5 Creative Ways The Clippers Can Acquire Young Talent Without Relying On The Draft

Yesterday was a really bad day for the Los Angeles Clippers. The NBA found the franchise guilty of salary-cap circumvention in the Kawhi Leonard case, stripped them of five first-round picks from 2029 through 2033, fined the team $30.0 million, suspended Steve Ballmer for one year, and suspended Lawrence Frank for six months. Leonard was also fined $700,000, incredibly escaping barely harmed in all of this.

The one piece of good news, if we can even call it that, is that the league didn’t block Leonard’s move back to the Raptors. That trade had been on hold while the investigation was happening, and with the case now finished, the deal can move forward. Toronto had agreed to send Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, two unprotected first-round picks, two second-round picks, and a 2027 first-round pick swap for Leonard.

Those five lost first-round picks hurt the most. The Clippers were finally getting close to controlling their own future again starting in 2029, but now they won’t make a first-round selection with one of those picks until 2034, although they should get the Raptors’ 2031 and 2033 picks. Still, for a team entering a rebuild, that is brutal. Tanking doesn’t help much when there is basically no first-round pick waiting for you at the end of the season, since the 2027 pick swap from Toronto is the worst one among the Raptors, the Clippers, and the Thunder, and the 2028 pick goes entirely to OKC.

So if the Clippers can’t rely on landing a future franchise player through the Draft, and they also can’t use any of their upcoming first-round picks as trade assets since they belong to other teams, they will have to get creative. There are still other ways to find young talent, from taking chances on former high picks to using cap space, trades, the G League, and overlooked free agents.

With almost a decade of Draft problems ahead of them, here are five different ways the Clippers can try to survive this rebuild and find young players without waiting until 2034.

5. Trade For Young Players Other Teams Have Given Up On

This is probably the easiest place to start, because there are always young players around the league who were drafted high, didn’t develop fast enough, and suddenly become available for way less than people expected two years earlier.

Ousmane Dieng is a pretty good recent example. He was the No. 11 pick in 2022, barely found a consistent role with the Thunder, and then got a real chance with the Bucks. Last season he averaged 7.6 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 2.4 assists in 57 games, and after landing in Milwaukee, he posted 11.0 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 3.6 assists with some pretty interesting flashes late in the year, including a 17-point, nine-rebound, six-assist game and another night with 12 points and 12 assists. Milwaukee liked what it saw enough to give him a three-year, $17.5 million deal this summer.

Jared McCain is the more expensive version of the same idea. The Thunder gave up a first-round pick and three second-round picks for him, so I’m definitely not calling that one of the cheapest deals out there, but they still bought a 21-year-old former No. 16 pick after his value had fallen because of injuries and a smaller role. McCain then averaged 10.4 points in 30 games for Thunder and shot 39.1% from three.

The Clippers need to spend the next few years looking for the cheaper version of that move. Former first-round picks entering Year 3 or Year 4, young players stuck behind veterans, guys whose teams don’t want to pay them, or prospects who simply need 25 minutes instead of eight.

Most of them won’t become franchise players. That isn’t really the point. If the Clippers can turn an older role player into a 22-year-old who eventually becomes a solid starter, that is already a huge win when their normal path to young talent has basically disappeared.

More importantly, the Clippers already have a potential franchise cornerstone in Keaton Wagler, and with him being alongside Darius Garland, maybe he develops into a great No. 2 option combo guard for the future, and will only be 27 years old for the 2034 NBA Draft.

4. Take Chances On Young Free Agents And Two-Way Players

This might be my favorite one because it barely costs anything. I’m not talking about waiting for some 24-year-old star to reach unrestricted free agency randomly. That rarely happens. The Clippers need to look much lower, at young players getting waived, two-way guys, end-of-bench guards, and players who have already bounced around two or three organizations before really getting a chance.

Ryan Rollins is basically the dream result. He had already been with the Warriors and Wizards before the Bucks gave him another opportunity, and now he is coming off a season averaging 17.3 points, 4.6 rebounds, 5.6 assists, and 1.5 steals while shooting 47.2% from the field and 40.6% from three. Nobody was treating him like some future 17-PPG starter a couple of years ago, and the Bucks even rejected a Ja Morant trade framework because they didn’t want to include him in a deal.

Collin Gillespie is another one. He initially came into the Suns system on a two-way deal and eventually turned himself into a very solid rotation guard, averaging 12.7 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 4.6 assists last season while making 40.1% of his threes, earning a new extension this summer and likely becoming their starting point guard for next year.

And Scotty Pippen Jr. might be the one I like most. He went undrafted, barely played for the Lakers, got another chance with the Grizzlies, and now has a real shot at competing for the starting point guard job after Ja Morant was traded. His 2025-26 season was ruined by a toe problem, but he still averaged 11.4 points and 4.7 assists in the 10 games he played.

That needs to become a constant search for the Clippers. Sign three or four of these guys every year, give them actual minutes, and see what happens. Maybe three are gone in six months, but that’s a risk they should take. If the fourth one turns into the next Rollins, the entire exercise was worth it.

3. Go Hard After Undrafted Players

This is much harder, because finding a good undrafted player isn’t something you can just decide to do. There are hundreds of guys available after every Draft, and almost all of them never become important NBA players.

