Well, unfortunately, you can all but rule out a sign-and-trade for Brand. Guess he's re-signing...

I know Brand would have looked nice here, but I'm glad for him. I'll always root for Elton because he's been nothing but class and I think he's finally going to get rewarded for that because LA finally looks like a team that can make some noise in the west. They have as good of a big men combo as any team in the NBA (Kaman/Brand), a rock solid PG (Davis) and a pretty solid scoring guard in Mobley (who has quietly had a pretty good couple seasons in LA) and a really really good young player in Thornton (he came on very strong late in the season).

They'll have to improve the depth of the bench and it would be huge if they had an exception to go out and offer a deal to a legit role player (but I don't know if they do have the MLE).

They do have a couple of other useful pieces there as well...Tim Thomas isn't anything to write home about but he's a decent scorer off the bench...they're holding Eric Gordon now who can give them depth at both guard positions and who knows how much scoring yet...they may well still bring Livingston back just to see if he can give them anything come training camp (who knows though). They need a little more depth in their front court behind Kaman and Brand, that's their biggest need, since Thomas could move over and play SF for a while if they needed.

Livingston could turn into a nice asset, but they didn't offer him up a qualifying offer and my guess is with Davis there he'll find another team to go in as a backup (which may not have that good of a starter) where he'll be able to compete for a starting job if he can show he's past his injuries and still possesses similar quickness. One thing about Livingston is that he has tremendous court vision and I mean tremendous vision.

The Clippers' season will probably come down to their wings. Davis/Brand/Kaman is pretty huge, but you can't really count on the other guys to do anything but score a bit, and their shot attempts will go down now with Brand healthy (Davis basically just replaces Maggette's shots). Good wing players should have a field day against them, the D at those spots isn't very impressive. They should make the playoffs because of that PG/PF combo (won't be easy, though Denver can be passed and Dallas/Phoenix could be vulnerable if their limps down the stretch continue), after that it gets a lot tougher though.

Don't forget about Al Thornton, he's a beast and has the capability of putting up big numbers next season at the 3 spot.

Eh, he's decent. He's a solid athlete but isn't a terribly efficient scorer. He could definitely struggle to get 11 shots a game again. He's also not much of a defender and he's a lot older than most rookies (already 24, 25 in December), so he probably doesn't have as much room to grow, especially when compared to people from the same class like Thaddeus Young.

I think they got a steal with Gordon... Before he messed up his wrist he was taking over games.

I think if he didn't have to deal with the coaching garbage and wasn't hurt he would be in the argument with Beasely and Rose.

Well, early on in the season the competition also kind of sucked. Both of those contributed, but his shot selection was a pretty big culprit as well. For a guy that has been reputed to be an awesome shooter 34 percent isn't very good at all, and shooting contested 3's several steps past the arc didn't help with that. It is kind of hard to figure out exactly how big an impact the wrist had, but I still wouldn't bet on him shooting a high percentage or taking care of the ball. He did look like another Monta Ellis early on with good range, but there wasn't a whole lot of a sample size. I have a hard time seeing him make a major impact in his first year or two.