After the first round of the 2026 NBA Draft, LA Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank voluntarily took his team out of the group of theoretical contenders.
That part was easy.
The Clippers were coming off a 42-40 season and missed the playoffs. They haven’t won a playoff series in five years. And while Frank said then that Kawhi Leonard would be key to the success of the franchise, the Clippers were preparing for the possibility that their run with Leonard might soon be over.
“Plan still is to win with Kawhi,” Frank said in June. “But the bigger plan is we understand we’re not a contender. We’re competitive. How are we gonna get back to contention?”
A little more than two months later, the Clippers’ answer to Frank’s question is beginning to take shape. As usual, the Clippers are coloring outside the lines.
The Clippers agreed to trade Leonard to the Toronto Raptors a week after Frank’s declaration, a deal that would net them Brandon Ingram, an All-Star at Leonard’s position, Gradey Dick, a lottery pick entering the final year of his rookie contract, and draft capital. But the deal remains in limbo, with the Raptors pausing the transaction until the NBA decides on any punishment (or lack thereof) that may come from the yearlong investigation into allegations of salary-cap circumvention by the Clippers. With September here, Ingram and Dick remain under contract with Toronto, and Leonard is still under contract with the Clippers.
Goodbyes have been left in the drafts — for now.
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The acquisition of 30-year-old small forward Max Strus in a five-team trade with the Denver Nuggets, Cleveland Cavaliers, Charlotte Hornets and Washington Wizards gave Frank another opportunity to reinforce his message from June’s draft and tell anyone listening that the Clippers are trying to win.
“We are going to be a highly competitive team this season, and Max will be a big part of it,” Frank said in the statement announcing the Strus trade. “He fits anywhere, and we’re excited to bring him to LA.”
Strus gives them a 37 percent 3-point shooter, offers some secondary ballhandling and will compete defensively. He’s also on an expiring contract worth $16.6 million. His arrival came just as the Clippers lost reserve wing Jordan Miller, who suffered a torn rotator cuff in a workout and is expected to remain out at least through the 2027 All-Star break.
Bradley Beal, on the other hand, fits differently into the same transition.
After undergoing season-ending surgery last November to repair a fracture in his left hip after only six games, Beal isn’t being brought back with the same expectations. Instead of being a starter on a contender, he has to prove he is healthy enough to earn a rotation spot. In the meantime, Beal has long been a mentor to Darius Garland, as Garland once played on Beal’s AAU team. Between Garland and fellow Missouri native Tyronn Lue, Beal has some important relationships within the organization and can, at minimum, be a sounding board for those two important stakeholders.
Strus is higher on the pecking order than Beal, though. The Clippers are planning for Strus to be in the rotation whether he starts or not.
The Clippers made another choice that revealed how they view this transition: They let Bennedict Mathurin walk. Given what Strus is expected to provide on the floor, and what Beal is expected to provide as a locker-room veteran, those transactions revealed what the Clippers prioritized on the roster.
A week after the Clippers acquired Strus, Mathurin agreed to a two-year, $16.6 million deal with the New Orleans Pelicans that includes a 2027 player option. Rather than match or attempt to retain Mathurin, the Clippers relinquished the qualifying offer to facilitate the transaction.
The game is about buckets, and Mathurin is a 24-year-old wing whose best skill is getting to the free-throw line and scoring at a high volume, either as a starter or a reserve. Frank praised Mathurin’s competitiveness and development after the Clippers were eliminated from the Play-In Tournament in April.
“For us, the challenge — and I think he did a good job of it — is to be a two-way player,” Frank said then.
But the same questions that followed Mathurin through four seasons with the Indiana Pacers remained after his season with the Clippers. Could he become good enough as a scorer to make up for his inconsistencies as a passer, defender and shooter? Could he show durability after playing in a career-low 54 games? If defenses weren’t sending him to the free-throw line, what would be his counter?
Ultimately, the Clippers were content letting Mathurin move ahead with endeavors. In a sense, they chose several other players over him.
