The NBA’s punishment of the Clippers may have done more than hammer one franchise. It may have quietly tightened the market for every team hoping to turn unwanted salary into draft picks - including the Bulls.
Wednesday, the league handed down a sweeping penalty to Los Angeles after a yearlong investigation into allegations of salary cap circumvention involving Kawhi Leonard, who is pending a trade to the Toronto Raptors. ESPN’s Shams Charania reported suspensions for Clippers principal owner Steve Ballmer, front office head Lawrence Frank and president of business operations Gillian Zucker as part of the punishment.
The biggest blow came on the draft-pick side. The Clippers were stripped of five first-round picks, beginning in 2029 and running through 2033.
That matters because the Clippers are also sitting on a pending Leonard deal with Toronto that, according to The Stein Line’s Jake Fischer, would send Leonard to the Raptors for guard Gradey Dick, forward Brandon Ingram, two unprotected first-round picks in 2031 and 2033, a 2027 first-round pick swap, and two second-round picks in 2030 and 2033.
With that trade structure in place, Los Angeles had been positioned to keep enough future draft ammunition to keep hunting in the market. Now, after the league’s punishment, the Clippers’ stash takes a major hit.
That creates a problem for teams trying to move expensive, unwanted contracts and sweeten the deal with picks. A Clippers front office under pressure to rebuild and recoup value becomes a serious player in that space, and that puts them in direct competition with Bryson Graham’s Bulls.
Graham’s first offseason running the Bulls has been built around preserving short-term flexibility rather than taking on long-term money. That approach makes sense on its own. But it also comes with a cost, and the source material suggests the cost may be rising.
By not making a move this summer to grab extra draft capital, the Bulls may have let the market shift against them. The Clippers’ reduced supply of future first-rounders could leave Chicago priced out of the “bad salary plus picks” business.
If the Leonard-to-Toronto trade goes through as reported, the Clippers would still have two prime All-Star-caliber pieces in guard Darius Garland and Brandon Ingram to dangle in trade talks with teams looking to shed bad long-term salary while also attaching picks.
By comparison, the Bulls’ best competing trade asset might be a 33-year-old Norman Powell - or, at the optimistic end, Josh Giddey finally making his first NBA All-Star Game.
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