Cassell leans toward a buyout request

The clock is ticking faster on Sam Cassell’s time to arrange a buyout of his contract in hopes of signing with a playoff-bound team.

In order to become eligible to play elsewhere, Cassell would have to arrange a buyout by March 1.

“It’s getting close ain’t it?” he said.

Cassell, who went untraded by Thursday’s deadline, appears to be leaning toward requesting a buyout, essentially a divorce between him and the team, which will cause him to forfeit some of his remaining $6.1 million.

When asked if that was the path he is seeking, Cassell responded on Saturday:

“The question is, will they give me a buyout?”

But Cassell, 38, has also said that he is willing to finish out the remainder of the season’s 29 games and his contract with the Clippers.

He added he would rather focus on playing basketball and allow agent David Falk to handle the business aspects of it.

“That’s what I hired David for,” he said.

Cassell sat out Friday’s victory over the Utah Jazz because of a right sprained wrist. He attempted to play Saturday, warming up on the court shortly before the game started, but did not play again.

“I can dribble,” he said. “I can’t shoot with it.”

Center Chris Kaman, already nagged by a sore right shin, sat Saturday because of a sore lower back.

The back became stiff late in Friday’s game. He is listed as day-to-day. Forward Aaron Williams made his third start of the season in Kaman’s place.

“It will take three or four days for the joint to calm down,” trainer Jasen Powell said, adding that his status for Monday’s game against the Boston Celtics is “a true question mark.”

A sore lower back limited Kaman in the exhibition season for two weeks. He said his shin is an injury that may stay with him for the rest of the season.

“It isn’t feeling great sometimes,” he said. “The MRI’s and X-rays all came back negative, which is good. There’s no damage or anything. I don’t know what it is exactly.”

When Lakers forward Ronny Turiaf entered Gonzaga University as a freshman, the big man on campus was current Clippers’ point guard Dan Dickau.

“We are good friends,” said Dickau, who was a senior during Turiaf’s freshman year. “The thing about him is that he is so outgoing and he’s such a good person. He was one of my best teammates I’ve had on any level.”

Turiaf’s anonymity didn’t last long.

“Within a week of being on campus, everyone knew who he was because he’s so outgoing,” Dickau said.

The two have had little time, Dickau said, to catch up in Los Angeles because their schedules usually clash, with the Lakers being home and the Clippers on the road or vice versa.

“We’ll catch up one of these days,” Dickau said. “Hopefully, we’ll grab dinner in the off-season.”

A healthy Elton Brand combined with Kaman against a Lakers frontline of Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum is an intriguing enough matchup to revitalize the teams’ rivalry, Dunleavy said.

“I think both teams will have two forces,” he said. “Bynum and Gasol and Kaman and Brand, both sets are very talented.”

jonathan.abrams@latimes.com