The Los Angeles Clippers traded away their best player Blake Griffin along with Willie Reed and Brice Johnson for Andre Drummond, Avery Bradley, Tobias Harris, Boban Marjanovic, 2018 first round pick and 2019 second round pick. This trade was really uncalled for because six months prior Griffin signed a 5-year, 171-million contract. The announcer also called him a Clipper for life.
Clippers season thus far:
At the start of the season it looked like they were going all in towards being the 6-8th playoff spot in the west. Then DeAndre Jordan got injured and everyone thought that the season is over for the Clippers. But then Lou Williams started going off having multiple 30 point games. And since then they looked like they could scrape the 8th seed. But now, with this trade they are going full rebuild mode.
Positives and negatives for Los Angeles
Positives:
As I already said the Clippers have a clear direction(beginning of a rebuild). They got an up and coming young scoring wing in Tobias Harris. They could of course trade him for younger assets. Clippers gained cap space, so they can target a max contract free agent this offseason if they wanted to. They also won't have to pay Griffin 38 million when he is 32 years old.
Negatives:
It's finally the end of the Blake-DJ duo. As much as we loved seeing these 2 athletic monsters play together, it's over. The Clippers will also lose more in the short term.
Final thoughts:
The Clippers got a great deal here. They traded Griffin before his salary was higher than his actual worth, and they gave a clear direction to their franchise.
I will make a post tomorrow looking at the Pistons side of view. Feel free to discuss the trade in the comments. :)