Camby to Clippers for a 2nd rounder

Smokedawg

Smokedawg

Eagles Fan
Sources: Nuggets agree to trade Camby to Clippers for second-round pick

By Marc Stein
ESPN.com
(Archive)

<!-- promo plug --> <!-- end page tools --><!-- begin story body --> <!-- template inline --> The Los Angeles Clippers, exactly one week after finding out they had lost their face of the franchise, have rebounded with a significant trade acquisition.
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The Clippers on Tuesday agreed to terms on a deal with the Denver Nuggets to acquire center Marcus Camby as their replacement for Elton Brand, according to NBA front-office sources.

Sources told ESPN.com that the Clippers will only have to surrender a future second-round pick to acquire Camby, who is being jettisoned into the Clippers' salary-cap space vacated by Brand to generate payroll relief for the Nuggets.

A trade call with the league to approve the deal has been completed, sources said, clearing the way for the teams to announce the swap later Tuesday.

Camby, 34, is coming off a productive season in which he averaged 9.1 points, 13.1 rebounds and 3.61 blocks for the Nuggets, who won 50 games to claim the final playoff spot in what is regarded as the most competitive conference race in league history.

But the Nuggets have yet to advance out of the first round with their Allen Iverson-Carmelo Anthony-Camby core and, according to sources, opted to shed the remaining two years on Camby's contract (worth nearly $15 million) to create the flexibility that could allow for more changes.

The Nuggets had the league's fourth-highest payroll last season and are required to pay $13,572,079 in luxury taxes for last season by July 23.
 
For a 2nd round pick?? Wow, what a steal. A Camby/Kaman frontline will be great defensively and on the glass, but the clippers are going to live and die by the jump shot. No playoffs for them. Still a great trade for the clippers. Gotta believe he'll be traded by the deadline though
 
LOL they didnt even get a second round pick...they got an option to exchange 2nd round picks in 2010!!

AI must be PISSED
 
lol WOW. they literally gave their best defensive player away.

on offense they'll work together cuz camby likes to float on the perimeter and kaman plays in the post.
 
Puzzling at first glance, the Camby deal works for both sides



At first the Nuggets-Clippers trade is a bit of a head-scratcher -- Marcus Camby for the right to exchange No. 2 picks in 2010? Isn't he worth more than that? Heck, isn't pretty much anyone worth more than that?

Well, he is worth more that that, of course ... except if you're trying to cut costs, which the Nuggets rather clearly are, and have four other players that also make in excess of $10 million per season, and are trying to retain a fifth key player (J.R. Smith) who is a restricted free agent. In that event, having Camby around starts to look like a bit of a luxury.

From the Clippers' end, this trade starts out as a bit of a head-scratcher too. Shouldn't they have tried to use their cap space on bigger fry (say, Josh Smith or Emeka Okafor) before they went after the likes of Camby? And since they were the only team with cap space, wouldn't this deal still have been available three weeks from now if Smith's and/or Okafor's teams matched the Clippers' offer sheet?

Ultimately, however, the needs of both sides made this trade sensible for each.

The Clips can get their man right away and have some cap money left over to flesh out the roster -- not a minor consideration given their current lack of depth (L.A. only has eight players under contract). By plucking Camby instead of making a larger offer to Smith or Okafor, they have about $3 million in cap space left to snag another body before they're limited to minimum salaries. And if they had waited for the process with Smith and Okafor to play out before dealing for Camby, most of the desirable free agents for the bench slots would have been gone.

While Camby is no Elton Brand, he's not such a shabby replacement either. Put him out there with Chris Kaman, Baron Davis, Al Thornton and Cuttino Mobley, and the Clips remain respectable. Not a playoff team perhaps, and certainly miles away from title contention, but a decent team that can expect to hang around the .500 mark.

That Camby does this without harming their cap for future seasons is also helpful -- in fact the Clippers are one of the teams that could have a raft of cap space available for the much-anticipated 2010 free agent class, and picking up Camby does nothing to alter that since he only has two years left on his deal.

From Denver's side, the only way it could shed costs for the coming season was to make a trade with a team under the salary cap. The Clippers and Grizzlies were the only such teams, and the Griz aren't exactly chomping at the bit to spend their money, especially not on a 35-year-old with a history of injuries. So the Clippers basically had the market cornered and could name their price, which in this case was darn near nothing.

Certainly, this trade was a bit of a capitulation -- an acknowledgment that the Iverson-Anthony core, as presently constructed, isn't championship material and therefore not worth the substantial investment in luxury tax required to maintain it.

However, it also positions Denver to re-arm in multiple ways, and one gets the impression it won't be the last move the Nuggets make this summer.

For starters, Denver still has the option of using the $10 million trade exception generated in the deal. Theoretically it could use it right away, but more likely Denver will hang on to it until next year's draft and see who becomes available, because using it now will cost them $20 million once the luxury tax is throw in.

