Clippers offseason primer: In need of more offense to go with all that defense

Published 2 months ago• 10 minute read

last summer, the LA Clippers followed up their 51-31 record of 2023-24 with a 50-32 record in 2024-25. A loss in seven games to the Denver Nuggets has unfortunately meant their third consecutive first-round postseason exit; nevertheless, they have been able to navigate the demise of the once-celebrated yet ultimately anticlimactic George/ era, and come out of it no worse off than they were.

The Clippers have been able to do so through significant internal growth. A much-improved defense that ranked third in the league in the regular season – and for which much of the credit is being given to last summer’s recruitment of Jeff Van Gundy – gave the Clippers an identity and competitive edge. Excellent defensive personnel such as , and create a foundation going into the offseason on which the Clippers can build, buoyed by the knowledge that it is not only young players who can improve.

That said, three consecutive first-round exits are frustrating and insufficient. Doing well to get back there does not mean getting back there suffices. With the oldest roster in the league, the Clippers need to make improvements so as not to make it four in a row. The defense cannot get much better, so the offense will have to.

With this in mind, here follows a look at the L.A. Clippers’ roster and spending options heading into the 2025 NBA offseason.

Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

Considering that the giant salary slot of George only recently opened up, the Clippers have a nicely manageable payroll. Owner has the financial wherewithal to pay hefty tax-burdened payrolls, yet the Clippers remain some way short of that – their largest commitments to Leonard ($50,000,000) and Harden ($36,346,154) do not run on for too much longer, and there is room for another full mid-level exception signing this summer.

Beyond the Top 2, late-career breakout offensive star ($20,482,758) will represent a bargain next season, as will late-career breakout defensive star ($18,102,000), who receives a sizeable raise next year in the first season of the extension he signed back in August, yet still represents great value for his nightly double-double. The Clippers further traded for the eight-figure salary of veteran wing ($16,020,000) at the deadline and signed two-way athletic forward ($10,000,000) with last year’s MLE. All told, those eight combine for as near as $150 million and a full salary cap, but none of it is burdensome – the worst value for money is perhaps Leonard, whose chronic unavailability means he costs more than a million dollars per appearance, but the rest of the cap is managed well enough to offset this.

Because of that, the Clippers will likely be able to access the full amount of the non-taxpayer mid-level exception, which will begin at approximately $14 million. They will not have the Bi-Annual Exception, which was used last season on , yet having the full MLE will make them buyers in a market that will see many of their rival teams still encumbered by the payroll loading and subsequent apron issues that they squeezed in before the advent of the latest Collective Bargaining Agreement. The Clippers’ future draft pick situation is in a significant overall deficit, but the financial situation, lack of immediate significant free agency, and spending power have them in a better asset situation than some other teams on their level.

Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

If the Clippers were to do absolutely nothing and just run back what they had, they would have a payroll of approximately $172 million. They can save on that amount by cutting the unguaranteed deals of , and , but unless Harden and/or Batum decline their player options, the only rotation players heading to free agency are reserve forwards and . With the luxury tax threshold estimated to come in at approximately $188 million, it will be possible for the Clippers to add meaningfully to their team via free agency and/or trade without going over that, and they have more wiggle room still under the aprons, allowing them to use the full range of team-building options available to them. The only thing they do not have is incumbent youth.

Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Harden re-signed with the Clippers last year to a two year, $70 million contract, the second year of which is a player option. He was acquired to be the third wheel alongside the duo of Leonard and George, yet often ended up becoming Batman to Norman Powell’s Robin.

Despite his playoff shortcomings, 2024-25 was overall a resurgent year for The Beard. His 22.8 points per game scoring average was his highest since 2020-21, and although it was only as an injury replacement, he was selected to the All-Star Game for the first time in three seasons. For that level of performance, the price paid was very fair.

With 16 NBA seasons, more than 1,300 games, more than 46,000 minutes and almost 36 years of life under his belt, Harden’s time at the very, very top of the league has come to an end. But he proved this year that his ability to win games, while rarer than at his peak, is still there. His shooting and passing skills are aging well, and without him, the Clippers get nowhere near the 50 wins they managed. Considering that they remain on a win-now timeline even without George – albeit largely due to a lack of alternative options – it would probably benefit the Clippers most if Harden would simply opt into that deal. After all, he has done so before.

Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

In the summer of 2023, Batum was the subject of retirement rumors, to the point that his wife announced that he would end his career after the Paris Olympics. Obviously, this did not happen. Retirement will now however always loom large over the question of his future.

