The Clippers spent this offseason picking up the pieces of a superstar era ending, and what they built in the process gives this team a real shot to surprise people out West.
Kawhi Leonard is technically still a Clipper right now.
The team agreed to send him to the Toronto Raptors back in June for Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, and a stack of future first round picks, but the deal has been stuck on hold for weeks while the NBA finishes an investigation into whether the Clippers skirted the salary cap through an old endorsement deal tied to the now bankrupt Aspiration company.
Nobody outside the league office has a real timeline for when it wraps up, and rival executives are growing impatient waiting.
What Actually Happened This Offseason
That trade freeze is really just the final domino in a rebuild that started back in February.
The Clippers already sent James Harden to Cleveland for Darius Garland and moved longtime center Ivica Zubac to Indiana for Bennedict Mathurin, Isaiah Jackson, Kobe Brown, and two more first round picks.
Add the fifth overall pick in this year's draft, Keaton Wagler out of Illinois, plus second rounders Baba Miller and Nick Martinelli, and the roster looks nothing like the one that finished 42-40 and missed the playoffs last spring.
Brook Lopez, Kris Dunn, and Derrick Jones Jr. remain as steady veteran hands, but almost everyone else on this roster is 25 or younger.
Why The Retool Gives Me Confidence
People keep talking about this team like it lost something, but the Clippers actually gained a version of flexibility they have not had in years.
Garland showed instant chemistry in Los Angeles and pushed his scoring up in his short stint with the team, and if the Raptors trade eventually closes, Ingram slides in as a wing who already proved last season he can produce at a high level, averaging 21.5 points and 5.6 rebounds a game in his first year in Toronto.
A front office executive told reporters the roster had trended older for a few years and the retool toward youth actually began last season, which lines up with everything that has happened since.
Other teams have grown frustrated watching the investigation stretch on with no clear finish line, but that delay works in the Clippers' favor in one sense.
It buys their young players more time together before anyone expects instant results.
A core built around Garland, Mathurin, Wagler, and Sanders with Lopez anchoring the middle gives coach Tyronn Lue pieces that fit and can grow together.
The Path To Surprising The West
Bringing Mathurin back should be high on the priority list too, since keeping him fits the timeline of this young core after he clicked with Garland once he arrived from Indiana.
Stack those picks from the Zubac and Kawhi trades on top of a genuinely promising young core and the Clippers have both talent and financial flexibility that most rebuilding teams would envy.
None of this means Los Angeles wins the Pacific Division this season.
But the West is open enough that a deep, young, well coached roster with this much draft capital behind it does not need a superstar to be a problem for other teams.
If Garland keeps developing and the picks eventually turn into real difference makers, this retool could end up looking like the smartest move the franchise has made in a decade.
