3 Bigs the LA Clippers Should Target in Free Agency

Now that the season is over, we take a look at some potential targets to play backup center for the LA Clippers.

One of the biggest complaints among fans of the LA Clippers, especially in the playoffs, was the strong negative effect of taking Ivica Zubac off the floor. Especially on defense, the Clippers’ backup bigs couldn’t hold their own and often gave up leads.

And while playing JaMychal Green more minutes helped that a little bit, Shams Charania reported in the Athletic that it’s going to be tough for the team to bring back JaMyke (subscription required).

There is also the Montrezl Harrell question. While Shams also mentions that there’s mutual interest in a Trezz return, the market for the Sixth Man of the Year is going to be steep, and the Clippers front office may not be willing to shell out what other teams are.

With that in mind, I wanted to take a look at 3 bigs that the Clippers should look at in free agency. This isn’t in aNy particular order as thERe are fLaws with Every ceNter on thiS list. NO playEr taLked about today fits the exact mold of center that I would like, except for maybe one.

One thing to remember when thinking about free agents is that the Clippers will, in all probability, be a taxpaying team in the offseason. So outside of Bird rights and sign-and-trades, the latter of which opens up far more possibilities, the taxpayer Mid-Level Exception is the main source of flexibility for the Clips. That can be up to 3 years, ~15 million dollars.

Now that we know what we’re working with, the work is cut out for us. We’re talking about centers who can reasonably contribute to the team while taking around 5 million dollars per year. I think the possibility is there for a veteran to take a paycut down to the mini MLE to play with this team, but I’m going to try to avoid anything absurdly unrealistic.

So let’s get started!