The biggest factor that sealed Mathurin’s fate was when the Clippers landed the No. 5 pick in the draft and selected 19-year-old Keaton Wagler out of Illinois. The point guard gives them something they haven’t had much of during the Leonard era: a premium young prospect with the opportunity to grow into a foundational player.
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The first hurdle for Wagler to clear in that journey is to lead the second unit. The hope is that Wagler, at some point on his rookie contract, can approximate Mathurin’s ability to pressure the rim and get to the free-throw line at a high rate, while providing more playmaking and shooting without becoming a defensive liability. But Wagler has a deliberate play style that is similar to Mathurin’s in the half court.
Perhaps Wagler and Mathurin could have worked together. But given LA’s priority to let Wagler explore the studio space, having both players as reserves could have been duplicative and redundant.
With Garland, Wagler and (insert star small forward here), the Clippers had to decide whether investing in significant money and possessions in Mathurin still made sense. They decided it didn’t. Time will tell if they were right.
For now, here’s what a Clippers depth chart could look like. (Let’s include Leonard and adjust for a trade with the Raptors or some other team when one officially goes through.)
LA Clippers early September depth
| Clippers early September | Point guard | Shooting guard | Small forward | Power forward | Center |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Starters | Darius Garland | Kris Dunn | Kawhi Leonard* | Derrick Jones Jr. | Brook Lopez |
Rotation | Keaton Wagler | Kobe Sanders | Max Strus | Rui Hachimura | Isaiah Jackson |
Backups | Baba Miller | ||||
TBD | Cam Christie (Oct. 15 guarantee) | Johni Broome (76ers salary dump) | |||
Two-way | Jalen Pickett | Nick Martinelli | Jamarion Sharp | ||
Injured | Bradley Beal | Jordan Miller | Yanic Konan Niederhauser |
LA has very few veteran commitments past this season. Leonard’s contract expires in 2027 if it isn’t voided, which the Clippers, Raptors and the NBA Players Association do not expect. Ingram has a 2027 player option. Garland’s contract expires in 2028, though he is extension-eligible. The Clippers have a 2027 team option on Rui Hachimura. Kris Dunn, Derrick Jones Jr., Brook Lopez and Strus all have expiring deals. Beal has a 2027 player option, but it’s partially guaranteed. Lue’s contract goes through 2029, giving him about two years before a decision to extend him again comes to the forefront.
So, what are the Clippers building? They want to do three things at once:
- They want to win games; after all, the Oklahoma City Thunder (again!) can swap 2027 first-round picks with the Clippers.
- They want to create meaningful opportunities for young players such as Wagler and Kobe Sanders, as well as Yanic Konan Niederhäuser, once he is back from Lisfranc foot surgery.
- They want to maintain flexibility to acquire the next blue-chip player who could help them return to contention.
Can they accomplish all three of those things? The franchise has the longest active streak of consecutive winning seasons in the league at 15, so the standard there is set. None of the rookie contract players have a clear pathway to starting, but some of them will be relied on early, and all of them can reasonably expect to get an opportunity at some point during the season. The Clippers always wind up trading a rotation player after the season has started; this season should be no different.
That includes several veterans who likely will be available at the 2027 trade deadline and several prospects who, in Frank’s words, will have a chance to establish whether they should be on the Clippers’ “next contending roster.” In a way, the Clippers have already made some decisions on who may be on that type of team (Wagler) and who will not be (Mathurin).
“We’re very, very fortunate that, you know, sometimes you never get a run,” Frank said during the draft. “We had a run, we came up short. I think you just have to be honest about yourselves when the run that we’ve had is now over. So now, it’s time to start a new run. And we’re doing this all the while of never, never trying to be bad. We’re always trying to get back to contention.”
The Clippers are trying to have their cake and eat it, too. Prepare for a better future while not bottoming out in the present. Reload rather than rebuild. We’ll see if not trying to be bad will also be good enough in the West.
