$30 Million to Reject a Franchise

The Portland Trail Blazers are about to give Steve Francis $30 million dollars to stay the hell away from their team.

This is my favorite new trend in NBA contracts: the buyout of the overrated veteran who might become a locker room cancer. May we all find opportunities in life to be so abundant.

Stevie Franchise (by the way, did we ever nail down which franchise that was? I'm thinking a White Castle near the bus terminal) may have been a bit of a monster for some fantasy teams in his All Star years, but even on his best day and behavior, was never a guy that was going deep into the playoffs. On his worst day, and he's been having a lot of those recently, he's a would-be coach killer who is either injury-prone or a malingerer.

There's only two kinds of reactions that you can have to the buyout, if you are Francis; anger at being dissed translating into a good year (aka, Chris Webber in Detroit), or whooping it up like a soon-to-be-broke lottery winner (Jalen "Max" Rose, come on down!).

Seeing as Stevie is said to be angling for a Clipper reunion with Cut Mobley (another guy who won't be going deep into the post-season, and that's assuming good behavior), I think we all know what path he's choosing. Let the good times roll!

If the Clips sign Franchise, he'll hog the ball and get his numbers on the offensive end while getting eaten alive by the West's really good point guards (Parker, Williams, Paul, Davis, Nash). Meanwhile, clueless Clip fans will get totally fooled, because he'll have numbers, and he's got to be better than the ancient Sam Cassells and the infirm Shaun Livingstone.

Next (perpetual?) stop: the 10 seed in the West. And speaking of the Clips, has anyone else noticed that Elton Brand is starting to look and sound a lot like Boxer from Orwell's Animal Farm?



(Click through to see the finest animated film ever bought and paid for by the CIA, which is up in its entirety on YouTube. 90+ minutes or so.)