Are the 2020 LA Clippers the best NBA team money can buy?
Mfiondu Kabengele – $1,977,000
The six-foot-nine rookie center has a similar salary range to Landry Shamet, as well as high upside, but he hasn’t shown as much to date as his teammate, so we’d most likely part with him for a few more players from the same evaluation group.
Kabengele’s salary of $1.98 million this season means we will be evaluating him against players making between $2.47 million and $1.58 million this season.
The full list of players in that salary range:
Brandon Clarke, Terrance Ferguson, Grayson Allen, Anthony Tolliver, Grant Williams, Jarrett Allen, Pascal Siakam, Skal Labissiere, Chandler Hutchinson, Dejounte Murray, Alec Burks, Damian Jones, Darius Bazley, OG Anunoboy, Ante Zizic, Monta Ellis, Markieff Morris, Aaron Holiday, Luke Kornet, Ty Jerome, Willie Cauley-Stein, Austin Rivers, Carmelo Anthony, Anfernee Simons, Matt Barnes, Nassir Little, Torrey Craig, Moritz Wagner, Dylan Windler, Caleb Swanigan, Trey Burke, Kyle O’Quinn, Michael Carter-Williams, Mike Muscala, Nerlens Noel, Troy Daniels, Ben McLemore, Spencer Hawes, Edmond Sumner, Noah Vonley, Mfiodu Kabengele, Kyle Kuzma, Jordan Poole, Tony Bradley, Keldon Johnson, Derrick White, Robert Williams, Josh Hart, Jacob Evans, Anderson Varejao, Dzanan Musa, Omari Spellman, Shabazz Napier, Glenn Robinson, James Ennis, Tim Frazir, Larry Sanders, Bruno Caboclo, Markieff Morris, Mario Hezonja, Emmanuel Mudiay, Raul Neto, JaKarr Sampson, Pat Connaughton, Jahlil Okafor, Rodions Kurucs, Jonah Bolden, Georges Niang, Cheick Diallo, Dragan Bender, David Nwaba, Treveon Graham, Willy Hernangomez, Derrick Jones, Jordan McRae, Christian Wood, Furkan Korkmaz, Jordan Bell, Justin Patton, Royce O’Neale, Dillon Brooks, Wesley Iwundu, Abel Nader, Damyean Dotson, Frank Jackson, Sterlling Brown, Dwayne Bacon, Semi Ojeleye, Chris Boucher, Malcolm Miller, Monte Morris
We would certainly agree to swaps to for all of the players to which we also said yes for Landry Shamet: Allen, Siakam, Murray, Anunoby, Kuzma, and Wood.
In addition to those, we’d also say yes to straight-up trades for:
Brandon Clarke
The rookie forward is one year older than Kabengele but has shown a bit more talent in his first year out of Gonzaga averaging 12.1 points and 5.9 rebounds in 22.3 minutes-per-game for Memphis.
We were tempted to say yes to Grayson Allen, Skal Labissiere, and Nerlens Noel but for various reasons think we might be better off holding on to Kabengele and seeing how he develops.