You can’t blame Brand for wanting to win
Mark Whicker Orange County Register
The Clippers essentially traded Elton Brand and Corey Maggette for Baron Davis.They also received a ton of salary-cap space, which can’t run the pick-and-roll.Might as well call Kobe. What the heck.From the moment Brand announced he was opting out of his contract last week, the intelligent Clippers fan should have sensed the anvil coming down.It […]
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Orange County Register
The Clippers essentially traded Elton Brand and Corey Maggette for Baron Davis.

They also received a ton of salary-cap space, which can’t run the pick-and-roll.

Might as well call Kobe. What the heck.

From the moment Brand announced he was opting out of his contract last week, the intelligent Clippers fan should have sensed the anvil coming down.

It didn’t matter that he was leaving management lots of room to get him some help. It didn’t matter that Davis was coming, and it didn’t matter Brand said his heart lived in the palm trees. It really didn’t matter that Brand’s movie business is here.

What did matter was that Brand wants to win an NBA championship. Say this for most of the NBA’s elite: That’s usually what moves them. Since the real championship contenders had no room to accommodate Brand, he had to bet on the fastest horse available. That horse is Philadelphia, which got Brand’s word on a five-year, $82 million deal Wednesday.

The 76ers are energized by new general manager Ed Stefanski but fortified by the work Billy King did before he was fired. They won two playoff games over Detroit this spring. They were 18-30 and wound up 40-42.

They have an improving, shot-blocking center in Samuel Dalembert, a jaggeed bolt of lightning named Andre Igoudala (a restricted free agent whom the 76ers now have to sign), and a developing force in Thaddeus Young. They also have Andre Miller, a point guard who actually directs the ball to the scorers, a detail that doesn’t always interest Davis.

And the 76ers are in the East, which is not only Brand’s home territory but is a place where you don’t have to win 50 games to learn the secret knock to the playoffs. It always was the place that made the most sense for Brand, who no doubt will be blasted as a mercenary by journalists who would put on the clown suit for a five-spot. But Brand could have made more money at Golden State.

On Wednesday, agent David Falk said the Clippers gave Brand a drop-dead offer on June 30 that was significantly lower than Philadelphia’s money, although other reports insist the Clippers were going to bid in the same ballpark. You are permitted to believe none of the above.

The point is that Brand has snapped an Achilles’ tendon and missed most of an NBA season and he’s 29 years old besides. It’s time to deal in the now. The Clippers offered a blueprint. The 76ers offered a house.

Some people might have thought they heard Brand promise something to the Clippers franchise. He was already operating under a promise. It’s called a contract, and the Clippers gave him a chance to escape it and become a free agent, and Brand did so.

It is not the Clippers’ fault that young Shaun Livingston wrecked his knee, in typically grotesque and cruel Clippers fashion, but it is not Brand’s fault either. Neither is it Brand’s fault the Clippers picked Yaroslav Korolev 14th in the 2005 draft, five picks ahead of Danny Granger (Indiana) and 26 picks ahead of Monta Ellis (Golden State). Or that the Clippers slipped to sixth in the 2003 lottery, which meant they took Chris Kaman one pick after Miami stole Dwyane Wade.

Indeed, the fact the Clippers burrowed Brand out of Chicago in 2001, for the rights to Tyson Chandler, disproves the notion that the franchise wears the Seventh Sign.

For a while there he was the best player in town. He made the Clippers a likeable, low-maintenance alternative to the rancorous Lakers. And he could play. He is one of four NBA guys who averages double-figure points and rebounds. Most of all he was a locker room axis. With Brand around, nothing could spin apart.

And then, of course, it did. When Brand healed he saw Kaman and Cuttino Mobley and Al Thornton, and then the Clippers drafted Eric Gordon and got a commitment from Davis. But that crew alone was surely no lock to make the West playoffs, not with Portland riding Greg Oden’s shoulders.

Brand’s worst disservice to the Clippers was timing. There is nothing left on the unrestricted free-agent market but ashtray dust. There are some answers in the restricted market, but their teams can always match the Clippers’ offer. Still, beware the team with nothing to lose. The Clippers can pursue the outrageously gifted Josh Smith (Atlanta), center Emeka Okafor (Charlotte), swingman Josh Childress (Atlanta), or even Ellis, Igoudala or Sasha Vujacic.

All of this puts the Clippers back at the 2009 lottery table, where Elgin Baylor has carved his initials. And it brings another difficult period of truth for those Clippers fans who can handle it.

All Brand left behind Wednesday were his words from ’01, when he was describing two years of desolation in Chicago: “The worst part is that I could feel myself accepting the losing. And that’s not me.”

It still isn’t.