Poll: Do You Like The Camby Trade?

First off I would like to say a big "Thank You" to Mr. Marcus Camby. I appreciated his effort and his great attitude while playing with the Clippers. I truly wish he could have ended his career here.

The Poll: Do You Like the Camby Trade?

I know many of you may feel like the answer to that is "Yes" AND "No" but when push comes to shove, would you have pulled the trigger if you were GM and this was the exact offer?

Details to Think About - IMHO (Short answers, to the best of my knowledge - feel free to correct me)

1. Does this affect the Clippers option of offering big money to a free agent in the coming offseason?

NO. Camby, Blake & Outlaw all have expiring contracts. They are all free agents at the the end of this season. Potential cap space has not been affected for better or worse.

2. Does this affect the Clippers ability of offering big money to a free agent in the coming offseason?

YES. True, we don't know for sure how much money the Clippers got to do this...Steve says $3M while BlazersEdge has Bucher reporting $1.5M. Of course, the Clippers just put out a vague "cash considerations".

BlazersEdge made a good point that Camby has some incentive money coming to him at the end of the season.

"Pritchard told me the Blazers are fully on the hook for the bonus provisions in Camby's contract, which could reach roughly $2 million dollars. Roughly $1.5 million of those provisions are considered "likely" to be achieved according to ShamSports.com. ESPN's Marc Stein is also reporting that the Blazers threw in $1.5 million dollars to complete the deal."

So that may be where Steve got the $3M total from. Either way that's money they can use to chase a big name in the summer.

3. How does this affect the Clippers on the court this season?

Positives

A. Outlaw has the potential to be the starting SF when fully recovered. I think he's better than Butler or Thornton.
B. Blake is a very decent PG off the bench. Just don't ask him to make free throws to clinch a game.
C. DeAndre Jordan gets more game time, hopefully develops into starting caliber center or very good backup.

Negatives

A. Loss of great mentor, hustle player, massive rebounder & shot blocker in Camby.
B. Rasual or Thornton may have to go. One or both may be unhappy about losing minutes to Outlaw.
C. Chemistry. A new coach plus two new players and the loss of a starter doesn't sound like wins to me.

For more in-depth discussions and arguments for and against see comments in Steve's post.

Things That Make You Go Hmmmmmmm

Why did they waive Ricky Davis? Why didn't they waive Bobby Brown?

From what I've seen so far, Bobby Brown has looked awful. So I can only assume one of two things. 1 - He is actually a decent point guard but we haven't seen it in a game yet. OR 2 - He's a 3rd string point guard being kept on for emergencies. (I guess both could be true, but I doubt #1...)

But shouldn't Telfair be the 3rd string now behind Blake?

Yes. So either Telfair is not recovering well from injury OR Dunleavy has plans to dump his contract, freeing up even more money for a big offer to a free agent this summer. (Again, both could be true technically but who would want a gimpy PG with a contract running into next season?)

Does This Mean Al Thornton's a Bust?

In my book, yes. I was hoping Al Thornton could be as good or better than Maggette but it doesn't look that way at this point. Bringing in Outlaw feels to me like a signal that Dunleavy is dun with Al. Either Outlaw impresses us tremendously this year and earns himself a contract or the Clips go shopping in the summer for a brand new SF.