The Clippers have one glaring roster need. Can they fill it?Here's a quick way to get up to speed on the Clippers options for the trade deadline.
Posted by Clips Nation on Friday, January 13, 2017
What? The Clippers have had a hole at the same position for years now? This comes as a shock to me, personally. But it’s possible that some of you have already come to the same conclusion yourself.
Anyways, SB Nation made a trade deadline primer for the Clippers, which you can watch above. It lists their potential assets and trade targets before giving a recommendation on what they should do come mid-February.
Although the video claims that “the Clippers have a history of getting things done at the deadline,” that hasn’t really been the case outside of last year’s ill-advised Jeff Green deal (the Austin Rivers acquisition in 2015 came in January, and they mostly stayed pat the two seasons before that).
As usual, they don’t have a ton of assets that other teams would value as highly. Add that to the fact that there don’t seem to be very many wings available right now, and it’s difficult to see a Clippers trade that works for both teams. The dream is probably for someone like Rudy Gay or Wilson Chandler (whose salaries both match with Austin/Jamal), but their teams will likely want more than that, and the Clips don’t have a first-rounder available until at least 2021 — which I would highly advise against moving, because who knows how good or bad they’ll be by then?
Their best hope is probably to get lucky in the buyout market with someone like PJ Tucker, although even these players may only be marginal upgrades to the roster. The Clippers also have a full roster at the moment, so they’d have to cut someone to get an open spot in March (or hope that Paul Pierce would consider retiring in-season to join his old buddy KG on the sideline).