5:38pm: According to NBA.com's David Aldridge, the Mavericks have not yet decided on whether they'll place an amnesty bid on Luis Scola, and they'll wait to see if other prominent players are amnestied before making a decision. All teams have until 5 PM EST on Sunday to place a claim on Scola.
4:06pm: The Mavericks have submitted the winning bid and claimed Elton Brand off amnesty waivers, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (via Twitter). Brand and his $18.16MM salary were amnestied on Wednesday by the 76ers, giving under-the-cap two days to bid on him. The Mavs' winning bid was $2.1MM, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link), which will reduce the amount of money the Sixers owe the veteran big man to somewhere in the $16MM range.
The move is good news for Brand, who was
hoping to join the Mavericks, and comes as no surprise, since Dallas was expected to make a "very aggressive" play for the 33-year-old. What's a little surprising is the amount of the bid -- it was widely believed that it would take more than $2.1MM to land Brand, but perhaps with so many teams' cap situations still in flux, he received less interest than expected.
While Luis Scola may attract more interest from potential bidders, Brand's deal makes him attractive to the Mavs. Unlike Scola, Brand has just one year remaining on his deal and will become a free agent next summer, when Dallas is looking to clear a chunk of cap space to be active again on the free agent market.
