Brand off to Sixers; Maggette joins Warriors

Brand (career high of 25 PPG) and Maggette (career high of 22 PPG): both gone. All I know is this...Al Thornton's fantasy value just went up.

Damn. I guess this just goes to show...never predict a team's future before free-agent season has finished. Everything I wrote about the Clippers the other day is bogus. Without Brand, I don't think they are going anywhere. Baron is great...Brand is greater in my mind. But if I've learned anything today, its as I just said: do not judge before free-agent season has finished. Perhaps in the next couple of days they can manage to lure another big name player their way. Let's not judge them yet...

Scratch that...it's the Clippers. If you think about it, this is the way things were meant to pan out. After a history of being one of the least winningest franchises in sports history, the Clippers make the play-offs in '06, push Phoenix to 7 games, and give the fans some hope for the future. This is followed up with two lack-lustre, injury-riddled seasons, where it seems as if they are neither challenging nor rebuilding. This all makes perfect sense: the Clippers simply aren't meant to have prolonged success.

But after the Clippers agreed to sign Baron Davis last week, it all seemed perhaps times were indeed changing. "Brand and Davis, with some decent talent to build around? Yes please...Maggette? We aren't concerning ourselves with him anymore!" My whole post below sums up the feelings in Clipperland post-Baron, pre-today's horrible news. Now? Of course, it all makes perfect sense.

So that is twice Clippers fans have been treated with a cause to be optimistic, only to have it taken away. The first time was a longer gruelling process, the second short and sharp. Perhaps third time lucky? Don't count on it...it's the Clippers.