Clippers Holding Cards Close

The Clippers would love to retain Quentin Richardson.

Maybe.

They’d hate to lose him.

Maybe.

Richardson and the Clippers are at an uneasy crossroads.

While the Clippers were expected to begin their pursuit of Kobe Bryant late Wednesday night, Richardson waits in the wings. Come July 14 Richardson will be free to sign an offer sheet with any NBA team. But the Clippers, having made a qualifying offer to him Wednesday, would have 15 days to match any offer the restricted free agent might receive.

Richardson’s top priority is to stay with the Clippers. The Clippers’ is to sign Bryant.

Salary-cap and budget constraints would make it virtually impossible for the Clippers to sign both players, and they play the same position anyway.

So, while the Clippers chase Bryant, Richardson is in limbo.

A full-time starter for the first time last season, the four-year veteran has said repeatedly that he would like to stay in Los Angeles. A Chicago native, he loves his adopted hometown, enjoys his coaches and teammates, and says that the Clippers, after years of failure and frustration, are headed for a turnaround.

One more reason he’d probably like to stay here: His burgeoning relationship with Brandy. The singer-actress, a fixture at Clipper home games last season, has spoken of their relationship in countless interviews while promoting her new album, “Afrodisiac,” which she says was named for the Clipper guard. Richardson, an MTV interviewer gushed, “has stolen her heart like an inbound pass.”

Even Brandy is asked about Bryant; she was his prom date.

Richardson, though, said Wednesday that his romance with the pop princess “doesn’t complicate things at all.”

The Clippers’ courtship of Bryant does, of course. But Richardson, 24, declined to address that, acting on the advice of his agent, Jeff Wechsler.

“I feel like I stated my case all season long,” said Richardson, who established career highs last season with averages of 17.2 points, 6.4 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 36 minutes. “I went about it the right way. Right now, I’m just going to do what Jeff wants me to do and just lay back and relax and see what happens.”

On Monday, however, Richardson told the Rocky Mountain News that the Clippers had yet to “step up to the plate,” adding, “If they think they can get Kobe, I can’t knock them for that. But I need to see what they’re thinking.”

What they’re thinking, it seems, is that if they have a chance to add Bryant to their team they’re going to do everything they can to make it happen. They’ve cleared salary cap space and are ready to knock on his door to make a bid.

If they fall short, they can always keep Richardson, who is said to be central to their backup plan, which probably would also include the pursuit of other free agents among a group that includes Brent Barry and Steve Nash, probably the most attractive to the Clippers, and Erick Dampier. Unlike the others, Richardson is not an unrestricted free agent. In his case, the Clippers hold all the cards.

As Richardson well knows, Elton Brand and Corey Maggette signed elsewhere last summer before the Clippers reeled them back.

And so he waits.