No other option comes close to the Clippers. And, remarkably, there are two completely different ways the Clips could land LeBron and still be historically great: (a) by clearing cap space by offloading several tradable players; or (b) by working with the Heat on a sign-and-trade of LeBron for Griffin. Naturally, the team would strongly prefer to keep Griffin. No doubt LeBron would also find it much more enticing to join the Clippers with Griffin still on the roster. So, well focus our analysis on that scenario -- but while noting that swapping Blake for LeBron also yields a Clippers roster that can be historically good. To free up enough cap space to sign LeBron as a max-level free agent, the Clippers would need to find a taker for the following players among teams with the cap room to absorb their contracts: DeAndre Jordan (owed $11.4 million next year), J.J. Redick ($6.8 million), Jamal Crawford ($5.4 million) and Jared Dudley ($4.2 million). According to RPM, Jordan is an elite starting center, and hes on a reasonable contract, so there would be no shortage of suitors for his services, even if the other team also had to take on Dudleys and/or Redicks contract to make it happen. Likewise, elite sixth-man Jamal Crawford is priced attractively enough to move without difficulty. And, if all else failed, LeBron could conceivably use his leverage to coerce Miami into a sign-and-trade with the Clippers for Jordan and others (a better option for the Heat than simply watching LeBron walk away).
Posted on: Tue, 01 Jul 2014 03:28:38 +0000
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