The Clippers traded Tobias Harris, the team’s best player, to Philadelphia in a package deal that netted Los Angeles five players and four draft picks. The Sixers became the team with the second best fourth option in the NBA, behind only Boogie Cousins with Golden State. In all, Philadelphia got better, but why did the Clippers want to get worse?
The talk around the league is that the Clippers are positioning themselves for the summer of 2019, when they hope to snag a couple of top free agents. The team will have the cap space to entice the players who want to play in Los Angeles, but not with Lebron James, but what kind of team will the Clippers be presenting to the interviewees?
Earlier in the season, the Clippers had one of the best records in the Western Conference, and sat atop many Power Rankings as the best team in the league. Today, they sit as the 8th seed in the West, but being eighth in the West means that the team is three games out of the fourth spot. However, the trade makes one wonder what the Clippers’ motivation was behind the trade. Were they hoping to get better for the stretch run so that they can improve their playoff position, or are they giving up on the season even though that are currently in the playoff hunt?
When a team trades away its best player during the season, that is usually a sign that the team has given up and is looking toward the offseason, but that usually happens with teams as the bottom of the league, not teams in playoff contention. The Clippers making the Tobias Harris trade is puzzling, but if they land Kawhi Leonard and Klay Thompson during the summer, then the Clippers will prove to be smarter than the rest of us.
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