff game, but the one year Elton had a legit PG to give him the ball, he was ONE idiotic coaching mistake away from making it to the Western Finals

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CLIPSFAN89