* Updated! Fixed.
As Janny Hu reports at the Chron site, and as makes sense if you're the Warriors, if just to stir up the Clippers' sense of well being, apparently the Warriors have told free agent Elton Brand that they'll offer him the maximum they're allowed-by my calculations, five years worth about $94M.
You had to figure that Chris Mullin's immediate reactions in the wake of Baron Davis' bolt to the Clippers and the opening up of all that Warriors' potential cap space were:
1) Call up Gilbert Arenas, tell him you'll offer him the max if he spurns the Wizards.
2) At the same time, call up Brand, tell him you'll offer him the max if he spurns the Clippers.
Whoever agrees first, gets the Warriors' money.
Problems with both: Washington can offer Arenas $30M or so more than the Warriors' best possible deal; the Clippers can offer Brand about $25M more than the Warriors' best possible.
(The current teams of F/As always can offer bigger raises and a six-year deal instead of a five-year deal. New teams can offer a maximum of five years.)
Now, Washington and Arenas is interesting because Arenas loved his short time with the Warriors, has a relationship with Mullin (when Mullin was a special assistant parallel to St. Jean), and… well, Gilbert is mercurial, to say the least.
But he took the most money when he signed with the Wizards in 2003 and I'd have to believe he'll take the most money from the Wizards this year. (OK, after the Baron Debacle, I'm always going to give myself wiggle room. He's Gilbert. You never know.)
Brand and the Clippers is supremely interesting, because I am not presuming that Brand and his agent, David Falk, were the ones who set up the whole Baron-opts-out/Brand-opts-out both land with the Clips in a package deal scenario.
Reports say Brand was/is going to take a deal worth about $13.5M per over six (about $81M total) and that Baron's deal is five years at $13M per ($65M total).
* ADDED (Sorry, screwed this up in an earlier version-dumb, because I got it right two days ago and yesterday) : It's important that Brand takes less than $15M per AND signs with the Clips before Baron signs because Brand's CAP HOLD as a free agent is larger than that, and the only way the Clippers can fit Baron in starting at $11M is if Brand's deal starts right around $12M or so.
Well, the Warriors can and might have already offered Brand more than $18M per over five and about $13M in total worth above the Clippers' proposed deal.
If Brand does not take that deal, and the Baron numbers can't be manipulated lower… either Brand is walking away from $12M (the difference between a Warriors' max offer and the Clippers with-Baron max offer) or Baron gets less than he expected from the LACs or the Clippers will have to pay Brand more and use the sign-and-trade route to get Davis.
But that's mostly just a shot across the Clippers' bow: Assuming the Clippers officially sign Davis first on July 9, they then can re-sign Brand above and beyond the salary cap.
Here's where it gets interesting!
The Clips might be limited by their own budget qualms and maybe they are. But, if they're determined too keep Brand, and I'm sure they are, they can offer Brand the same starting salary that the Warriors can (105% of his last salary, so the new starting salary would be $16.11M), higher annual raises ($1.69M vs. $1.29M) and tack on that last year (at $24.56M) if they want.
I'm not saying the Clippers would love to do this. And, if Falk jiggered this deal, it's unlikely that he'd throw out everything he tacitly agreed to just because the Warriors went mega-money on the Clips' forehead.
Brand wants to stay in LA. Brand wants to play with Baron. They did this together. It's still an entertaining move by Mullin and the Warriors, but the most likely result is that Brand gets more than the Clippers thought and/or Baron gets slightly less.
I think the Warriors would be just fine if the major result is that last part.
Or it could toss the whole thing back into sign-and-trade world for Davis or back to the table with the Warriors or… I dunno… I think I'm going to have to correct some more things on this post soon.
