Why The Clippers Could Be Incentivized To Tank After Cap-Circumvention Scandal

In late May, the NBA’s board of governors approved a drastic overhaul to the league’s draft lottery in response to the increasingly shameless ways that tanking teams were attempting to throw games. Instead of rewarding the worst teams with the highest odds of landing the No. 1 overall pick, the new system gives lower odds to the teams with the three worst records, thereby reducing the incentive to tank.

A few months later, the NBA unintentionally undermined that new system by pillaging the Los Angeles Clippers for alleged salary-cap circumvention involving star forward Kawhi Leonard.

On Wednesday, the league announced that it was stripping a first-round pick from the Clippers in each of the 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032 and 2033 drafts. Due to previously agreed-upon trades, the Clippers now don’t have control over one of their own first-round picks until the 2034 draft. Many of the players who will be selected that year are currently in middle school.

The Clippers will still have a first-round pick in 2027 and 2029, and they’re set to receive unprotected 2031 and 2033 first-round picks from the Toronto Raptors in exchange for Leonard. However, they aren’t guaranteed to have one of their own first-round picks until 2034 at the earliest.

As a result, the Clippers now have more incentive than any team in the NBA to tear down their roster and begin to tank with aplomb. The disincentives for finishing with a bottom-three record—namely, worse odds to land a high-lottery pick—will not meaningfully impact them until the mid-2030s.

Given the Clippers’ purported outrage at the NBA’s ruling, undermining the new draft lottery by brazenly tanking in the coming years could be their best chance to thumb their nose at the league office.

Prior to Wednesday, the Clippers had control of their first-round picks from 2030 through 2033. The NBA will be stripping each of those, which is straightforward enough. But why did the league’s punishment start with a 2029 pick rather than 2027?

Because the Clippers already owed the rights to their picks in 2027, 2028 and 2029 elsewhere, either outright or via pick swaps.

The Oklahoma City Thunder have the right to swap their 2027 first-round pick or the Denver Nuggets’ 2027 top-five-protected first-round pick with the Clippers’ pick, which is a veritable lock to happen. Even if everything breaks right for the Clippers this season, the Thunder have finished with the NBA’s best record in each of the past two years and figure to be right back in that range this coming season.

The Clippers owe their fully unprotected 2028 first-round pick either to the Boston Celtics or Philadelphia 76ers, depending on where it lands in the draft. And the Sixers also have the right to swap 2029 first-round picks with the Clippers as long as the Clippers’ pick doesn’t land in the top three.

To avoid unintentionally punishing the Sixers in 2029 for the Clippers’ malfeasance, the NBA will instead be stripping the Clippers of the Indiana Pacers’ unprotected first-round pick that year, according to multiple reports. The Clippers acquired both that pick and the pick that wound up landing fifth in the 2026 draft in exchange for starting center Ivica Zubac at this past February’s trade deadline.

If the Clippers’ 2029 pick does land in the top three, the Sixers won’t have the right to swap picks with them. If the NBA wouldn’t strip that pick instead of the Pacers’ pick, that might be the Clippers’ best chance of landing a franchise cornerstone in the draft to pair with rookie point guard Keaton Wagler. Granted, they’ll enter that lottery with a 24.1% chance of snagging a top-three pick at best, and that’s only if they finish outside of the play-in tournament while avoiding a bottom-three record.

So, thanks to their previously agreed-upon trades and the circumvention punishment, the Clippers now have almost zero draft-based incentive to care about where they land in the standings between now and 2033. The top of the second round will go in reverse order from the first round—so, the team with the No. 1 pick will get the No. 46 pick, etc.—but that shouldn’t be enough to deter the Clippers from brazenly tanking.

After this punishment, the Clippers now have four first-round picks over the next seven years, one of which figures to be late in the 2027 draft. They have exactly zero tradable first-round picks due to the Stepien Rule, which prohibits teams from being without first-round picks in back-to-back years.

To replenish their draft coffers, the Clippers eventually need to begin a teardown.

It doesn’t necessarily need to happen right away. If they want to see how far a core of Wagler, Brandon Ingram and Darius Garland can guide them, that’s well within their rights. In fact, it might be the prudent decision business-wise. With fans already reeling in the wake of this punishment, conducting an immediate fire sale might cause many of them to tune out entirely.

However, the Clippers don’t have an especially long runway here, either. Ingram is earning $40 million this season and has a $41.9 million player option in 2027-28. Garland is under guaranteed contract for two more years before he’s set to become an unrestricted free agent in 2028. Veterans Max Strus, Derrick Jones Jr., Brook Lopez and Kris Dunn are all on expiring contracts. If the Clippers don’t look to flip them between now and February, they’d be at risk of losing any (or all) of them for nothing in return next offseason.

For now, the Clippers’ books are sparkling clean after the 2027-28 season. In theory, they could be poised to make a major splash in free agency. But how many star players will be lining up to sign with a team with such a bleak draft future? Particularly a repeat circumvention offender that could be in danger of an even harsher punishment if it slips up again?

Besides, free agency for star players has largely gone extinct. Hoarding $100 million-plus in cap space to splurge on marquee free agents is a textbook recipe to overpay second- and third-tier players.

Instead, as Stephen Noh of The Sporting News proposed, the Clippers could look to emulate the mid-2010s Brooklyn Nets, who had to emerge from the wreckage of their disastrous trade for Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce that left their draft war chest in shambles. They leveraged their cap space to absorb unwanted contracts from other teams as a way to replenish their draft capital and/or land young prospects.

If the Clippers eventually trade Garland, Ingram and/or some of their other veterans in exchange for draft picks and then use the resulting cap space to land even more picks (attached to bloated contracts), they could begin to emerge from their self-created circumvention mess. It figures to be a painstaking, years-long process, but that’s the hole that they dug themselves to begin with.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM. All odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.

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This article was originally published on Forbes.com