Camby and Kaman

Bringing Marcus Camby into the fold, and to a lesser extent letting Corey Maggette walk, catapults the Clippers into the upper echelon of the best defensive squads in the league. A frontline of Camby and Kaman is not only large, but also block happy. Remember, Camby is only two years removed from his Defensive Player of the year award, and, statistically, actually had a better season last year.

Sure, he’s 34, but he will no longer have to always bang against the other teams’ centers, nor will he be the only starting presence out on the floor who can play defense.

I’ve gone over Eric Gordon’s physical nature and his penchant for playing defense and Baron Davis, when he wants to, can be a lockdown, physical, elite defender as well. Thornton has some issues, but if the team chooses to re-sign Quentin Ross (which is now a possibility due to the Camby signing), this team has got itself some JB and Kyle…Tenacious D.

Signing Camby gives the Clips about $3 million under the salary to address their lack of depth. Keyon Dooling is out there…perhaps a return to the squad that drafted him? I don’t know if that kind of money will fly for him, but he’ll have a definite role on the Clips as the caddy for Baron, Gordon and Mobley.

Other than that, Tim Thomas, Camby, Kaman, and DeAndre Jordan along with perhaps one or two of the following: Josh Powell, Nick Fazekas, Paul Davis, Marcus Williams, will make up the bigs. Gordon, Mobley, Davis, Brevin Knight, Thornton and perhaps Q Ross make up the perimeter. There’s up to six spots up for grabs.

Questions will inevitably spring up about Camby’s health. In fact, the health of the entire Clippers squad will be in question after last season’s debacle and with the additions of Baron Davis whose injury history is well documented and Eric Gordon, who seems to be creating an injury history already at the young age of 19 (he’s missing the rest of summer league due to injury).

The Clips future looks somewhat brighter again. Camby’s contract has only 2 years left, which means the Clips will remove his salary from the books in time for the Lebron/Wade/Bosh sweepstakes in 2010.

The Clips might not be as good overall with Camby replacing Brand, but Camby has the defensive ability to elevate them to an elite defense, much like KG did for the Celtics. They will be worse offensively, but much better off on the other end with Camby.

Camby can also take his game outside, shooting jumpers, so clogging the middle won’t be a problem. In fact, being that he’ll be moving back to the power forward spot, his body will take a lot less punishment. Of course, he’ll play some center, which will also allow the Clippers to run with a smaller, more athletic squad. They have an ex-Warrior (BD) and an ex-Sun (Tim Thomas) on their team, along with the crazy athletic Thornton and Gordon so this team will want to run when Kaman goes to the bench. Camby is an ex-Nugget, which means he started for last season’s fastest paced team. He’s a great passer and finds his offense within the offense.   

If the Clippers can find a couple more pieces and if Mike Dunleavy can find his coaching stride once again, this team could do some damage. The whole world witnessed the Celtics dismantle the Lakers’ smooth, beautiful Triangle offense.

Defense, obviously wins championships.

The Clips don’t have a Paul Pierce or a Ray Allen, but they do have a BD and a Chris Kaman. It’s not yet a championship team, but who knows what could happen if this defense really digs in and gels?

The NBA has seemingly overnight become a league where anything can happen.

Somehow the Clips got Camby for a swap of second round picks with the Nuggets in 2010. That’s it.

Clippers holding up a championship next year? Hey, it’s the NBA…