Chris Paul to the Clippers? Why LA is interested and how a trade could get done

Father’s Day in the NBA began with the retirement of three-time Sixth Man of the Year Lou Williams after 17 NBA seasons. Williams, who did not play in the 2022-23 NBA season, won two of his awards with the LA Clippers in 2018 and 2019.

It served as a reminder that Williams arrived with the Clippers in June 2017 – as part of a six-player package that also included 2020 Sixth Man of the Year Montrezl Harrell and 3-time All-Defensive Team selection Patrick Beverley – in a trade that sent Lob City icon Chris Paul to the Houston Rockets. Despite the efforts of Williams, Beverley and a host of others, the Clippers have spent the six seasons since Paul’s departure in the point guard hinterland.

So it is fitting that Williams announced his retirement on the same day that presented Paul a possible option to return to the Clippers.

On Sunday, the Washington Wizards agreed to send shooting guard Bradley Beal to the Phoenix Suns in exchange for Paul, former Clipper Landry Shamet, several second-round picks and future pick swaps. Washington’s new front office, led by former Clippers general manager Michael Winger, is paying for the no-trade clause in Beal’s contract. But the deal could expand, depending on Paul’s desire to join a contender.

The Clippers are indeed interested in pursuing Paul, according to a league source who was granted anonymity because he’s not authorized to speak publicly about another team’s player. The Clippers are evaluating what it would take to acquire Paul, who must first decide if he is open to staying in Washington. Bleacher Report’s Chris Haynes was first to report LA’s interest in trading for Paul.

Last week, The Athletic’s Danny Leroux and I discussed the possibility of Paul being acquired by the Clippers, either via trade or if he was waived. We also discussed the limited options that the Clippers have with Russell Westbrook, the latest of the Clippers’ point guard roulette who became more of a necessity due to season-ending injuries suffered by Paul George and then Kawhi Leonard.

The Clippers would not be shutting the door on Westbrook even if they could acquire Paul, league sources not authorized to speak publicly told The Athletic. The biggest contract they can legally offer Westbrook (starting at 120 percent of the veteran’s minimum) would still be on the table. How Westbrook receives that is unclear.

While Westbrook was seriously contemplating returning to the Clippers on that contract for slightly more than the veteran’s minimum, those sources said, that was before LA’s interest in Paul reached this degree. Trading for Paul while Westbrook is still available would be a way for the front office to get the player it wants in place while forcing Westbrook to potentially take the same deal, but for undoubtedly a different role.

That could push Westbrook to pursue other teams, but it is unclear who the Clippers would be bidding against for his services. (Chicago? Miami? Portland? We know the Lakers and Suns with Frank Vogel aren’t on that list.)

Why are the Clippers interested in Paul? Simply put, Paul is the rare intersection of player who satisfies president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank, head coach Tyronn Lue and one of the stars (Leonard). Though Frank (and the rest of the Clippers front office) warmed up to Westbrook from the time he was first available in February to the end of April, Frank has always said he prefers a shooter on the floor with Leonard and George.

Frank has often been asked about Paul over the last three seasons, because while the Clippers keep changing point guards, it always comes back to Paul.

“We had one of the greatest point guards of the last, I don’t know, generations,” Frank said ahead of the 2022 trade deadline after trading Eric Bledsoe to Portland in a deal that left the Clippers without a rotation point guard outside of Reggie Jackson while Leonard and George were on long-term injury absences. “CP, he is called the ‘Point God,’ right? That’s why he’s one of one. And yet, we feel really, really good that we’re going to build a championship team around Kawhi and Paul … I do honor and respect the question that skill-set wise, yeah. But would we do that at the expense of taking a lesser player? We wouldn’t. I would rather double, triple, quadruple down on players that fit around those guys and then be creative and try to figure out some different ways to figure it out.”

Frank’s direct message during late April exit interviews was that the Clippers needed to compete harder, from his level as the top personnel executive to the coaching staff to the players.

Paul is notorious for his teams grinding in the regular season: the then-Hornets (2008), Clippers (2014), Rockets (2018) and Suns (2022) each had their best regular seasons in franchise history with Paul at the point. And the best Oklahoma City Thunder season since Kevin Durant left in 2016 wasn’t with Westbrook or Paul George; it was Paul’s lone season there in 2020, when the Thunder won 61.1 percent of the games in the pandemic-shortened season.

