You know dunleavy would do this trade in a heartbeat. From what I’ve seen from Calderon, he’s a leader on the court, willing to play tough nosed d, willing to sacrifice his starting spot for team success, has GREAT basketball IQ, he is everything that dunleavy wanted from maggette. To get this type of player for maggette dunleavy would approve it immediately. Now the only question is trying to convice sterling, who would probably rather keep maggette than have a boring, non atheletic type like calderon

Calderon for Magette would be a huge trade for the Clips. Feel that Calderon is underrated due to the lack of national attention the Raptors receive. Put him in LA and I think he can become a top five point guard in the league. Really knows how to run a team and can stick open jumpshots.

How about Portland? Dont they have some youngs PGs as well?

—Don’t overpay anybody. There’s a fair and reasonable number in our heads for most players, and sometimes a 10-15% premium might kick in, but it’s really important not to make a mistake. The number for Maggette seems to be 9-10 and no more, and it’s fairly obvious. But you also have a pretty good idea of what you’re going to get for that money. Calderon seems like he’s much more of a question mark. Yes, he’s in shape to make some real money. He would be a very nice piece, but wouldn’t 8m be an awful lot? The numbers could be a little softer if it might be possible to do a Chris Wilcox 3-year deal. Not that this would happen, but you don’t want Calderon to somehow turn into Marko Jaric overnight.

—I know it’s addressed in the post (not rereading it now), but if it’s so obvious to us that Calderon is the guy and we have virtually no interest in TJFord (especially on a team with BKnight next year), doesn’t Toronto get this?

—How does Beno Udrih measure up in this equation? Are they roughly the same guy, after the same type of money, or has Calderon pushed himself ahead?

—And assuming that Sac will keep Udrih as the pg of the future, even though we know the Clips are interested in him, what do you see as the timing of all of this, in July I guess it would be? The deals always seem to be like dominoes, with the big guys going first or some of the deals happening quickly. We remember how MD went bam-bam on Tim Thomas replacing Radman, which definitely looked like there was a strategy in place. Then we have the Clips waiting around for Steve Francis and dodging that bullet. Will the Clips be waiting around to see what might happen with BDavis, Arenas, or something complicated, along with what’s happening with EB and, more complex, Maggs, and then the solid second tier PGs are gone.

It’s probably important to figure out a few different roles for Livingston, just to keep expectations in line, and I like where this is going. It seems impossible to come up with comparisons and floors and ceilings when we really don’t know anything at this point. But one thing that we do know are the available rosters spots and what the Clips are looking to fill. So what if we think of Livingston as taking-ahem!-QRoss’ spot? He might not be quite as solid an on-ball defender, especially coming off the catastrophic injury, but he might be able to do a lot of the other defensive stuff very well. This obviously lowers the offensive expectations down to zero, and Liv should be able to beat that on passing and court vision alone. The basic idea is that if you “take the chance” that Liv is your 2-3 and big PGs defensive stopper (and some will say that Q never really stopped anybody, but we can give him some credit, at least as a defender), you still need a #1 pg and an SG/shooter to supplement Mobley. Liv then gets to do whatever he can do, and just has to play some good defense some of the time. It’s important to remember that the best case with Liv is that he has a decent comeback year, and if he stays healthy in 08-09 he could be pretty good in 09-10, but there’s going to be a curve to it. It would be nice if Liv would sign a 3-year deal that follows this formula-pay him what QRoss would get after 3 years of extended minutes, a great effort, and very little offensive production-but that might be a stretch.

