The Kaman clip led me to spend more than a few minutes watching Buike highlight videos on YouTube. Dunk after dunk, with the occasional three and block. Very nice player. Lots of Baron Davis in the highlights, and if GSW doesn’t match it seems like the Clips are kind of reaching into their chest and ripping their heart out. BD is the big time, big guy with pros and cons but gave them a lot of energy and credibility, while Buike is the Cinderella guy on a Cinderella team. There were obviously a lot of chemistry changes on GSW last year, which started with Jason Richardson heading out, and Buike’s d-league Cinderella story consisted of getting beat out and blown away by the rise of Monte Ellis, while a lot of people want to get Bellinelli out on the floor and hitting jump shots. So maybe it’s not that bad.

But at the end of the last thing I watched, an 07-08 Buike highlight reel, the last minute or so is the dunk on Kaman that CS put up, but it includes the aftermath: Kaman bleeding from the elbow shot over his eye, heading off to the locker room, an epic torching. Ralph is wondering if there might have been an offensive foul, while Mike Smith says there’s no way that guy (Azu) wasn’t going to put the ball in the basket.

a team maxed out its cap space and didn’t have enough players to fill out a roster? I know the NBA checks contracts to ensure they comply with arcane salary-matching rules and such, but do they also ensure that a team can field a minimal rotation?
What with renunciations we apparently have 8 guys, or ten, and are pretty much maxed out. If we have ‘only’ half a million to spend on five guys, that can’t possibly work out. And if we waive somebody, doesn’t he still count against our cap space?
And, philosophically speaking, what’s the point of giving a team that’s broken the cap an advantage over a team that hasn’t?

The cap is not a true hard cap. Even a team over the cap can still spend more money in 4 ways. 1) the MLE, 2) resigning it’s own free agents 3) Bi-Annual exception (1.9 mill this year), 3)siging to fill out a roster. Teams are required to have at least 13 players (12 plus 1 in d-league). If they are at cap or over they can sign any player to the minimum salary (varies based on years in the league) without reguard to the cap. This years cap is 59.5.

Then there is the luxury tax cap based on a percentage of all Basketball Related Income (BRI). Teams pay $1 fine for every $1 of payroll in excess on the luxury cap- this year 71.1 million.

according to this.

But I don’t usually rely on the four-letter for my salary info.

There seems to be an interesting wrinkle here on the FElton debacle.

So we know he could have played this year for the Clips, and then made more money next year. That offer was on the table from the Clips, responding to a proposal from Falk. That’s the 120mil deal, that Dunleavy says DTS wasn’t willing to do with FElton coming off an injury and a down year in 06-07.

In the same context, CS was stating that an opt-out would be a good sign because the Clips could pay him more than anybody else, and he would be making a longterm deal.

My own theory is that somewhere in here, just as Dunleavy started talking to FElton to try to figure out what might be done, FElton wasn’t doing a very good job of communicating with his agent Falk. As I’ve said before, when FElton saw the Celtics win the title, he must have asked, how do you put a team like that together? Did he ask Dunleavy or Falk or both?

At some point he told Dunleavy that the important thing would be to sign a good free agent. Dunleavy must have explained to him that this might require him to take less money, and he probably gave him the 15mil/yr ballpark figure.

These talks were probably based on signing Udrih—and the Clips made the 12:01am offer to Udrih. But leading up to that, Dunleavy might have mentioned to FElton that Davis could also opt out of his deal. We don’t know FElton’s level of sophistication about Davis’ deal, and his discussions with Dunleavy about Davis. The Udrih offer suggests that they were minimal, and the plan was ostensibly based on getting Udrih, and perhaps resigning Maggette.

Signs point to the likelihood that FElton contacted Baron Davis, perhaps just to ask him if he was planning to opt out. The Clippers responded awfully quickly to the news that Davis had opted out. And by the way, Udrih responded quickly too—he signed with the Kings and never responded to the Clippers offer.

So now things were moving fast. The Clippers signed Davis and submitted their offer to FElton, the deal that was marked up by Falk. At which point Falk was definitely in the picture. And as soon as Falk was involved, he started trying to maximize the value of his client. He sequestered FElton and started talking to Philly and put the newfound Warriors capspace to good use. He told Philly to move players to find more money. He and Stefanski were heading towards making a deal, while the Clips were being shut out.

But this all looks a little different if we back up to FElton’s original decision to opt out, thereby giving up his chance to make the most money.

In the end, FElton changed his mind, under Falk’s influence of course. There was a time period where FElton and Falk were definitely not on the same page. It seems that Falk was never okay with FElton making anything less than the highest amount he could possibly make. Falk was probably okay with trying to negotiate with the Clippers as long as they were making the deal with Udrih—that left lots of money for FElton. But how much did Falk know about the whole unfolding Baron Davis scenario? It was based on winning and the “Boston epiphany,” but it was always going to compromise FElton’s compensation. It seems as if Falk never even began to sign off on this scenario, and as soon as he became involved he started making aggressive moves to blow it up.

Dunleavy was well within his rights to get a verbal agreement from FElton to try to build a winning team, based on FElton’s assurance that he would take less money to win. But it turns out that he was naive to believe that FElton controlled his agent, and that the basic agreement would withstand the detailed, lawyerly dealmaking process. Dunleavy was duped to a degree by his belief in FElton’s character, and the idea that he was doing the right thing for the team with FElton’s full support, trying to grab a star and win. Dunleavy must have been ecstatic as he was putting this together, and he must have been absolutely blindsided by the betrayal. It was probably a slow bleed, however, as things just slowed down while Falk was putting together the deal with Stefanski and FElton stopped communicating.

Of course it’s impossible to construct the exact sequence, but it does seem to clarify things to go back to the opt out and read forward everybody’s character and actions from what we know today.

On another note, someone posted an unsubstantiated rumor on Clipperblog that the Clippers are trying to get Vince Carter for Mobley and change.

Wow – would be fun and fascinating.