Yesterday’s news, but worth noting. From the LA Times:

In this financial climate, the Clippers have cause for celebration for negotiating an agreement that gives the team a solid and predictable broadcast home.

The deal is set to last seven years, according to three sources, none of whom were authorized to speak publicly. The sources also said the deal is worth substantially more than the $12.5 million a year in revenue the Clippers had received in their previous arrangement with over-the-air KTLA and Fox Sports.

No one was happier with Thursday’s news than Ralph Lawler, the veteran Clippers broadcaster.

“I can’t tell you how pleased I am to have all of our games on one carrier,” he said. “I’ve been frustrated for years because it’s been so easy for Lakers fans. If it’s a road game they’re on Channel 9, home game, Fox [Sports West]. We haven’t had that advantage ever.”

Exceeding their over-the-air deals and setting up shop at Prime Ticket is a nice coup for the franchise, particularly in this economy. The only downside — the KTLA bumper music was always a bit groovier than the boilerplate stuff on Prime Ticket, which is shared by every team across the league on a Fox Sports affiliate.

Tommy Craggs of Deadspin reports on a former NBA scorekeeper who cooked the books for the Grizzlies, inflating stats such as individual assists and rebounds.

The story suggests that the manipulation of individual stats is endemic in the NBA, and there is plenty of evidence that players are the beneficiaries of measurably higher totals at home. This makes sense: NBA franchises have a vested interest in their players, and a triple-double or an impressive streak of double-digit rebounding games is an easy way to get a team showcased on Sportscenter and makes for a nice capsule in the next day’s notes column.

But what if a franchise wanted to depress the value of its players to keep payroll down?

In the latter half of the 1990s, the Clippers held down their own players’ assists with an almost suspicious regularity. Between 1987 and 2009, home teams assisted on 61.8 percent of their field goals; away teams, 58.3 percent — a gap of 3.5 percentage points in favor of the home squads. Year after year, the Clippers reversed the trend. In 1996, the Clips’ scorekeepers credited the team with assists on 47 percent of its field goals (with only Pooh Richardson averaging more than five assists per game); in other arenas, the same Clippers team assisted on 60 percent of its field goals, a difference of 13 percentage points. No team since 1987 has underreported its own assists by a larger margin. Second-largest: The Clippers in 1999, with a difference of 12.2 percentage points. Third-largest: The Clippers in 1998, at 12.1 points. Fifth-largest: The Clippers in 1997, at 9.1 points.

“The numbers are huge,” Alex says. “It’s pretty amazing. This is total conjecture. But do I think someone from management went to them and said, ‘You need to underrerport stats’? There’s no way — even with an organization as dysfunctional as the Clippers. That would expose them to civil liability, if they’re intentionally diminishing the market for a player — that’s almost criminal. But if someone goes to a statistician and says, ‘We’re being way too liberal on steals, blocks and assists,’ that’s probably legitimate. You can define that as, ‘We want the numbers to be correct.’ But as a practical consequence, your own players look worse on paper.”

At times last season, it was tempting to believe that Clippers fans were being subjected to a conspiratorial disaster.  The next time you’re feeling really badly about the team, just remember there was a period when those conspiracies weren’t just metaphors.

Gary Woelfel from The Journal Times in Wisconsin: From Woelfel:  “My impeccable sources tell me the Bucks and the Los Angeles Clippers recently had some serious conversations about a sign-and-trade deal involving Bucks free-agent point guard Ramon Sessions. Of course, the Clippers and New York Knicks – Sessions’ other main suitor – realize they only have to extend any offer sheet to secure Sessions’ services because the Bucks aren’t in any financial position to match it.”

Steve Perrin from ClipsNation with some Sessions thoughts: From Perrin: “Sessions is merely waiting to see if one of two things happens — if the Knicks can move a contract, or if the Bucks rescind the Qualifying Offer.  Neither is likely, but he clearly wants to play in NY (which makes sense), so he’s going to wait it out.”

