Yesterday was a really bad day for the Los Angeles Clippers. The NBA found the franchise guilty of salary-cap circumvention in the Kawhi Leonard case, stripped them of five first-round picks from 2029 through 2033, fined the team $30.0 million, suspended Steve Ballmer for one year, and suspended Lawrence Frank for six months. Leonard was also fined $700,000, incredibly escaping barely harmed in all of this.
The one piece of good news, if we can even call it that, is that the league didn't block Leonard's move back to the Raptors. That trade had been on hold while the investigation was happening, and with the case now finished, the deal can move forward. Toronto had agreed to send Brandon Ingram, Gradey ****** , two unprotected first-round picks, two second-round picks, and a 2027 first-round pick swap for Leonard.
Those five lost first-round picks hurt the most. The Clippers were finally getting close to controlling their own future again starting in 2029, but now they won't make a first-round selection with one of those picks until 2034, although they should get the Raptors' 2031 and 2033 picks. Still, for a team entering a rebuild, that is brutal. Tanking doesn't help much when there is basically no first-round pick waiting for you at the end of the season, since the 2027 pick swap from Toronto is the worst one among the Raptors, the Clippers, and the Thunder, and the 2028 pick goes entirely to OKC.
So if the Clippers can't rely on landing a future franchise player through the Draft, and they also can't use any of their upcoming first-round picks as trade ****** ets since they belong to other teams, they will have to get creative. There are still other ways to find young talent, from taking chances on former high picks to using cap ****** e, trades, the G League, and overlooked free agents.
With almost a decade of Draft problems ahead of them, here are five different ways the Clippers can try to survive this rebuild and find young players without waiting until 2034.
#raptors
The one piece of good news, if we can even call it that, is that the league didn't block Leonard's move back to the Raptors. That trade had been on hold while the investigation was happening, and with the case now finished, the deal can move forward. Toronto had agreed to send Brandon Ingram, Gradey ****** , two unprotected first-round picks, two second-round picks, and a 2027 first-round pick swap for Leonard.
Those five lost first-round picks hurt the most. The Clippers were finally getting close to controlling their own future again starting in 2029, but now they won't make a first-round selection with one of those picks until 2034, although they should get the Raptors' 2031 and 2033 picks. Still, for a team entering a rebuild, that is brutal. Tanking doesn't help much when there is basically no first-round pick waiting for you at the end of the season, since the 2027 pick swap from Toronto is the worst one among the Raptors, the Clippers, and the Thunder, and the 2028 pick goes entirely to OKC.
So if the Clippers can't rely on landing a future franchise player through the Draft, and they also can't use any of their upcoming first-round picks as trade ****** ets since they belong to other teams, they will have to get creative. There are still other ways to find young talent, from taking chances on former high picks to using cap ****** e, trades, the G League, and overlooked free agents.
With almost a decade of Draft problems ahead of them, here are five different ways the Clippers can try to survive this rebuild and find young players without waiting until 2034.
#raptors
2 months ago
