Clippings: Yogi Ferrell has been signed for the rest of the season

The Clippers roster for the 2021 playoffs is finally set. After extending a 10-day contract to Yogi Ferrell on April 19, the team announced Thursday that it is signing Ferrell for the rest of this season as well as next year. Ferrell’s contract for 2021-22 is non-guaranteed.

Last year, the Clippers used a similar contract construction with Joakim Noah. DeMarcus Cousins is only signed for the rest of the year, however; unlike Ferrell, Cousins probably believes he can command a little more money than the minimum on the open market.

Ferrell has been lightly used in his Clippers tenure thus far. He was instrumental in helping the team earn a victory over the Grizzlies in his first game action on his second day with the Clippers. However, he has only played in garbage time since against the Pelicans and Suns, both losses, after a minor quad issue kept him out of the Rockets game.

The expectation is that Ferrell won’t have to play much. Starting point guard Patrick Beverley has had “great progress”, according to Ty Lue’s pregame address Wednesday, and Beverley even surprised the team by joining them in Phoenix after he had missed the start of the road trip. Behind Beverley, Rajon Rondo, Luke Kennard, and Reggie Jackson can all handle point guard duties, and Terance Mann did so in a pinch against Memphis. It’s a relatively deep position, but the Clippers clearly like Ferrell. He fits in with the team’s chemistry, and that probably matters more than anything at this point in the season.

The Clippers don’t really have weaknesses to address, assuming full health, and their greatest injury risk is Beverley, so keeping Ferrell around makes logical sense. Maybe Ferrell will even get a chance to have an encore performance of his stellar debut.

More news for Friday:

• Cole Huff shares his post-All-Star Break observations about the Clippers.
• A. Sherrod Blakely spoke to some executives around the league about what Playoff Rondo still has left in the tank.
• We speculated about the Clippers’ playoff seeding yesterday. Zach Kram actually ran the numbers.
• Steve Kerr’s teams have done more to change the shape of the modern NBA than anyone, but even Kerr has some gripes about the absence of certain skills in today’s players.