After all that’s done, it’s back to the grind but the posting will probably remain fairly slow as we (the Ticket Solutions crew) preps the site for the upcoming football seasons. Anyway, enjoy the Fourth of July festivities, be safe, and make sure you don’t blow yourself up — or any toilets either:

Like I said, be safe.

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Slow Posting Ahead

So what does this signing mean for the Clippers? Does it mean LA’s second team is longer the under card to Kobe’s Lakers? If the Clips resign Elton Brand, it very well could. According to the LA Times, we very well could see a Brand/Clippers agreement as early as today.

If/when Brand and the Clippers agree, the team should be well stocked when it comes to talent, especially when you consider their stable of young players (Al Thornton, Deandre Jordan, Eric Gordon) as well as returning players like Chris Kaman and Cuttino Mobley.

However, does the Baron Davis acquisition give the Clippers enough to be a player in the tough-as-nails Western Conference? If everybody returns from their various injuries as expected and Davis doesn’t go on the injury shelf, yes, the Clip joint should be a rocking place when the 2008-09 NBA season tips off in November.

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A Boom Dizzle At The Clip Joint

The NBA’s free agent season is upon us and thanks to various opt-outs, there are a few more gems on the market, provided your team is willing to spend the cash. The biggest names choosing to opt-out of their current contracts are Baron Davis, Elton Brand, Gilbert Arenas, Corey Maggette and Shawn Marion to name a few. Of these players, Brand, Marion, and Arenas are expected to stay with the teams they are currently with while Davis and Maggette could very well wind up in different cities.

For Brand and Davis, by choosing to opt-out, both players left substantial amounts of money on the table in order to pursue a new contract and perhaps a new team. While acknowledging he’d like to stay in Los Angeles with the Clippers, by opting-out, Brand left $16.4 million on the table in order to renegotiate for a new long-term deal. When Davis elected to discard his current contract with the Golden State Warriors, he forfeited the rights to the 17.8 million salary he would’ve made next season.

Now there are rumors indicating the Clippers are going to try and sign Davis, although, the team has met with other free agent point guards like Beno Udrih and Jose Calderon. LA’s other team would save money by signing either one of the other non-Davis point guards but neither one has Davis’ ability.

As for the player in our lead image, Gilbert Arenas, he is expected to resign with the Wizards after they signed teammate Antwan Jamison to a long-term deal. When Arenas has spoke about staying in Washington, his desire was for the team to keep Jamison as well. Now that that detail has been taken care, What’s Eating Gilbert is expected to remain with the Wizards.

The question is, will Gilbert be getting the max contract or will he take less money to stay? Thanks to the Wizards Insider, we now know Arenas was offered a max-level contract that would pay him $124 million over six years. The Wizards offer was made to counter one from Baron Davis’ old team, the Golden State Warriors, which was reported in the neighborhood of $100 million.

Based on Golden State’s activity, it really seems like Baron Davis has played his last game in Golden State. If your team was confident they were going to retain his services, would they have offered Arenas?

ESPN’s Chad Ford has a list of the the best free agents available this off-season. Do you see anybody that could fit your team and make them better, provided they didn’t blow their whole salary structure to sign them?

1. Elton Brand, Clippers
2. Gilbert Arenas, Wizards
3. Baron Davis, Warriors
4. Corey Maggette, Clippers
5. DeSagana Diop, Nets
6. Beno Udrih, Kings
7. Kurt Thomas, Spurs
8. James Posey, Celtics
9. Mickael Pietrus, Warriors
10. Ricky Davis, Heat

Honorable mention:

Kwame Brown, Grizzlies — (Kwame Brown? Really?)
Shaun Livingston, Clippers
Brent Barry, Spurs
Bostjan Nachbar, Nets
Carlos Arroyo, Magic
Chris Duhon, Bulls
Eduardo Najera, Nuggets
Matt Barnes, Warriors
Alonzo Mourning, Heat — (No next Tiger Woods, there, Alonzo?)
Gerald Green, Rockets
Patrick O’Bryant, Warriors
Jason Williams, Heat
Juwan Howard, Mavs
Jarvis Hayes, Pistons
Robert Horry, Spurs — (Have the big shots run out?)
James Jones, Blazers
Michael Finley, Spurs
Jannero Pargo, Hornets
Damon Stoudamire, Spurs
Sam Cassell, Celtics
Jamaal Magloire, Nets
Kareem Rush, Pacers
Gordan Giricek, Suns
Michael Doleac, Timberwolves
Francisco Elson, Sonics
Keyon Dooling, Magic
Quinton Ross, Clippers
Antoine Wright, Mavericks
Fred Jones, Knicks
Juan Dixon, Pistons
Maurice Evans, Magic
Primoz Brezec, Raptors
Anthony Johnson, Kings
Tyronn Lue, Kings
Theo Ratliff, Pistons
Adonal Foyle, Magic
Sebastian Telfair, Timberwolves — (Is this what going through the fire got you?)
Kirk Snyder, Timberwolves

Happy NBA free agency period. Good luck everybody. Finally, here’s another good read on the NBA’s free agent extravaganza.

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It’s NBA Free Agent Time*

Consider this, currently, Ana Ivanovic, Maria Sharapova, Jelena Jankovic, and Svetlana Kuznetsova — the top four ranked women players in the world — are no longer in the tournament. The highest remaining seed is Elena Dementieva, who holds the world’s fifth spot.