If Batum chooses once again to return, the Clippers will surely be very happy if he picks up that player option season. Batum’s averages of 4.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 1.1 assists belie his impact as a truly useful three-and-D player, who defended across multiple match-ups and was a key willing helper in a much-improved Clippers defensive unit while also hitting an excellent 43.3 percent from three-point range. His body held up, too, to the point of appearing in 78 regular-season contests. Batum has aged gracefully into being an excellent veteran role player, and while every NBA season at this stage might be his last, he has more than earned a spot on merit for another go-around if he wants it.

Robert Edwards-Imagn Images

Coffey has been with the Clippers since 2019 when he signed as an undrafted free agent out of the University of Minnesota. Over that time, he has gone from the fringes of the roster to the fringes of the rotation, to this past season being a 24.3 minutes per game player and key contributor. With greater burst and offensive aggression than the aforementioned Batum, Coffey averaged 9.7 points, 2.2 rebounds, 1.1 assists ,and 40.9 percent three-point shooting in the regular season, and has become an excellent off-ball offensive role player from the wing. It is therefore time for a pay rise.

Counting against him on the market is historically poor playoff performance – something compounded by not playing at all in this year’s postseason due to a late-season knee injury – along with muted defensive impact. He has the physical tools and has improved on that end, but clumsy fouls and being regularly caught off the ball hold him back on that end. Nevertheless, six years of steady improvement have made him into an NBA rotation player in the mold, and hopefully, he can continue to learn from Batum and age like him. At age 27, these are Coffey’s prime earning years, and he will want a pay rise to something approaching double last season’s $3,938,271 salary – whether or not they choose to give it to him, the Clippers have full Bird rights on him, and thus absolutely can.

Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

Simmons’s struggles over the last few years with back problems, anxiety, pressure, stifled development, and offensive timidity are well-documented, but both before (with the Brooklyn Nets) and after (here with the Clippers) his contract buyout and subsequent minimum salary signing, he did some work this year to rejuvenate his career. Far from being the one with the keys to the offense like he was in his youth, this mid-career Simmons is a two-way bench presence, who can drive and kick, handle the ball, lead the break, and defend all areas of the court, without the pressure of having to be the main guy. It is a role he was always well-suited for, and he delivered with the Clippers. If he chooses to fully lean into it, he may have just bought himself another half-decade at least, if the back holds up.

As for the appropriate price for his services, this is far harder to gauge, due to the unreliability that belies his talent. As a player, Simmons – who averaged 2.9 points, 3.8 rebounds and 3.1 assists in 16.4 minutes per game for the Clippers in the regular season in addition to the defense – deserves more than the minimum salary, but the market will be jaded by all the uncertainty of recent seasons, potentially requiring Simmons to take another minimum-salary deal. Some aspects of his game and career will always be what-ifs. But if he can become with some passing chops for the second half of his career, there is a lot still available to him.

Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images

Powell’s breakout this season is what gave the Clippers enough offensive punch to capitalize on their top-quality defense. Rarely do players make offensive leaps at the age of 31, but Powell did, averaging a career-best 21.8 points per game in 60 starts, being more aggressive at getting into the lane while also in constant motion off the ball for some of Harden’s feeds. On more than seven three-point attempts per game, he hit 41.8 percent of them, entirely in line with his career 39.8 percent three-point shooting while taking his highest-ever volume of shots. Making the step up from sixth man extraordinaire to starter only made him better.

2025-26 will be the final season of the five-year, $90 million contract that Powell signed while still a member of the Portland Trail Blazers all the way back in August 2021. His improvements since then, combined with the salary cap’s concurrent sharp increases, have turned that deal into a bargain.

All bargains come to an end eventually, of course, but in the time since Powell signed that deal, the new Collective Bargaining Agreement liberalized the rules for extensions – the first-year salaries in extensions can now start at 140 percent of the salary in the final year of the deal being extended, up from 125 percent previously, This means that Powell can sign an extension any time between today and 30th June 2026 that will give him a 2026-27 salary of up to $28,675,861, for a three-year pact of approximately $92 million. Or they could trade him as a 32-year-old 20-point-game scorer on a $20 million expiring salary. Both have their merits.

14, including two player options

: 2 (Patrick Baldwin Jr and Seth Lundy)

$122,685,850

$50,144,828

$172,830,678

$154,647,000

$187,895,000

$195,945,000

$207,824,000