While the Los Angeles Clippers have put together a concerted effort to rebuild the franchise by selling off their biggest stars and accumulate both young talent and draft picks to continue building toward the future, the NBA threw a major wrench in the Clippers' plans by laying down one of the harshest punishments in NBA history. 

Following a nearly-yearlong investigation into the Clippers for an attempt at salary cap circumvention by connecting Kawhi Leonard with Aspiration, the NBA ruled that, among other penalties, the Clippers will be forced to forfeit five future first-round picks. 

That is a devastating blow for the future of the organization and with Leonard presumably being traded to the Toronto Raptors after the Clippers sort out their front office leadership following suspensions to owner Steve Ballmer and director of basketball operations Lawrence Frank, the players left on the roster are also being left to pick up the pieces.

One of those players will be Brandon Ingram, who will be the centerpiece of the Clippers' return package in the Leonard trade. But while the two-time All-Star adds a lot of promise to the roster and will be heavily relied on as a leader of the young talent left on the team, he's also entering into a desolate situation. 

Trying to anchor a team in the midst of a rebuild that simultaneously has a barren future ahead of them to continue said rebuild is a tough situation for any player to be in. Ingram has at least one guaranteed year left on his contract with a player option for the following year, but the Clippers don't offer much of a future for a player of his talents. 

That's a sentiment that was echoed by Draymond Green during a recent episode of his podcast "The Draymond Green Show," where Green laid out what the he feels is the best possible scenario for Ingram, and it's not staying with the Clippers. 

"If you're Brandon Ingram and you're going into the Clippers' situation, you're trying to ball, because when you look at the situation that's now left behind, it's not a good one," Green said. "You can go be an All-Star again, you can go dominate and ultimately put yourself in a position where the Clippers can trade you."

The idea that the best thing a player can do after coming to a new team is try and leave it as soon as possible is a bleak one, but it's also realistic. The Clippers are years out from building anything meaningful and putting themselves back into playoff contention, so should Ingram want to compete, he'll have to do it elsewhere. 

The heart of Green's point is that the Clippers are desperate to acquire more picks and trading Ingram, should he continue to play at a high level, is the best way to do that. 

The best case scenario for both the Clippers and Ingram at this point is being able to flip Ingram to try and recoup the organization's losses in future drafts, so as valuable as Ingram might be on the court, he's even more valuable if the Clippers can send him to another team's court instead.