Some Ramon Sessions highlights: Unless you have league pass and/or a weird Bucks fetish, you probably didn’t see Ramon Sessions play a whole lot last year. Even if you’re sick of all things Sessions, get nostalgic and skip to .28 seconds for the “NBA Jam” throwback graphic. If you like dunks and you don’t care who knows, go ahead and watch Patrys15’s Craig Smith Mix as well.

Just another reason to thoroughly enjoy Blake Griffin: I think it’s safe to assume that B.G. is the first professional athlete to ever tweet Aristotle. Amidst this whole Beasley controversy, it’s nice to see the Clippers new franchise player tweeting harmless,  motivational quotes.

And now, for some “lighter” news: Everyone’s favorite foreign center has dropped an incredible amount of weight, and is reportedly down to 300 pounds with an incredibly (perhaps unrealistically) low 8% body fat. Sofo may never put on a Clippers uniform, but at least he will look less like Mark Jackson’s brother now if he does. All jokes aside, Sofo’s newly transformed body has treated him well so far; the big man poured in 11 points yesterday in Greece’s 66-65 win over Serbia. We’ll check back on him as the EuroBasket tournament progresses.

The release of Mark Madsen is just another move in what has been an unpredictably busy offseason for the Clippers. Madsen was scheduled to make 2.8 million dollars this year, but his release will save the Clippers an unspecified amount off that figure. This move was not made for monetary reasons however, regardless of the actual dollar amount that the Clippers saved. The motivation behind releasing Madsen is that it creates another open roster space, bringing the Clippers roster down to 12 players. That leaves 2 open spots for Dunleavy, who typically enters the season with a 14 man roster.

Regarded as one of the league’s nicest guys, Madsen undoubtedly would have had a positive influence on the Clippers locker room. However, without a clear path to playing time in the crowded frontcourt, the probability of Madsen making an actual impact with his play was highly unlikely. The Clippers simply have too many needs to justify holding onto a backup who wasn’t slated to play any minutes, even if said backup could have helped positively alter team chemistry. Remember, the Clippers could really use another backup point guard, and a shooter off the bench, and Madsen is neither of those things.

This is where Ramon Sessions comes back into the picture. We’ve speculated all summer long about Sessions, but Madsen’s release appears to be another fallen domino. You have to imagine that this will intensify talks if nothing else; it’s unlikely that management would waive Madsen if they didn’t have a plan for his roster spot. After all, when is the last time Clippers management paid someone not to play for them? For a historically frugal franchise, this move signals a step in the right direction. Madsen’s value was unlikely to manifest itself in terms of on-court production, so the Clippers released him to bring in someone who has a better chance at producing and helping the team on the floor. That makes sense, and it’s hard to argue that Mark Madsen, even with his expiring contract as a trade chip, is more valuable than a Ramon Sessions or Steve Novak.

That’s not to say Madsen’s release doesn’t raise some interesting questions. For example, why was Mark Madsen released instead of Ricky Davis? Davis has a 2.4 million deal that expires this year, so both players have very similar contracts. Ricky Davis doesn’t exactly carry the reputation of being a guy good chemistry guy like Madsen does, although Ricky is unquestionably more talented. But if you had the choice for a 12th man who will rarely see the floor, it’s a pretty easy decision, right? You pick the energetic, encouraging, towel waving goofball. Madsen has to be an easier expiring contract to trade as well – Ricky Davis is about as popular as the plague amongst NBA GM’s. I may be jumping to conclusions, but releasing Madsen instead of Davis tells me that Dunleavy plans on giving Ricky a nice chunk of playing time, health permitting. It’s the only conclusion that really makes any sense. Why else would you let Ricky Davis hang around your basketball team?

Even if they may have targeted the wrong player, releasing Madsen was probably the right thing to do. Steve Novak is likely headed back to Los Angeles now, and an additional mystery player will be joining him. Sessions seems like the obvious candidate for the spot, but it is possible he still has little interest in fighting for a second string spot with Sebastian Telfair. Some of the additional free agents we previously listed have now headed off to Europe, such as Maurice Ager and Von Wafer. One player who hasn’t gone to Europe is Allen Iverson, and the possibility of him becoming a Clipper still looms. Perhaps a more realistic scenario would be the Clippers bringing back Mike Taylor. He knows the players, coach, and system, and is still young. He’s obviously not option number one, but don’t rule him out if Sessions happens to become unavailable.

