Lawrence Frank Promoted to Executive Vice President of Basketball Ops

Lawrence Frank has been promoted to Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations according to this article by Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports. He is still under Doc Rivers (President of Basketball Operations), who will have final say on all basketball matters. However, Frank has now been moved ahead of erstwhile General Manager Dave Wohl. Woj reports that Wohl "remains on the job", but it is unclear if he will be there long-term or is more of a stop gap until Frank gets more comfortable in his role.

As for Lawrence Frank's duties, he has been assigned to "reshape the front office...building out the infrastructure of scouting, sports science, and long term strategic planning". Scouting and sports science are both pretty obvious terms, but I am a bit curious about what "long term strategic planning" actually means. I will make my best guess, and suggest that this has something to do with next summer, when both Chris Paul and Blake Griffin can decline player options and become free agents. Due to the way the cap is jumping both this summer and next, it would be financially foolish of them to not opt out and start on new and much higher salary deals as soon as possible. It doesn't necessarily mean they will leave the Clippers, far from it, but planning contingencies in case they do leave probably needs to start this summer, if it hasn't already.

Steve Ballmer is fully in on these changes (if not behind them), and is dedicating "significant resources" in both manpower and cash power to assist in these new steps. All this would suggest that the front office is about to expand substantially in terms of employees, so we will be on the lookout for other hires in the coming days.

Wojnarowski also dropped a few tidbits of free agency information as well. The Clippers are in the first round of Kevin Durant meetings on Friday in New York, right along with the Golden State Warriors. They are trying to re-sign Jamal Crawford, Austin Rivers, Jeff Green, and Cole Aldrich. The first three names are not a surprise, but it is interesting they are pursuing Cole despite drafting two big men last week. Stone is a project, and Brice Johnson might not be ready for huge minutes in his rookie year, but there is a gaping hole on the wing that needs to be filled. We will see what Doc, Frank, and Wohl's full plans are soon enough, however.

Again, we will be keeping you updated as more comes out about this, other possible front office goings on, and free agency. These are exciting times!