However, the stage is set for the Williams sisters to meet in the final as they stand on opposite sides of the Wimbledon bracket. In Serena’s side, she’ll have to get through the likes of Tamarine Tanasugarn and the aformentioned Dementieva. On the other side of the bracket, the sixth-ranked Venus will need to dispense with players like Agnieszka Radwanska (who beat Kuznetsova) to face her sister in the finals.

The presence of the Williams sisters is fitting, especially at Wimbledon. The sibling duo has won six of the last eight Wimbledon singles titles.

On the men’s side of the draw, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal continued their march towards a Wimbledon final rematch. Both advanced to quarterfinals this afternoon and if they continue winning, will face each other in the Wimbledon finals on Sunday.

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Wimbledon: Heading To A Williams Sisters Final?

Just ask Hayley McGregory.

In a preliminary race for the 100 Meter backstroke qualification, McGregory broke Coughlin’s record by swimming a 59.15. Coughlin’s previous record was 59.21. In the very next heat, Coughlin decided she wanted to reclaim the record and did so by smashing McGregory’s time with a time of 59.03. While McGregory broke Coughlin’s record by .06 seconds, the five-time gold medal winner shattered the new, temporary mark by .12 seconds.

I guess it’s safe to say the gauntlet has been thrown down by the previous and current world record holder. As for all these swimming world records that have been falling recently, some claim the new Speedo swimsuit is to credit. Others, however, blame performance enhancing drugs and not the state-of-the-art Speedos.

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Olympic Trials: More Records Fall

According to FanHouse, Roberts skipped his workout in Detroit and when he did perform for other teams, the results weren’t necessarily stellar:

but given how far CDR fell from his projected first round draft spot (most mocks had him in the 20-25-ish range), it’s likely that many other teams shared these feelings. Plus, the few teams that CDR did decide to work out for had less than glowing reviews. The biggest knock on him was that he wore down near the end of the workouts, and that he wouldn’t be ready to contribute big minutes in his first NBA season. You would think a player would go through as many workouts as he could to dispel those negative perceptions, but obviously CDR (or his people) didn’t feel it was necessary.

Which brings up a great point — if you are worried about your draft position slipping and there are already negative perceptions concerning the workouts you did do, I don’t think skipping out on the other ones is the best way to improve your NBA Draft stock. Because of CDR’s (lack of) effort, he now finds himself with no guaranteed money while fighting for a spot to make the New Jersey Nets roster.

Maybe CDR’s slip can serve as a lesson to other players who may be falling out of the guaranteed money first round.

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More On Chris Douglas-Roberts

Wind or no, it does not diminish the quality of Gay’s run, as you can see below:

Speaking of the current world-record holder, Usain Bolt also qualified for his national team by beating Asafa Powell in the Jamaican Nationals:

This sets the stage for an intriguing showdown in Beijing. Much will be made about the Bolt/Gay match-up but it would be unwise to forget about the aforementioned Powell. If either Gay or Bolt falter, Powell will be in a position to break the finish line tape.

In other record-breaking news, the US Swim Team is also looking strong as Michael Phelps and Katie Hoff each broke records in the 400 meter individual medley. I wonder how such performances are going to look in that weird water cube-looking thing constructed for Olympic swimming.

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Summer Olympics: There Will Be Records Broken

And rightfully so. Once the knock-out rounds began, it was pretty easy to see the Spaniards were playing the best football.

By now, you’ve reviewed all the live blogs and wrap-ups available so I won’t belabor the point with needless recap text. However, I will say Torres’ go-ahead goal was a great example of simply outworking your opponent. There were no flashy step-overs or nifty slight-of-foot dribbling. All it took was sheer determination combined with a deft touch of the soccer boot to finish Germany off.

For Spain, it was there first major championship in 44 years.

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Euro 2008: Spain Are The Champions

Derrick Rose
O.J. Mayo
Russell Westbrook
Eric Gordon
Joe Alexander
D.J. Augustin
Jerryd Bayless
Brandon Rush
Courtney Lee
George Hill
J. R. Giddens

And that’s just the first round. In the second round, Chicago decided Sonny Weems was a better player than their new point guard’s running mate from college. I guess winning a Final Four dunk contest goes a long way.

The question is why. Why did CDR get overlooked so badly? During his senior junior season, Roberts averaged 18 points, shot 40 percent from behind the arc and helped lead his team to a couple of minutes away from a National Championship. During this same game, he also showed Brandon Rush — the 13th overall pick — couldn’t guard him.

So again, what is the reason for Roberts dropping so far? If there are/were questions about his athleticism, perhaps the scouts should have asked Kevin Love.

CDR can shoot, dribble and is as long and athletic as any other guard in the draft. That does not sound the ingredients of a player who should slip in the draft so badly, the team that got him looks like they pulled off a Grand Theft Auto type of steal. Whatever the reason he was passed on, I have a feeling teams like Boston and Chicago — two teams with later picks who were in a position to take this potential steal — will be regretting passing on the Memphis guard for some time.

Meanwhile, New Jersey fans should be ecstatic with their good fortune.

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The Mystery of the Chris Douglas-Roberts Draft Slide