The Los Angeles Clippers may possibly have the most to lose come July of 2017. They potentially can have the trio of Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and J.J. Redick hit free agency next summer. Not to mention, Paul Pierce has announced he will retire, and then sign with the Boston Celtics for a day. Essentially, if everything goes wrong, the Clippers could only have DeAndre Jordan, Austin Rivers, Jamal Crawford, Wesley Johnson, Brice Johnson and Diamond Stone under contract next summer. Not an ideal scenario.
The potential 2017 NBA free agency class is headlined by CP3 and Griffin. Redick is also viewed as the top shooting wingman available. Redick might be in store for a big payday, but Paul and Blake? They could remain on the team if they don’t exercise their early termination options.
Anyway you look at it, it could become a disastrous situation for a team that has been so close to a title in the past. One more heartbreaking defeat before the NBA Finals could mean the end of this organization’s core. It has some executives with the team saying that this year is the biggest in franchise history.
Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical on Yahoo! Sports started off a recent episode of his podcast with The Vertical’s front office insider Bobby Marks talking about the Clippers. Woj reports that Clippers executives are saying the upcoming season is the biggest in franchise history and also stressed that J.J. Redick will garner a lot of money.
Doc Rivers has expressed confidence in the past for wanting to retain all these important pieces to their team. Team owner Steve Ballmer also said that he’s willing to pay whatever it takes to keep CP3 and Blake.
There’s not much to worry about concerning Blake Griffin. If he does exercise his ETO, you can imagine the Clippers will toss him whatever he wants. He’s the least likely to leave Los Angeles, especially considering his off-court endeavors.
The biggest question mark might be J.J. Redick just due to his unrestricted free agency but his future in not really in doubt unless something catastrophic happens. He’s previously expressed his love for this team and the guys he plays with, primarily CP3, Blake, DeAndre, and Crawford.
The first and quite possibly most important piece in the Clippers summer could be Chris Paul. If he does decide to end his contract early and look for that Mike Conley-type pay day with the Clippers, do they do it? Chris Paul hasn’t shown sides of slowing down to this point but by season’s end, he will be 32. Do the Clippers really want to max him out and keep him as he reaches the other side of 30? That could actually be the big question those same concerned Clippers executives are asking themselves right now.
