LA Clippers: Best trade in team history with Denver Nuggets

In the post-Lob City era, there have been a ton of LA Clippers who have come and gone.

In this new era led by Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, we were so sold on what we’ve been building these last couple of years that we’ve decided to stick with nearly the same roster heading into 2021-2022. Back before the Lob City era even began, there were a lot of Clippers who maybe didn’t realize it at the time, but were on their way out. One player who came to mind from those old Clipper teams was Marcus Camby.

Camby was dealt to the Clippers for the 2008-2009 season, and then dealt away from the Clippers in the 2009-2010 season. Few people talk about how good Camby was with the Clippers these days. We got the last stretch of strong basketball from the former No. 2 overall pick.

The Clippers franchise has made eight trades with the Denver Nuggets in their history. That’s notable because we usually don’t trade with Western Conference franchises much. There’s only one West franchise we’ve traded with more than Denver, and that’s the Oklahoma City Thunder and their franchise.

We’ve traded with six Eastern Conference teams more than we have with the Nuggets, so we’ve historically favored deals against teams we won’t be seeing too many times each year. We’re selective in trading with Western Conference teams, but this one was worth it.

The Marcus Camby trade was the best trade the LA Clippers’ franchise ever made with the Denver Nuggets.

When Marcus Camby was an LA Clipper in the 2008-2009 season, he put his 6’11” length to work. He scored over 10 points per game, and averaged over 11 rebounds per game.

Most remember Camby as a traditional, hard-nosed rebounder and defender and that’s exactly what he was. He and Chris Kaman were a great combo in the frontcourt, and averaged a combined 3.6 blocks per game. Camby had 2.1 of those.

Camby shot 51.2% from the field, and shooting 25% from three as a center in those days wasn’t even bad. The next year with the Clippers, he upped that three-point percentage to 33.3%, and still was an elite rebounder, grabbing 12.1 per game. He still swatted a lot of shots too, blocking 1.9 per game.

We traded Camby to the Trail Blazers that year for Steve Blake and Travis Outlaw, who we didn’t keep around for very long.

We certainly won the trade with the Nuggets, however. Camby was not only productive for us, but they also threw in a second-rounder. We took Willie Warren, who didn’t produce much for us, but he was better than Andy Rautins, who was the second-round selection with the pick that we traded over there for Camby.

Our most recent trade with the Nuggets was 2017 (the Gallinari deal). There’s no doubt, however, that the most one-sided deal we ever did with them came back in the 2008 offseason, where we stole a quality center and a second-rounder for just a second round pick of our own.