By waiving Madsen, the Clippers lose a great character guy and a trading chip, but they gain valuable roster flexibility and something all good GM’s crave: Options.

From Clippers.com:

The Los Angeles Clippers today waived forward Mark Madsen.

Madsen was acquired from the Minnesota Timberwolves on July 22nd along with Sebastian Telfair and Craig Smith in exchange for Quentin Richardson.

The Clippers’ roster currently stands at 12 players.

We’ll update this situation as soon as more financial details of Madsen’s release become available.

We put together a feature over at ESPN.com where we asked the TrueHoop Network bloggers to discuss their second-favorite team. Both D.J. Foster and I participated.

D.J.’s response:

On nights when the old ball and chain is unavailable, I’ll often find myself committing fan infidelity with the Golden State Warriors. The love for this group of misfits starts with the completely awesome and unquestionably terrifying Stephen Jackson, who was once phenomenally quoted as saying that he “makes love to pressure”.  Captain Jack sparked my original love interest, but Anthony Randolph and his absolutely baffling skill set is what really keeps the flame burning. To wit, Ronny Turiafs’ dancing, Andris Biedrins’ logic defying haircut and the league’s most rabid fanbase are equally entertaining and endearing. Basically, the Warriors are everything your NBA mistress should be; Fun, but so insane and wholly dysfunctional that you’ll never leave your significant other for them.

My answer:

Most of us bristle at Jerry Krause’s contention that players don’t win championships — organizations do. Krause’s claim might have been overstated, particularly in the case of the Jordan-era Bulls. That said, there’s a grain of truth embedded deep inside his axiom. An NBA franchise isn’t just a collection of players and contracts — it’s also a collection of ideas.

Innovation doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the result of creative individuals who take risks. The Houston Rockets’ boldness is changing the way we understand the NBA game. There’s a reason the plucky Rockets managed to overcome devastating injuries to their marquee players and still push the NBA champions to the brink of elimination. The entire organization, from ownership to management to the coaching staff, down to the players bought into a common philosophy, one built not on assumptions about the game, but on a devotion to empirical truths. This practice maximizes the talents of those (limited, but resilient) players.

A couple of the other bloggers selected the Clippers as their second-favorite squad:

Kurt Helin, Forum Blue & Gold (Los Angeles Lakers blog)
The Clippers have one my favorite players in Baron Davis who, when his body isn’t betraying him or when he hasn’t mentally checked out, is just flat out fun to watch. Davis went to India this offseason, had some sort of epiphany (we can all hope that said enlightenment involves ignoring Mike Dunleavy when he tells Davis to slow it down), and he promises to try this season. Then there’s Blake Griffin, who was fun to watch at Summer League and made me a believer, and he seemed to have instant chemistry with Eric Gordon. And the list goes on — they’ve got emerging young guys like Al Thornton, plus a front-line combo of Marcus Camby and DeAndre Jordan that promises to give you one coming-from-the-weakside shot block into the third row every game. As it’s the Clippers, there’s the strong possibility things will go wrong in a spectacular fashion. That’s fun to watch too, in a Macbeth sort of way. Either way, I’m good with the Clippers this season. I want them to get the eighth seed in the West, so the first round is a Hallway Series at Staples Center. I really, really want that.

Matt McHale, By the Horns (Chicago Bulls blog)
As a fan, the worst possible experience is watching my team fail when I expected them to succeed. Well, the Clippers are never expected to succeed. And that’s actually a good thing, because there’s no pressure whatsoever. The Clippers would never crush my optimism because I wouldn’t have any. Then the rare victory would be that much sweeter. It would be like walking down a dark alley and, instead of getting brutally mugged, finding a crisp new one hundred dollar bill. Watching the Bulls start out slowly (thanks to that darn circus road trip) and then fight to make the playoffs every season really stresses me out. Following the Clippers would be great for my blood pressure, plus I’d get to make Clippers jokes all the time. That would provide an endless source of material. Just ask Kevin Arnovitz and Bill Simmons.

Question for Clipperblog readers: Who’s your second favorite team — and why?