While David Roth has already linked to Mark Heisler’s LA Times reportage concerning Elton Brand’s stunning decision to leave the Staples Center’s crappier locker room, Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski amplifies the one of the deal’s underlying themes ; that Brand’s agent David Falk “didn™t just screw the Clippers. He drilled them.”
Once Mike Dunleavy pushed past David Falk and reached out to Elton Brand, appealed to his star™s sensibilities and sentimentality for his Clippers™ home, the belief was that the most cunning and cutthroat agent of them all decided to treat this end-around as an act of treason.
Negotiations had stalled, management had grown uneasy, fearful of Falk™s influence and the Clips coach brought the franchise™s case directly to Brand. After all these years, the most famous agent of all was back in the game, back on the big stage, back with basketball waiting on his next move.
œFrom that point on, one NBA GM said, œFalk was going to do everything he could to screw the Clippers.
Owner Donald Sterling was willing to renounce several players to nearly match the Sixers™ $82 million offer, but the Clips could never be sure that Falk ever presented Brand with the information. Soon, Brand was gone to Philadelphia, Corey Maggette had grabbed $50 million in Golden State and David Falk had returned to orchestrate a July power play out of his old playbook.
œOnce they let Brand opt out, they had to know that Falk would come back and bite them in the ass, one GM said. œDid they think he wasn™t going to turn this into some kind of a drama? He was dying to get back into the spotlight here, to get himself a lot of attention again.
While you ponder whether or not Andrew Bogut is worth a $72 million extension (shame the Bucks can’t kick some of that dough towards signing C.C. Sabathia), try this on for size : Randolph Morris is already an ex-Knick. Apparently, Donnie Walsh caught all of Morris’ 20 seconds of playing time last season and that’s all the former needs to know.