29 at the half!!! good grief.

The Clippers really stink. How much is Cassell going to have to pay to get out of his contract is the only remotely interesting question.

I am so sick of hearing about "buying out Sam Cassell," which never made any sense. Cassell is going to have to give some money back. Let's see how much

I know some of you guys love Corey Maggette...but he is without a doubt the worst clutch performer I've ever seen.

We shoot at only 31%, our Point Guards get 1 point between them and we only go down by 2 points. YIKES

Thank god for CM & TT who scored 66% of the score

Cassell is a selfish prick for faking an injury. We could've used him tonight. I hope Mr. Sterling refuses to give him a buyout. Why should he get to go to the playoffs? He should stay and suffer with the rest of us Clipper fans. At least, he gets paid millions to sit in the bench and act like he cares.

Man, the Clippers are going to miss Maggette's scoring when he is gone. I hope Sterling puts the blame for his opting out on Dunleavy and gets rid of him, too. And Baylor.

I'm torn about Cassell's buyout - on the one hand this whole buyout business is complete bullcrap and a cancer on the league because all these washed up veterans think they're entitled to one last shot at glory. On the other hand, I'm willing to let Sam go out of respect for making this sad sack organization semi-respectable however temporary it turned out to be.

Cassell hand is fine, I went to the Sprint store on Tuesday and the dude was shaking everybody's hand and signing balls, jersey's and pictures. To be honest if I was Sterling I would let him go, I mean if u could save a buck why not. Plus he was not going to be part of next year squad anyway atleast not in the amount he is getting paid now.

Now, for all you Corey haters does he need to prove that he is a quality player that we need to resign him. He score 30 some pts. He has been carrying the team, I really hope we could keep him. The person we need to get rid of is Mobley he is OK but not for no $9 million. We need to find a sucker that would take on that contract.

The problem we have is Elgin ass not being able to put deals together were he could sell such a trade.

Corey Maggette.... Scores 30-some points after a shaky 1st half..... makes a nice bucket with under a minute left to inch the Clippers closer.... then, with a few ticks on the clock, he airballs the potential winning basket (basically the same shot he made earlier).

This is nothing new. I wish he was our 4th best player.

To answer Mike's question about how much Sam will have to pay - looks like Clips want him to walk away entirely from the remaining $2.1 million on his contract. If he did that and then signed for the veteran minimum with the Celtics he'd lose roughly $1.7 million.

http://www.latimes.com/spor...

So Sam would lose $1.7m? I'm weeping for him.

Why should he walk with a pocket-full of cash, while none of us season ticket holders will get any compensation for watching a different team than the one we actually paid to see?

Sam's dead to me.

Corey scored 30 points, but used over 30 possessions making him a volume scorer who was only moderately efficient.

But wow, 30 points right?!

That game was a great example of why when Corey scores alot of points, the Clippers generally lose. Not because Corey played poorly. He didn't. He didn't cost them the game by any means. He was clearly the best player on the floor for the Clippers. (Actually TT was, but I'll play along.)But because he was merely an average scorer in terms of efficiency. If Corey is scoring many of the Clippers points, it means EB isn't. Which is bad.

The problem with Corey is mainly that he isn't who he thinks he is, and this puts those around him in difficult situations.

But hey, 30 points right?!

And you can always count on him to try to get fouled instead of trying to score with the last possession. And failing. Always. And no, he wasn't close to being fouled.

Corey is one of the most efficient scorers in the league as he makes more points on fewer attempts than just about anyone. This is not even debatable and the Clipps announcers even pointed this out. So, to try to criticize the guy for not being efficient shows total ignorance. As for your comments being directed strictly to last night (if you argue that that was all you were saying) 32 points on 20 shots is highly efficient in the NBA and it was a lot of shots for Corey. In case you didn't notice, he was the only Clipper who could make a basket last night and he single-handedly kept the Clippers in the game with 15 points in the third quarter. This with the defense focused on him because, again, he was the only Clipper who could make a basket. He is as far from a volume shooter as one can be. He is in fact the opposite of that.

Maybe some should focus their angst on some of the other Clippers who fail to perform and their coach who continues to make mind blowing personnel decisions like letting Corey sit for a substantial portion of the 4th and stubbornly starting Aaron Williams. What about Cat? Think any team in the NBA would be interested in trading for him? Didn't think so.

The Clippers problem is the lack of guards. You know what, I am convinced that even with EB the Clippers would suck this year. They have college level guards and you can't win with that in the NBA no matter how good your inside players are.

I can't imagine any other scenario for Sterling other than Sam walking away from the remainder of his money. Does sam think that the Clippers are going to pay him to play for another team? ONly in the NBA I suppose. That is why all the talk of the clippers "buying Sam out" was always crazy talk.

Just read that article. Thanks for the link. Cassell looks really really bad and unreasonable in all of this. He wants to play for another team and leave the Clippers, but get paid by the Clippers anyway based on what he has done in the past. Unbelievable cajones. I only wish the world outside the NBA operated that way.