Where would we be without Clipper Steve? I haven’t watched very much of the playoffs, but CS clued me into the fact that CP is a punk of sorts. I might have seen some kind of questionable play earlier in the playoffs, or I’m remembering things from the CS post. At any rate, I came home and turned on the game and within seconds CP and MFinley were going for the ball and CP finished the play by raising his hand into Finley’s face. Not a shocker, no comment-although Reggie Miller noted that Finley got a nice shot from CP-but the interesting thing is that Finley, the old Spurs pro, promptly buried two three pointers, and then Horry hit one and the Spurs were maintaining the edge that they needed to win the game. Very strangely, I found myself rooting for the Spurs, and looking at all of CP hijinks askance, while happily watching Bruce Bowen hack people and Ginobili fly around, and Tony Parker hit the shot to seal it.

I want the Spurs to beat the Lakers. And Detroit to beat the Celtics. And then I won’t watch any of the Finals. But I wonder, without CS making me think twice about Chris Paul, wouldn’t I have been rooting against the “boring” Spurs and hoping for the upstarts to take down the champs? Go Spurs.

Trying to think about how to tie this into the thread, and I also have a couple of comments on the draft and don’t want to start a diary. Oh well.

Danilo seems to be moving up on one of the boards, and Brook Lopez is dropping. It doesn’t seem as if Bayless (or Mayo) will drop to the Clippers, and I’ve seen an active discussion of whether the Clips should take Westbrook, Gordon, or Lopez in order to trade him (or as Brand insurance). Of course I would rather draft Love instead of Lopez, and Westbrook instead of Gordon. I think Westbrook would be a fine addition to the Clips—I’m sure everybody would like his hustle, athleticism, defense, and all around game. But with regards to the above Livingston-Calderon discussion, in 08-09 Westbrook is going to be a Daniel Ewing-level pg, and we’d be hoping that he is adequate and hoping that Liv comes back to be a #1 pg. A good player, but not the best case scenario. But I guess we wait and see what happens with the lottery tomorrow. I have no expectations except that the Clips will get the pick for their slot, out of the top 3 or 4.

I’d discuss this one all day. For most teams, expecially those in the lottery, Lopez is the obvious pick. But most teams don’t have Chris Kaman and Elton Brand, so the Clippers situation is a little bit different.

You’re talking about a backup 4-5, on a team that needs offensive skill players and shooters. Lopez might be a very solid future player and insurance policy against Brand leaving. It could be interesting to see Lopez and Kaman playing alongside each other, but I’m not sold on turning Kaman into primarily a PF, especially since he just started making his midrange perimeter shot this year.

With Love you would get a player who would complement both Kaman and Brand, and if he’s in better shape and a bit quicker, he might even be able to be on the floor together with them, although that’s unlikely. We’ve talked before about how Love’s skill set is off the charts. We only started seeing his perimeter game towards the end of the year. I would argue that in some ways he’s a better, stronger rebounder than Lopez, although that’s quite debatable. Any way you look at it, Love is going to get a lot of rebounds in the NBA. That gets you to his crazy outlet skills, which probably won’t work quite the same way in the NBA, but the drills were developed by Stan from Wes Unseld, and it would be interesting to see Brand and Kaman get quicker and more accurate on the outlet. Love is a better passer than Lopez in every respect, and in the NBA that will be important, as he will have the ability to make other players better.

We all know that I’m a fan, so take the huge grain of salt. I don’t think KLove is going to struggle mightily or be “iffy” in the NBA, though he will have his growing pains like anybody else. We’ll see how he tests out in the upcoming camps and workouts, and the word is that he has lost weight and is more fit and ready to impress. Somehow I have a feeling that he’s going to know exactly what he’s doing in the upcoming process, that there will be fewer surprises for him than the average player. And my guess is that he’ll end up on a team where he’ll be a good fit.

Another thing to consider is what Love (or Westbrook) might do for the Clipper fanbase, with regards to UCLA fans. We haven’t discussed this at all, but I do know that a Bruin-Clipper fan like myself is a rare breed. It would be pretty amusing, actually, for hardcore UCLA fans to see one of their stars on the Clippers.

All that being said, the Clips need to come up with a guards, not another big man, and if they come up with a guard through a trade it will change everything.