Davis happy to be a Clipper, even without Brand

Tag : Cement Shoes
(Brand) did a great job recruiting me. A great job. He got mehere," Davis said, laughing and with a huge grin on his face. "I'mnot giving him like my agent fees or anything, though.
"But there was never an underground handshake. We talked about it,yes. But we also talked about going to school together in college.Me and EB have been friends since the 10 th grade. No matter whatwe say to each other, at the end of the day, you have to do what'sgoing to cement your future and something that you're going to becomfortable with, and that's what he did."
When exactly did Davis realize Brand wasn't going to join him withthe Clippers?
"I had a feeling he was going to go when he stopped texting me andturned his phone off," Davis said, laughing heartily once again.
At that point, he admitted that the thought did cross his mind thatthis trip down to L.A. might not be such a good idea after all. Asource indicated that Golden State even came back with a counteroffer on Wednesday, just to see if it could tempt him to come back.
"But my grandmother raised me to be committed to the things that Isay," he said. "And when I really looked at the opportunity here, Iwas like, 'This is where I need to be.' "
The Clippers seemed ecstatic to have him. Clippers coach MikeDunleavy even called it the most significant free agent signing inclub history, though team president Andy Roeser hinted that theclub might not be done for the summer yet. Not with $12 million insalary cap space still available - in part because the teamremounced the rights to point guard Shaun Livingston, Dan Dickau,Boniface Ndong, Smush Parker and James Singleton.
Roeser also said the team has a "blank check" from owner DonaldSterling to "do whatever is necessary" to put a great team togetherfor next season.
Whatever the roster looks like, with Brand gone the Clippers willdepend more than ever on Davis, who led the Warriors on theirsurprise playoff run in 2006-07.
"Baron plays every style," Dunleavy said. "He's a power pointguard. He can push the ball, run the floor, he's got a great postgame. his versatility, his ability, there's nothing on the court hecan't do.
"For some of our guys, it'll be the first time they've played witha point guard who can really make plays and create easy buckets."
It would've been nice to pair him with Brand, of course. And it'sclear it's going to take some of the Clippers' brass a while to getover losing their franchise power forward.
"I honestly don't understand it," Dunleavy said. "EB basicallysaid, 'Let's get BD.' So we made that run, we went after it, andElton led the way with it by calling Baron and recruiting him. Wewere able to work out a deal, and Elton was totally a part of thatdeal. We all thought it was done.
"There's a contract that was marked up by David Falk, saying, 'Makethese changes in language, this is what we want and if Baron Davisis good to go, we're good to go.' "
Then, on July 1, Dunleavy said - and he pulled out his BlackBerrywith the text message dated at 7:53 p.m. to prove it - Brand senthim a text message asking him to make some changes to the languageof that contract.
"I texted him back, and then, in the morning" - again, Dunleavyshowed reporters the time-stamp, this time 9:32 a.m. to prove it -"I wrote him back saying, 'I got it all done for you, language andETO (early termination option).' But that was the last I heard fromhim," Dunleavy said.
"Then, it all changed, and I don't know the reason for it. DavidFalk had an incredible influence on him, to poison him in some wayagainst us. We never even got a call to understand there even was aproblem, or why there was a problem. ... It was uncharacteristic ofEB."
Still, after all that, Dunleavy left the room Thursday smiling.Davis was on board and the Clippers still had $12 million in capspace to work with, and there's every indication they will spendit.
Wednesday night, the team met with Atlanta forward Josh Smith andhis agent Brian Dyke, though no offer was made to the restrictedfree agent. It's likely the club will take the weekend to assessits options and decide its next move. No other team has enough capspace to outbid the Clippers at this point.
"While it's going to be different than we anticipated, that's theway it goes in the NBA. You have to adapt and watch, we will," teampresident Andy Roeser said. "The the silver lining is that whenElton opted out, it gave us the cap space we needed to go and getone of the top point guards in the league, and that's what we didwith Baron Davis.
"We still have a little more work to do. We're armed with $12million in cap space and kind of a blank-check commitment from ourownership to do what needs to be done to put the best team outthere."