With the news that DeAndre Jordan has agreed to leave the Los Angeles Clippers to sign a four-year, $80 million deal with the Dallas Mavericks, that leaves a gigantic hole in the middle of the Clippers' approach. Team president and coach Doc Rivers couldn't convince Jordan to stay with the team that turned him into a hot commodity twice on the free agency market. Back in 2011, the Golden State Warriors tried to pry Jordan away from the Clippers with a four-year, $42.7 million offer sheet.
The Clippers matched it. Next time around on the open market, Jordan was an unrestricted free agent and the Clippers no longer had a safety net for convincing him to stay. He chose the Mavs over the Clippers in the hopes he could be more of an individual player, perhaps earn an All-Star Game selection, and help the Mavs start building back toward being a title contender. He's essentially tabbed to be their new Tyson Chandler.
Unfortunately for the Clippers, they can't do anything about this other than start scrambling for a stopgap option and try to maintain their position in the ultra competitive Western Conference. What are the Clippers options for this year and how can they remedy this situation moving forward?
The Clippers have zero depth inside with the way the roster is currently constructed, and while small ball is expected to be utilized with Blake Griffin at the 5, this can't be a long-term solution nor something they utilize to the degree that it wears down their All-Star power forward. They don't just need depth inside; they need a competent starting option. There can be cheap options in free agency like Doc Rivers' old center Kendrick Perkins, but that isn't really a solution.
If the Clippers want to get rid of Jamal Crawford, Lester Hudson, and Jordan Hamilton from their deals, they can clear roughly $7 million in cap space. The most attractive free agent center available at this point is Kosta Koufos, who is more than capable of filling in for Jordan over the next year, but will be far more expensive than the money the Clippers can desperately clear this summer. With Omer Asik (five years, $60 million), Robin Lopez (four years, $54 million), and Tyson Chandler (four years, $52 million) all agreeing to big deals, there's no way to feel Koufos doesn't at least approach a deal of that size.
The Memphis Grizzlies have already signed Brandan Wright as a backup big man and could be interested in a sign-and-trade for Koufos, but then you're getting into trading Lance Stephenson or J.J. Redick along with Crawford to get a stopgap center. This Clippers' team is already thin enough. Trading 2-for-1 could make a bad situation even worse for Rivers' roster.
There's the idea of constructing a probably complicated sign-and-trade three-team deal that would send Monta Ellis to Indiana, Jordan to Dallas, and Roy Hibbert and his $15.5 million expiring contract to the Clippers, but that could end up costing the Clippers more assets they don't really have in order to provide incentive to make it work. Hibbert wouldn't be a great fit for the Clippers in what they like to do, but he's a good rim protector and a starting quality center in today's NBA.
Patience could be the best practice for Rivers and his roster moving forward, but that's not always easy to preach in the pressures of today's Western Conference. If the Clippers can get by on minimum players and cheap veterans willing to grab a starting position on a potential playoff team (they still have two great players after all), they enter the summer of 2016 with $30 million or more in cap space.
They can chase a big man like Joakim Noah, Al Horford, or Timofey Mozgov in free agency with a lot of cap space. They can also throw their hat into the Kevin Durant sweepstakes and hope the allure of Blake Griffin and Chris Paul are enough to grab his attention and his services. In going with the patient route, the Clippers risk building on the progressions they've been trying to make under Doc with a potential free agency of Griffin and Paul in 2017 if they want to decline their respective player options.
Losing Jordan has put the Clippers in a tough position with tougher decisions to make. This is why they brought Rivers here. He was supposed to be the calming force. Now we get to see whether or not he can keep his cool in scrambling to find a solution.