I agree. I think he's been treated more than fairly. The Clippers gave him $13 million dollars as a thanks for his great 05-06 campaign.

It's business, not personal. If I was DTS i'd hold my ground. One reason the Clippers couldnt get anything for Sam at the deadline was because everyone knew that Sam would push for a buyout....so why trade for him when you can get him for practically free???

That's a good point ACD, but there is a solution for that problem. All the Clippers had to do was inform those potential trading partners that there would not be a "buyout" of Cassell after the trading deadline and then stuck to their guns. That's what a competent organization would have done in the Clippers position where they hold all the cards in this situation.

They were obligated to Sterling and then to the fans to obtain something for their rights under contract to Cassell's services. They failed miserably and someone should be fired over it. A second round pick or cash or whatever is worth more than nothing, isn't it?

Well, they just waived Sam. No mention of the buyout number though. Here's the press release:

http://www.nba.com/clippers...

Actually, they did pay him. I can't friggin believe it. OH wait, I guess I can. Stupid stupid stupid. Can't blame E.T. for getting his cash, but jeezuz we are in bad shape right now. If my business gave away the farm for absolutely nothing like the Clips have so far, I'd be working at AT&T as a collections agent. Damn they make it hard to be a fan. Check it out:

http://www.latimes.com/spor...

Well, Flip Murray can't be any worse than the Dickau/Knight tandem that scored 1 point on 0-8 shooting last night.

Flip Murray? An athletic 2-guard who can shoot the ball? We have no use for him

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

The Clippers HAD to pay Sam if they want to keep Brand this summer. David 'Satan' Falk reps both EB and ET and he'd have talked Elton out of sticking around for sure if Sam didn't get his cake and eat it, too. I will not be rooting for Sam to win another ring no matter where he goes - this buyout crap where lesser teams lose players to better teams for peanuts has got to stop.

Flip Murray sounds like Flip Wilson, and we already have a comedy act at PG

Nothing that bad with this. You're not going to get much for him. He's going to a be a back up pt guard on a good team. It's not a good thing that we got nothing for him and maybe they could have made a trade earlier, it's nothing bitch about.
I just see it as a good thing so the draft pick is better.

Look at the positives:

Having Knight and Dickau playing big minutes is an instant boost to our lottery odds. The Clippers just jumped from 7th to 4th or 5th....

Assuming we don't get the 1st or 2nd pick and land Derrick Rose, we could fill the hole at PG with:

Augustin (Texas)
Bayless (Arizona)
Collison (UCLA)
Lawson (UNC)
Westbrook (UCLA)

I don't see how the pick could go anywhere but PG, but I also thought Granger was the obvious pick at #12 in 2005 and MD/Elgin took Korolev instead.

One fun fact about last night's game..on the final possession with the Clips down two and about 5 seconds left, the reason the Clip ahd to inbound from the baseline and not half court is MD called a TO on the possession before that solely to yell at Maggette for being on the same side of the court as Cat.

Now, wether MD was right or wrong with where Maggs should have been is neither here nor there, but had idiot MD not taken that TO just to rip into Maggs, the Clips would have been able to take the ball in from mid-court and at least had a look at a shot to tie. Just one more example of MD not making the right decision with the game on the line. This of course was one of many down the stretch, but it's things like this that add up to losses with MD as head coach.

Ha ha ha...

how can you possibly blame that loss on Dunleavy? The players scored 29 points in the first half. It was a miracle and a great effor on Maggette's part and Portland's choking that let the Clipps back into the game.

Hey, I'm traveling to Greece this summer. Does anyone know if I can get a Sofo Jersey? I'd draft Mayo but don't draft any more Sfs

I find what Cassell did entirely unseemly. You sign with a team and then when things don't go well you demand to be paid to leave and go to another team so you can have fun leaving your team behind to grind it out. Try that in the world.

ACD, Dunleavy seems to constantly prefer to make the worst decisions possible, that take his team right out of the game.

Players play, and ultimimately they decide the outcome, but if the coach is constantly making poor decisions, especially when the game's on the line..you aren't exactly in the best position to succeed.
The goal is to execute when the game is on the line, not come close. Someone needs to tell MD close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

The numbers from Sam's buyout:

The point guard receives about $850,000 of the $1.7 million left on his $6.1-million contract and is expected to join the Celtics after clearing waivers.

If I'm DTS i take that offer and run... $850 K is probably what 1 home game in the playoffs 2 years ago made for him... and if i remember he had 5 playoff home games... and it would have NEVER happened without Mr. Cassell.

DTS saved a cool 900K to improve on next year's lotter... good deal!

I wish sam the best

I love it, way to tank the season.

I was thinking about horrible things in the past. Other than Livy's injury, Dominique Wilkins rather play in greece than with the clippers. That was pretty depressing.

jeff mcinnis anyone? again? hahaha

But yeah, thnx. I really thought the Clips played a great game. Also, thanx for proving that not all laker fans are obnoxious. Its always a great game when its LA vs LA so I hope will see another great game.