10 Players the Clippers held onto for way too long

6. Marcus Morris Sr. (2020-present)

It was once believed that Marcus Morris could be the legitimate third option on a championship-contending team. That was probably the theory when the Clippers traded for him in 2020 after he averaged nearly 20 a game on a weird Knicks team during the first half of the season.

But entering his fifth season with the Clippers, Morris is nowhere close to the third option the Clippers hoped for. It is questionable if he is even an option at all since he has spent the last four seasons slowly but surely playing himself out of the playoff rotation.

Don’t let his basketball reference page fool you. Though it may appear that he averaged 23 minutes per game in the playoffs this year, he only appeared in three games of a five-game gentleman’s sweep at the hands of the Suns.

It was only once Kawhi Leonard went down that Morris saw the floor, as his stature and play style make him essentially a sketchy, off-brand-emergency Kawhi Leonard insurance if things went extremely sideways all at once. Which they did.

Like many of the members of this illustrious list, Morris is not a bad player by any means. He could be a meaningful contributor on the right night, but the length of his stay meant the Clippers were holding the bag when he fell off.

But Morris hasn’t been insultingly bad for the Clippers, so his inclusion on the list is more of a preemptive strike than anything else. He has a $17 million expiring deal, and if this Kawhi Leonard-Paul George thing is going to work anytime soon, that contract needed to be moved yesterday. If Morris plays out his contract, it will definitely be too long.