The other way Denver can go is to get under the cap for 2009, which seems like where they might be headed given some of this summer's other moves (trading their first-round pick, not re-signing Eduardo Najera). Take away the $10 million owed Camby and the expiring deals of Allen Iverson and Chucky Atkins, and Denver could find itself well under the salary cap if it follows through with a couple of secondary moves (paying somebody to take Steven Hunter, for instance). That would allow the Nuggets to rebuild on the fly around their 20-somethings, including Anthony (24), Smith (22), Nene (25) and Linas Kleiza (23), while adding a high-priced star to replace Iverson.

For now, however, this move certainly weakens the Nuggets on the court. Camby's shot-blocking made up for a ton of horrific mistakes by Iverson, Smith and Anthony on the perimeter, so Denver's defensive numbers should slide.

While Nene should improve on Camby's offensive numbers if he makes a healthy return from testicular cancer, he's arguably an even greater health risk than Camby at this point and isn't a shot-blocker. Additionally, the loss of Najera puts even more pressure on Nene to stay healthy. At the moment, he, Martin and Hunter are the only big men on Denver's roster.

That last item points to another possibility -- that the Nuggets may play even smaller and faster than they did a year ago by frequently employing Anthony or Kleiza as the power forward. Unfortunately, Camby's mobility made that style possible without too great a defensive cost. Without him, it appears the Nuggets may be taking a step back into the West's second tier.
 
so denver is officially out of the playoff chase. portland is obviously in. id like the clippers chances of making it as the 8 seed but dallas or houston would have to drop out and i dont see that happening.
 
the clippers are gonna suck

now that cambys a clipper, he'll probably play 15 games before getting hurt for the year
 
yah thats probably true. with the whole team intact they could do some damage, but ur right, that won't be for more than 15 games.
 
Makes sense, not for A.I though hehe

Marcus Camby has been traded to the Clippers for a conditional second round draft pick.
The Nuggets shipped him off for the right to switch second-round picks in 2010, or to put it simply: "nothing." The Nuggets are obviously looking to dump salary, and with Elton Brand in Philadelphia, the Clippers had about $12 million to spare on the 34-year-old injury-prone forward. The biggest selling point might have been that Camby's contract will expire at the same time as Cuttino Mobley and Tim Thomas, giving the Clippers tons of cap space during the "Summer of Lebron."
 
Smokedawg said:
the clippers are gonna suck

now that cambys a clipper, he'll probably play 15 games before getting hurt for the year
Click to expand...

you can throw in B. Davis riding the pine also due to injury. Kaman too......... Shawn Livingston the other pg (injury prone) also.
 
i thought the garnett trade was robbery until i saw this, camby for nothing, not even a second round pick but the right to swap, so it was basically for nothing

a win win in my opinion, really?

nuggets want to clear money they did, check, however nuggets are out of the plaoffs, welcome to the playoffs portland

clips wanted to get somebody to pair up w/ b-diddy, did they? no i doubt, but doesnt sound bad either as they get this for free, b-diddy, mobley/gordon, thornton, camby and kaman doesnt sound that bad on paper, they can defend and control the boards, but post scoring maybe a concern, also of course injuries... b-diddy, kaman, camby= all injury prone

can kaman and camby exist on the offensive end?

sure they can, kaman posts up a lot and has above par offensive skills, for camby? he likes to float around and take 18footers, and get to the offensive glass, so maybe they can co-exist on the offensive end

interesting on what happens for both teams... remember denver has a 10mil trade exception for a whole year, they can take on a highly paid star from any team that wants to clear cap space
 
Sorta strange deal. The Clips were in desperation mode after losing Brad. Josh Smith seems like a better fit, but Sterling is a cheap mutherfucker. He rather have an aging Camby, who he only has to pay for 2 more years, than sign Smith to a 5 year deal.

Good move for Denver, IMO. No one wanted Camby's contract considering his age. This will be AI's final year in Denver. This team can rebuild around Melo next year with some cap space.
 
SJ really summed it up in post number two.

As an AI fan and someone who really roots for the Nuggets to do well (they were my hometown team growing up), this trade sucks.

That said, the Nuggets aren't going anywhere in the West right now, that conference is stacked. If AI wants a ring he will have to go back East to even have a chance to get to the Finals.

And, truthfully, even the East is better now than it was three years ago.

Both Denver and AI are pretty well screwed at this point.
 
Marcus Camby is not happy with the Nuggets for trading him to the Clippers.
We use the word "trading" loosely, as Denver got nothing in return for the talented big man. "Blindsided, distraught, disrespected. All those adjectives," Camby said. "I felt like I was the scapegoat for all the first-round exits (five since 2004). Definitely frustrated because I felt that I gave it my all." Camby will probably happily report to L.A. and then set his sights on making the Nuggets pay for shipping him out of town.
 
So is Camby gonna go out and average 25, 10, and 5 blocks? What is "making them pay" in his mind? Bringing a championship to the Clippers?
 
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