No. 2 LA Clipper that may come up in trade talks this season: Luke Kennard
The LA Clippers seem to like Luke Kennard, and I do too. He’s hard to hate, and had some nice moments in the playoffs this year.
However, I don’t know that it was best for the Clippers to pay him an average of $16 million per year. That was the extension they agreed to in December 2020.
That’s a lot of money, and the Clippers already have a lot of players who can do what Kennard can do. Kennard is a pure sharpshooter, and had the ninth-best three-point percentage in basketball last year (44.6%).
That being said, it feels like everyone can shoot on the Clippers, and it’s because that’s basically the reality. The question shouldn’t be about who can shoot on the Clippers, but who can’t.
They were the best shooting team in the league this year, so I don’t know that they need to pay Kennard to do something a lot of Clips already do.
If the Clippers could deal his contract to somebody else who needs shooting, that could do them a lot of good. After all, he’s not very good on defense. Maybe the Clippers could swap a sharpshooter for a lockdown defender.