Give Me The Rock

How does a team ruin its season before it starts? One of the best ways is to have your all-star rupture his Achilles during the off season. That’ll do. We’ve broken down the Brand injury and what he can expect this season, but what about the rest of the team? For starters, they’re banged up too. ClipperSteve of Clips Nation discusses the various injuries affecting the Clippers entering training camp. If everyone can remain healthy, here is the Clips starting lineup come November:

Starters:
PG: Sam Cassell (150, 160)
SG: Cuttino Mobley (81, 78)
SF: Corey Maggette (78, 115)
PF: Tim Thomas (127, 117)
C: Chris Kaman (120, 143)

Bench:
Ruben Patterson (79, 106)
Brevin Knight (104, 119)
Al Thornton (R)
Quinton Ross (228, 184)
Aaron Williams (346, 333)
Paul Davis (397, 375)
Yaroslav Korolev (445, 433)
Dan Dickau (366, 356)
Josh Powell (363, 378)

In street clothes:
Elton Brand (10, 10)
Shaun Livingston (119, 140)

Brand, as you’ll see him to start the year

Thanks to both Clips Nation and ClipperBlog for their amazing coherent and persuasive writing about the Clippers. They almost made me want to become a fan.

PG
Sam Cassell will be 38 this November and is closely following Gary Payton down the aging point guard career path. Last stop? A 10-day contract with Denver in 2009. He missed 24 games last year with some foot, back, and groin problems, which sounds more like my father’s last doctors visit than a professional athlete. On the floor, Cassell’s assists per game dropped to 4.7 last season, his lowest rate since 1996. His points, threes, field goal percentage, and steals were also down (as were his minutes). With the Clips adding both Brevin Knight, and more recently, Dan Dickau this off season, this might be the end of the road for Cassell. He’s a clear “avoid” come draft day.

SG
If you need a good shooting guard in the 10th round of your draft, then draft Cuttino Mobley. If not, then don’t. Why do people who write about fantasy sports always have to make things so complicated?

SF
Back in 2004, Corey Maggette’s game was similar to that of Luol Deng’s. He was a good scorer who didn’t take a lot of threes but rebounded well and had above average percentages. Like Deng, all that goodness added up to a top 50 fantasy player at the time. But then Maggette got hurt, missed a lot of the 2005-06 season, and started slowly coming off the bench last season. But here’s something to be excited about: looking at his March and April, Maggette averaged 20/6/4, which is almost right in line with his 2004 numbers. Kevin Arnovitz of ClipperBlog discusses the hows and whys of Maggette turning his season around.

Is Maggette back? It’ll be out secret, but yes. He could be a top fifty player this season with or without Brand in the lineup.

Corey Maggette: Coming to a rim near you

PF
If Elton Brand is a nice refreshing Dr. Pepper, then Tim Thomas is a Mr. Pibb. Both supposedly do the same thing, but one goes down smooth and the other tastes like a carbonated barbershop lollipop… or something like that. Moving on, let’s break down the numbers and throw out a rock solid prediction. In his starts last season, Thomas averaged a 12.4/6.3/2.4 with 1.8 threes a game. Solidly solid, for sure, especially for a backup power forward. Plugging that line into the player rater and Thomas would be a 8th round pick.

Unfortunately, Thomas’ hold on the starting spot is tenuous. Al Thornton is ready to play and if Thomas falters even briefly, Thornton will be given a shot at the starting spot. In fact, Thornton is going about 40 spots before Thomas in the GMTR mock draft round-up, which tells you all you need to know about how people feel about Tim Thomas.

Oh yeah, then there’s the fact that Brand will likely be back this year, most likely in February. Can you wait that long for relief?

C:
With Brand’s injury, Chris Kaman’s stock takes a white man size jump. He goes from a decent back-up center, a Zaza if you will, to a Zaza teetering on C1 worthiness. Kaman is going to be pretty much all there is down in the post for the Clips until Brand returns. He’s dealing with a sore lower back right now which has kept him out of some pre-season action, but if he can stay healthy this season (no guarantee), expect him to bounce back to at least his 2005-06 level – 12 and 10 with a block and a half. I’d draft that before Eddy Curry and maybe Zydrunas Ilgauskas.

Bench
The Brand injury permeates the entire Clippers team. While Tim Thomas will likely start at the 4 for now, Al Thornton comes NBA-ready and could see a great deal of time on this non-playoff team. Josh Powell had a great summer and could be one of the first guys off the bench. Believe it when you see it. GMTR favorite and fellow wife-beater Rubin Patterson can fill in at the 3 or 4 or 5, although his year will be nowhere as good as his 2006-07. Thornton aside, the guy with the most breakout potential on this team is… Brevin Knight? Yes, I do have a mild form of insanity, but Sam Cassell is old and won’t have much to play for on this team. I’d be more excited about Knight if he could actually stay healthy. And if both Cassell and Knight go down, there’s always Danny “D is definitely not for defense” Dickau. Finally. Shaun Livingston is practicing again and should be back on the court by mid-year. But I’m just talking about him as an excuse to show this picture again.

GMTR Draft Prediction
Corey Maggette: 7th Round
Chris Kaman: 10th
Elton Brand: 10+ (depending on your level of patience)
Cuttino Mobley: 10/11
Al Thornton: 11+
Tim Thomas: 11+
Brevin Knight: 12+
Sam Cassell: Don’t draft