Draymond Green was impressed with Lawrence Frank for pulling off the trade that led to the Clippers picking fifth-overall.
The Los Angeles Clippers took a massive gamble at the trade deadline this season when they, in the midst of a midseason resurgence, traded away both James Harden and Ivica Zubac to begin the process of a rebuild.
The Harden trade was straight froward. Harden was sent to the Cleveland Cavaliers in exchange for Darius Garland and a future second-round pick. Cleveland was adamant on being in "win-now" mode and received a superstar to try and get there while the Clippers received a talented young guard in Garland.
Trading Zubac, however, was as surprising as it was risky. The Clippers parted with their franchise center at the top of his value, along with Kobe Brown, in exchange for Bennedict Mathurin, Isaiah Jackson, two first-round picks and one second-round pick.
Gambling on Picks
While Mathurin and Jackson are solid players, it's the draft picks that Clippers general manager Lawrence Frank was banking on, and his gamble paid off.
The first of those first-round picks that will take effect is in this year's NBA Draft. While Indiana parted with the pick, they did so with it stepped in conditions. If the pick landed in the top-four after the draft lottery, Indiana would retain the rights to it and the Clippers instead would receive a 2031 first-round pick as compensation.
But, the Pacers fell to fifth-overall in this year's draft, so their rights were forfeited and the Clippers were rewarded, giving them an excellence chance at landing a high-impact player to help bolster their ongoing rebuild.
It was an incredible gamble on both ends, but the ramifications of it are disastrous for Indiana, who now doesn't pick at all in the first two rounds of the draft after finishing the regular season with a 19-63 record, the second-worst in the NBA.
Pacers Falter, But Clippers Come Out Ahead
It was a move that backfired so spectacularly that Indiana president of basketball operations Kevin Pritchard took to X to actually apologize to fans for the move.
Frank and the Clippers, on the other hand, come out of the exchange having just pulled off a masterclass and it's a move that's even impressed Draymond Green, who praised Frank's work on his podcast The Draymond Green Show.
"Lawrence Frank looks like a genius. Looks like a complete genius. But sometimes it’s the luck of the draw, and it just happens to go that way," Green said.
Frank knew he was taking a risk with the trade, especially considering it came at the cost of Zubac, but it's all panned out in the end.
The Clippers look poised to jumpstart their future with anyone they'll have available to them at fifth-overall and it's all thanks to the crafty dealings of Frank, with the possibility of even more moves on the way considering the Clippers still have Kawhi Leonard to use as trade capital if they so desire.