What’s next for Clippers? Regular-season plan worked, but long-term questions remain after playoff exit

What must be so frustrating for the Los Angeles Clippers is that this was the year in which things actually went right. Kawhi Leonard was healthy at the end. James Harden staved off age-related decline and made an All-Star team at 35. He had another one of his infamous elimination game collapses, but was otherwise fine in the playoffs. Ivica Zubac contended for an All-NBA slot. The offseason moves were basically flawless. They seemingly peaked at the right time, ending the regular season 18-3 and becoming one of the more popular underdog picks to win the Western Conference. This was the year they’ve been building toward.

And they still lost in the first round to the Nuggets, their tormentor throughout the Leonard era, at perhaps the most dysfunctional point in the Nikola Jokić era. They didn’t lose to the 2023 Denver team that won the championship. They lost to the 2025 team that fired its coach and general manager at the end of the season. A best-case season for the Clippers wasn’t good enough to overcome a worst-case season for the Nuggets, and that says nothing of the Thunder, who might just be in a different stratosphere.

That makes evaluating this Clippers season almost impossible. This is a franchise that has won 50 games only seven times. When you consider the context of this one, with Paul George leaving and this era practically left for dead, you could argue that this was the best, or at least the most uplifting, regular season that the Clippers have ever had. They opened their new building in style. They quieted doubters. But the goal is the trophy that’s handed out in June. It’s barely May and the Clippers are already done.

Where does that leave them? There will be a reactionary portion of the fan base that wants a teardown. It just isn’t feasible. Who could justify sacrificing significant assets to get Leonard in light of his medical history? The same goes for Harden and his playoff history. The Clippers were so close to waiting out their pick obligations to Oklahoma City before they traded for Harden. Now they don’t control their own pick again until 2030. They can’t tank. They can’t rebuild, at least not properly.

So, do they double-down? You could argue, outside of this Nuggets series, that the season they just had warrants further investment. They have two tradable first-round picks in 2030 and 2032. Could they go trade for reinforcements? Well, that’s tricky. There isn’t much bad money on the books, save the non-guaranteed $4.75 million owed to Drew Eubanks next season, unless you’ve completely given up on Bogdan Bogdanović. Combine his $16 million salary with Eubanks and the Clippers could go get a role player in the $20-25 million range, but they got Bogdanović for a reason. He didn’t shoot well for them, but they valued his bench creation. It’s something they’d have to replace if they moved him.

What does this team need? Another reliable shot-creator is the obvious answer, but the Clippers wouldn’t want to disturb their stellar defense. That makes players like Anfernee Simons a rough fit. A traditional backup center could help, but playing smaller behind Zubac helped balance out the roster in meaningful ways. Batum-at-center lineups helped boost their meager 3-point volume, and Ben Simmons at least gave them some transition juice. Maybe a Cam Johnson type for pure shooting? Only the Nuggets attempted fewer 3s in the regular season, something they’ll have to rectify if they want to win anything in the near future. There aren’t no-brainer moves here, nothing that screams “this is worth going deeper into pick debt over” after the Game 7 shellacking they just took. More importantly, any of these solutions make sense within the context of a static roster. The NBA is never that simple.

What if Harden declines at 36? What if Leonard’s newfound health is a mirage? That’s where things get complicated. The Clippers have depth. They have the basic roles this version of their team would need filled. What they don’t have is stability, not just for the present, but for the future. Harden and Leonard kept the Clippers afloat for most of this year. How much longer will they be able to do it? 

Can they get another star in the door to support and eventually replace them? That’s hard with just two first-round picks to trade. Perhaps not impossible if the target comes with some associated risk. Maybe this is a Ja Morant team, for instance, or Zion Williamson. Either would drastically reconfigure the entire roster and playing style, but that’s a reality the Clippers will have to grapple with eventually.

As fun as this season turned out to be, its function within the broader landscape of Clippers history wasn’t too dissimilar to the 2018-19 campaign that preceded Leonard’s arrival. They were scrappy underdogs then too, but the point was to stall. Wait until a star became available and make yourselves appealing to such a player in the meantime. The Clippers obviously remain appealing. The question is where they’ll look for that Leonard-esque star. Their books clean up considerably after the 2025-26 season, when Harden expires. Perhaps they keep the powder dry to chase a Trae Young or Jaren Jackson Jr. The 2027 class is far more appealing for the moment, but extensions will obviously cut into it. Standing in the way of any Clippers coup are the Lakers, who also figure to keep an eye on star free agency in the coming years.

Or maybe, the stall tactics last longer. Maybe the idea is to remain relevant as the pick-debt incurred by the Harden and Paul George trades is slowly paid off. Right now, their next four first-round picks are encumbered. Maybe you can squeeze out two more years of fun basketball out of Leonard and Harden, long enough to at least unlock the 2033 and 2034 first-round picks as trade chips. Survive all four and you can tank freely in 2030, but nothing about Steve Ballmer suggests he’ll be all that eager to wait half a decade before enacting the beginning of a new plan. Long-term stalling doesn’t seem like his style.

So the path here is probably somewhat similar to last summer’s. This front office pulled a few rabbits out of the hat George left behind. Kris Dunn for the taxpayer mid-level was a minor miracle. Derrick Jones Jr. is making peanuts for what he provides defensively. Maybe there are upgrades out there that aren’t obvious, players the front office understands to be undervalued that we don’t see yet. They’ve earned the benefit of the doubt on that front. This is a smart organization. They’ll have to outsmart the league to improve this summer given the constraints they’re working with.

But losing to Denver in the manner in which they did is concerning. It shows how very far they still have to go, even under the best of circumstances. Maybe there’s another level for this group to climb. Maybe it would make more sense to emphasize the future. Last summer, the Clippers somehow managed to do both, improving the team substantially without committing long-term money to George. They’ll try to straddle that line again this offseason. It won’t be easy, but nothing the Clippers do ever is.