It's rather hard to predict exactly where the Los Angeles Clippers will go from here. After finishing up a season where they overachieved but ultimately still fell short, a lot of questions about the future remain. But as we analyze the makeup of the Clippers' current roster, one thing becomes abundantly clear — This team needs to get younger, and fast.
When the Clippers decided they wanted to go hard after Kawhi Leonard back in 2019, it quickly became clear what kind of journey they were about to set out on. The team was going to load up on veterans and those players that the organization felt could lead them deep into the playoffs.
So of course, Paul George was next. LA's style of leaning into veteran play did work for a time — Seeing how they got to their first Western Conference Finals in franchise history back in 2021. Even with Leonard injured, the Clippers got to within two games of reaching their first ever NBA Finals.
As time went on, the additions of Russell Westbrook and James Harden came. Once again, highly tenured players with a lot of experience playing in the postseason. As the vets on the roster stacked up, so did the team's payroll.
What that situation culminated in was the pivotal decision to allow Paul George to walk in free agency in 2024, as he joined the Philadelphia 76ers. Still, the Clippers had little choice but to continue going veteran-heavy. Only one player on the roster this past season was under 25 years old in Cam Christie.
The Clippers need more young talent to have a future
Entering this past season, LA was still rolling with the belief that a healthy Kawhi Leonard remained a top-ten player in the association, and maybe even top-five. It made sense to give it one more shot to see if they could make it to the playoffs with number two at the top of his game.
So that was the plan. Lean on James Harden until Kawhi fully recovered from his offseason knee issue, benefit from the massively improved play of Norman Powell, and let your summer additions do their thing until Leonard was ready to come back and look like himself again. For a while, this plan worked to a tee, as we saw. The Clippers improbably finished as a top-five seed in a loaded West.
But eventually, the bubble burst. Despite having Leonard healthy when they needed him most, LA couldn't do enough to take down the championship DNA of the Denver Nuggets. Now, as they head back to the drawing board, it's unclear exactly which vets should stay and which should go.
One thing is very hard to dispute: The Clippers are going to require an injection of youth into this roster for this team to have anything resembling a bright future. Los Angeles had the third-oldest roster in the association in 2024-25, with only the Warriors and Suns being older.
Whether you have to trade for younger prospects or draft them, the Clippers don't have any choice but to find a younger crop of talent to add to this group. We saw where playing a bunch of aging, unathletic veterans got the Milwaukee Bucks these last couple of years in the playoffs.
I understand that coming into this past year, Steve Ballmer wanted to sell tickets and make a good first impression with Intuit Dome making its grand opening. But now that that's out of the way, it's time to stop completely leaning on the aging Leonard and Harden, and bring in some fresh faces to carry us into the next generation of Clippers basketball.