The trade deadline is approaching, and the question on everyone’s mind is “what will the LA Clippers do?” Are the Clippers interested at all in making a move at the deadline?
As is typical for the LA Clippers, they’ve been tight-lipped and contradictory. One day the word might be that they’re only interested in improving around the margins. The next, we’re hearing that they’ve asked around about Myles Turner.
We may not know exactly what the Clippers are thinking, but we can look at what the team needs and think about how they might address it at the deadline.
What’s on the LA Clippers’ wishlist at the NBA trade deadline?
It’s easier to think about this in terms of needs, rather than individual players. I can’t pretend to know exactly how every team values all their players, so creating exact trades is more like educated guesswork (which is still fun to do sometimes!).
Let’s get started with what’s number 1 on the wishlist.
LA Clippers Trade Wishlist Item #1: Healthy Bodies
This feels a little reductive, but it’s honestly the most important thing for the LA Clippers. Talk about the Clippers losing because of a lack of playmakers, or a lack of shooting, or anything else. I’ll listen to all of it (and some of them are on the wishlist).
But the biggest concern has always been and will always be health. Of the 42 games the LA Clippers have played, they’ve only been able to roll out the Bev/PG/Kawhi/Batum/Serge starting lineup in 19 of them. They’re 14-5 in those 19 games. If they played an 82 game season at that winning percentage, they’d be a 60 win team.
They’re a 60 win team with all the starters, and a 43 win team when missing a starter. In last night’s game against Dallas, Lue ran an 8 man rotation outside of the last minute or so of garbage time. That’s a lot of Reggie Jackson, Lou Williams and Terance Mann (although suspiciously no Luke Kennard).
If Luke isn’t getting any minutes, then that’s Amir Coffey, Daniel Oturu, Mfiondu Kabengele, Patrick Patterson and Luke Kennard who can’t see the floor. It’s rough to have 5 dudes sitting on the bench collecting DNP’s or being exclusively garbage time players.
For an LA Clippers team that’s regularly dealing with injuries to at least one of Pat Bev, Serge or one of the stars, 5 DNP’s is far too many. More so than any other specific need, the Clippers need to target guys who can see the court and eat up some regular season minutes.