Lue was a major advocate for Westbrook, and he started him right away despite the Lakers benching him after the first week of the 2022-23 season. While Frank talks up wings often, Lue has said he prefers having a traditional point guard in his rotation, if not in the starting lineup. Lue also has always wanted a guard capable of pushing the pace and producing easier baskets, either via the fast break or by putting pressure on the rim. Westbrook consistently provided that in LA after John Wall’s truncated stint to begin the season in that role for Lue off the bench did not bear fruit.

Lue also appreciated that Westbrook was consistently available, especially in light of LA’s challenges on that front this past season. While Lue has had to constantly adjust for Leonard’s and George’s injuries, including being eliminated each of the last three years with Leonard injured and the last two with George out, Westbrook never missed a game after signing with the Clippers.

But Lue has a great relationship with Paul, and was with Paul in the 2013-14 season while serving as one of Doc Rivers’ assistant coaches. Lue and Paul were just on the Uninterrupted’s The Shop together, and Paul remarked how much he appreciated having Lue as a coach.

“Me and T. Lue got real close, real fast” Paul said on The Shop of Lue’s time with the 2013-14 Clippers. “T. Lue, man, our team changed drastically when he left. Because he just shot it to us straight. Regardless of whether you wanted to hear it or not, T. Lue was like that. And I appreciated that, I respected that. I haven’t played for him as a head coach, but I’m sure he’s still the same way.”

George has led the way in supporting Westbrook, both during and before Westbrook’s Clippers tenure. The dynamic between George and Chris Paul are much frostier, to say the least, after the last three years of Clippers-Suns matchups.

But while Leonard also supported Westbrook, sometimes to hilarious degrees, he has a better relationship with Paul than most of the other Clippers. When it comes to play style, Leonard and Paul share a similar urge to maximize every possession. Leonard, unlike George, takes care of the basketball at a high level and raises the floor of the offense consistently. Paul has a similar approach, putting together a historic assist-to-turnover ratio while shooting high percentages from the field. Neither Leonard nor Paul is known for running much at this stage of their careers, either.

So where does all of this leave the Clippers in terms of actually acquiring Paul? Leroux mentioned last week that the Clippers would have needed to include at least $24.6 million in outgoing salary to acquire Paul in a trade. Per Leroux, the Clippers can take on 25 percent more than they send out in a trade. Now that the deal with the Wizards has been agreed upon, the Suns need to guarantee about that same amount to Paul for salary matching purposes.

The combination of players who could help facilitate this trade is wide-ranging. Eric Gordon’s contract guarantee date is June 28 for $20.9 million; his deal would need to be at least partially guaranteed before he could be included.

There are four Clippers who make between $10-20 million that I would keep out of this trade: Norman Powell (the one pressure guard the Clippers have off the bench), Nicolas Batum (the team’s glue guy), Terance Mann (the most efficient connector on the team, and a player the Clippers should consider starting with George, Leonard and a point guard), and Ivica Zubac (the starting center).

Trading Mann, something the Clippers considered doing in February in a potential Kyrie Irving trade, would be egregiously bad. But Mann’s tricky salary situation (his contract extension kicks in for next season) decreases the chances he’d be included in a deal for Paul, since salary matching considerations must take into account his 2023 and 2024 figures.

This potential trade, more than likely, could offer an opportunity for the Clippers to consolidate at power forward, with incumbent starter Marcus Morris Sr. ($17.1 million) and third-stringer Robert Covington ($11.7 million) both entering the last years of their deals. Those two, along with Batum, are all undersized power forwards over the age of 30. Point guards are a dime a dozen; as the Clippers have shown, you can find players at that position. What they do at power forward is at least as critical to their offseason success.

A potential Paul deal would only be the first domino to fall for the Clippers this offseason. The draft is Thursday, with a wide range of players the team could consider in both the first and second rounds. Then, free agency gets underway the following week. The Clippers’ chances of acquiring Paul decrease if he is waived and reaches the open market. Then, his next team would be entirely his choice, and the Lakers loom as a real possibility there.

So just as the full circle could be completed with Paul and Williams, the Clippers could also be back where we were in December 2011, when they acquired Paul in the first place despite a vetoed deal involving the Lakers. Shout out to Basketball Reasons.

(Photo: Kate Frese / NBAE via Getty Images)