10 Players the Clippers held onto for way too long

4. Loy Vaught (1990-1998)

Loy Vaught played in roughly the same era as Mr. Piatkowski but was significantly more productive. He was actually a valuable starter for several years and even won the prestigious nickname that I totally didn’t just make up right now: Dollar Store Karl Malone.

They played in pretty much the same era, were the same height, and if you roughly halve Malone’s stats in his prime, you get Vaught’s production. Malone is the NBA’s third-all-time leading scorer, so that’s not bad. Except the rebounds don’t match too well…and the minutes are sorta… awkward. Also, Vaught only had three good years to Malone’s like 15… hey I said it was roughly half.

Vaught was a walking 15-point-10 board player and could have been a valuable contributor to a better team. He was a POWER forward in the true sense of the word and a monster on the glass in his prime.  But the Clippers cut bait exactly one season too late after Vaught suffered an injury that halved his production from 1997 to 1998.

And then it halved again in 1999. And then again in 2000. By the turn of the millennium, he had been marked down from 50 to 12 Cents Karl Malone at the Dollar Store. Any value he had as an asset cratered, and he will be remembered as a great rebounder and consistent player on subpar teams.