NBA rumors: Clippers' trade deadline strategy emerges amid surprise season
01/26/2025 01:33 PM
The Los Angeles Clippers have been one of the surprises of the NBA this season, pushing their record to an impressive 26-19 with a Saturday night home win over the Milwaukee Bucks. The team only recently got star Kawhi Leonard back from an injury that kept him out for the first third of the season, but the Clippers’ role players have helped support a revitalized James Harden running the show for Los Angeles.
With all of the success they’ve had so far this year, some fans may be expecting the Clippers to push all of their chips to the center of the table at the upcoming trade deadline in the hopes of making a run; however, recent intel from NBA insider Jake Fischer on Marc Stein’s Substack indicated otherwise.
“The Clippers, according to league sources, are still keen on keeping their books clean, indicating to rival front offices that they are reluctant to bring back any long-term salary in any potential trade activity over the remaining 12 days of NBA Trade Season,” reported Fischer. “The Clippers appear to be setting themselves up to try to truly capitalize on owner Steve Ballmer’s well-chronicled willingness to spend and the allure of their shiny new Intuit Dome home when Leonard’s tenure concludes.”
A careful approach for the Clippers
With this latest report, it would appear that Steve Ballmer and company are through taking big swings to bet on the decreasingly reliable availability of Kawhi Leonard. When Leonard first arrived in 2019, the Clippers took a huge risk by trading a treasure trove of assets to the Oklahoma City Thunder to pair him up with Paul George, and that ended up backfiring severely, not only resulting in no championships but also directly setting the stage for the Thunder’s current success.
Leonard signed a contract extension with the Clippers last season, so it will be a while before he is off of the books and Ballmer will reportedly be more willing to go big game hunting in free agency.
However, fans who were hoping the Clippers would try to make a run this season, especially considering how wide open the field seems to be in the Western Conference this season, will likely be disheartened by these latest reports.
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