But when you have no first-round safety net, scouting these players can’t be some small side project anymore. Naz Reid went undrafted in 2019. He eventually became Sixth Man of the Year and is coming off another season with 13.6 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 2.2 assists while shooting 36.2% from three, and now gets his chance to be a star player for the Hornets.

Austin Reaves somehow went undrafted in 2021 and just averaged 23.3 points, 4.7 rebounds, and 5.5 assists for the Lakers while shooting 49.0% from the field. That is literally All-Star-caliber production from a player every team could’ve had for nothing on Draft night.

Obviously, telling the Clippers to “just find the next Reaves” would be stupid. If it were that easy, every team would do it.

The actual idea is volume. Bring in more undrafted rookies than everybody else. Use Summer League seriously. Give Exhibit 10 deals to players with one elite skill. Keep two-way spots moving if somebody clearly isn’t developing. Spend money on coaching and player development because this is one area where Steve Ballmer can still use his financial advantage without breaking any rules this time.

The Clippers aren’t going to get a top-five prospect this way. But they don’t necessarily need that every summer. Finding a starting wing, backup point guard, or shooting big man for basically nothing would already help rebuild the roster.

And once every few years, maybe you get insanely lucky. Right now, they need every possible lottery ticket they can legally find.

2. Collect As Many Second-Round Picks As Possible

Yeah, technically this still involves the Draft, but it doesn’t involve tanking or needing your own lottery pick, which is the part the Clippers basically lost.

Second-rounders should become currency for them. They are much easier to acquire than firsts, contenders throw them into trades all the time, and teams can even move around the second round using cash and smaller assets. The Clippers already did something similar this summer, acquiring Johni Broome and a 2027 second-round pick from the 76ers for cash considerations.

Most second-round picks aren’t becoming stars either. Again, that’s fine. If you enter five straight Drafts with three or four second-round selections instead of one, suddenly you have 15 or 20 chances to find NBA players. Maybe 12 disappear quickly, five become bench players, two become starters, and one becomes something even better. For the position the Clippers are in, those odds aren’t terrible.

And everybody already knows the extreme examples. Nikola Jokic was No. 41. Jalen Brunson was No. 33. Draymond Green was No. 35. Manu Ginobili went No. 57. Nobody should expect the Clippers to find another superstar like that, but those names are reminders that NBA talent doesn’t magically disappear after pick No. 30.

The goal would be much simpler. Find one good rotation player every couple of years. For a normal franchise, that sounds boring. For a franchise that just lost five first-round picks, getting a 22-year-old starter from pick No. 43 would feel enormous.

So I would be annoyingly aggressive here. Take second-rounders instead of cash in trades. Ask for them when helping facilitate three-team deals. Buy picks when teams don’t want guaranteed salary. Keep adding chances. They can’t control the top of the Draft anymore, so they need to attack the lower end of it.

1. Treat The G League Like Their Own Draft

If there is one team that should be watching every G League game this season, it is the Clippers. Seriously, what exactly do they have to lose? A rebuilding team with minutes available, a long timeline, almost no reason to prioritize 32-year-old role players, and a massive hole in future first-round talent is basically the perfect place to experiment with G League players.

There were 88 G League call-ups during the 2025-26 season alone. That doesn’t mean 88 good NBA players appeared, obviously, but it shows how much movement there is between the two leagues.

And there are always guys putting up ridiculous numbers down there. Tristen Newton averaged 25.8 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 5.5 assists last season and made the First Team All-G League. Isaac Jones put up 22.2 points, 8.9 rebounds, 2.6 assists, and 1.9 blocks while shooting 61.6% from the field.

Are either of those guys future stars? Probably not. But that question shouldn’t stop the Clippers from trying them. Give a guy 20 games. If it doesn’t work, move on and try somebody else. There is almost no risk when you’re talking about minimum deals, 10-days, and two-way contracts, and the Clippers are one of the few teams that can actually offer these players something more valuable than money: NBA minutes.

I would honestly cycle through these opportunities constantly for the next few years. Find shooters. Find athletic wings. Find 6-foot-9 defenders who can’t shoot yet. Find guards producing 25 points per game who everybody says are too small.

Some will look terrible. But when you can’t draft your own next young core the normal way, you need to create as many weird ways of finding one as possible.

Bonus: Trade Veterans For Other Teams’ First-Round Picks

There is obviously one more solution, although I wouldn’t make it the entire plan: sell veterans and rebuild the draft pool with picks that originally belonged to other teams.

The Clippers still have veterans and established players who could become interesting to contenders. Brandon Ingram is an obvious one depending on how this season goes, while Rui Hachimura could also become valuable after signing with the team this summer. Those are exactly the types of players you can shop when a contender gets desperate in February.

Darius Garland is different for me. He is only 26, so I wouldn’t dump him just because the Clippers are rebuilding. Garland can still be good when this team starts competing again, and having an actual point guard around Keaton Wagler and Gradey Dick should help those younger players develop too.

The same goes for Dick and Wagler. Those are players you keep and test, not guys you move because you are terrified of the next five years. And I’m also not sure the Clippers can just turn Ingram, Hachimura, and every other veteran into a giant pile of first-round picks. Teams protect those assets much more now, and neither player is bringing some huge package by himself.

But if somebody eventually offers a first for one of them, that is the type of move the Clippers have to make instantly. What’s done is done, but there are still other ways for them to make up for what they lost.

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