It's been less than five months since the Clippers traded for Eric Gordon and the deal already looks like an epic disaster for Los Angeles.
At the trade deadline, the Clippers traded John Wall, Luke Kennard, and a pick swap to that ended up sending Cam Whitmore to the Rockets in exchange for the veteran guard. As noted by Tomer Azarly, the Clippers' trade for Eric Gordon looks like a complete disaster.
This was noted after Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the Clippers will not be guaranteeing Gordon's salary this season and letting him walk into free agency.
This move was made by the team to have a better creator off the bench. Although Gordon isn't the best creator for others, he has been a very scoring guard during his time in the NBA. During his half-season with the Clippers, Gordon didn't really do much for the squad as he struggled to sustain minutes due to poor play.
To get him for a discouraging half-season they gave up the NBA's best 3-point shooter (Kennard) and a pick (No. 20) that brought a sliding top-5 talent in Whitmore to the Rockets.
What is next for the Clippers?
As Adrian Wojnarowski highlighted, the Clippers cut Eric Gordon to save about $110 million on their luxury tax bill. Even for an owner like Steve Ballmer, that is way too much of a luxury tax to take on. With that in mind, it makes sense for the team to waive the player who wasn't doing anything for them. But they knew how much it would cost to keep Gordon last season when they traded for him!
The team could have used his expiring contract to play with in trades but they already have plenty of expiring which will help them lure talent if they choose to invest the first tradeable picks this team has since trading for Paul George a couple of summers ago.
The Clippers will most likely look to trade Marcus Morris, Robert Covington, and Nicolas Batum with their picks to get better veterans and even maybe an All-Star type player.
Big picture-wise, the Clippers are facing a very uncertain future where their two-star players have player options after next season. Even if both players want to return to the Clippers, L.A. might decide to not extend both of them due to the fact that Paul George and Kawhi Leonard are both very injury-prone.
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