Training camp is where the real sorting begins, and the Clippers have a few roster battles that are going to get uncomfortable fast.
With regular-season basketball nearly here, LA is heading into a stretch where minutes, roles, and even roster spots are up for grabs. Tyronn Lue has competition everywhere, and not everyone is going to come out with the same standing they had going in.
Gradey Dick is one of the names under the brightest spotlight. The Clippers are loaded with guards, and with Keaton Wagler, Max Strus, Bradley Beal, and Kris Dunn all likely beginning the season on the bench, there may not be much room left for Dick to carve out a role.
If he wants consistent playing time, he has to keep hitting shots, defend well enough to stay on the floor, and make the right reads. There’s not much wiggle room here.
If he doesn’t force the issue, Lue can just as easily leave him parked on the bench, the way he has with young players before.
Cam Christie is in a different kind of fight. The Clippers have seen enough flashes to keep the door open, but not enough to feel comfortable.
His issues are still the same ones that have followed him: shot creation, physicality, and efficiency. Over two seasons, Christie has never shot better than 39% from the field or 25% from three, and he also came up short in the 2026 Summer League.
The team and Christie already made one telling move by pushing back his guaranteed-salary deadline to Oct. 15, a change that looks aimed at giving training camp one last chance to settle the question. If he doesn’t seize it, the Clippers are expected to waive him and move on.
Then there’s Keaton Wagler, the rookie drafted fifth overall, and the biggest name in the camp pecking order. Right now, it doesn’t look like he’ll open the season as a starter.
Kris Dunn appears to be ahead of him, and Max Strus does too. But that’s exactly why Wagler has something to prove.
A starting role is there for the taking, and he’ll need to show he can score at all three levels, serve as a dependable playmaker, defend with physicality, and most importantly fit best next to Darius Garland, which is what Tyronn Lue will be watching for first. If Wagler checks those boxes, the job should be his.
In Other News...
Kawhi's New Deal Just Reopened A Painful Clippers Trade Debate
Kawhi Leonards new extension with the Toronto Raptors has put a familiar Clippers conversation back in the foreground. The two-year, $115 million deal comes after the NBAs investigation into Leonards sponsorship dealings, a probe that led to fines for Leonard and penalties for Los Angeles. Even with the transaction now in place, the structure of the contract still reflects the league rules that shaped it, with the agreement coming in below his maximum salary.
For Clippers fans, the bigger issue is what the whole episode still represents years later: the cost of chasing Leonard, the fallout from the cap-circumvention investigation, and the way one superstar pursuit continues to hover over the franchise. Leonards contract also includes a player option for the 2028-29 season, another reminder that the story is not just about where he is now, but about how much unfinished business the leagues ruling left behind for Los Angeles to reckon with. [Read more 🡒]
Clippers Are Stuck In The Worst Possible Spot Again
The Clippers have spent enough time in the NBAs middle to know how uncomfortable that neighborhood can be, and this season looks like another case of being too good to bottom out and too ordinary to chase anything meaningful in the West. An average roster has them hovering in the standings with little margin for error, the kind of position that usually leaves a team hunting for answers in March instead of planning for spring.
Oklahoma City has a far more appealing view of the whole thing, because this is where the old roster reshuffling keeps paying off in ways that still shape the future. With the lottery odds now making it easier for a respectable-but-unspectacular season to turn into a valuable draft outcome, the Thunder could end up in line for another major boost from Los Angeles without needing the Clippers to completely collapse. That is the sort of back-end leverage that can make an already strong team even harder to catch. [Read more 🡒]
Kawhis Clippers Reality Is Becoming Another Teams Huge Gamble
Kawhi Leonards run with the Clippers has always carried a certain tension. Since signing in 2019, he has made four All-Star appearances and given the franchise the kind of star power it chased, but injuries and uneven playoff results have kept the whole experiment from fully settling into something simple or clean. Even now, the conversation around Leonard feels less like a snapshot of the present and more like an ongoing evaluation of how much a team can realistically build around a superstar whose body has rarely cooperated for long.
What makes the picture even more complicated is how much value still rides on the next step, whether for the Clippers or any team watching the same arc unfold. Leonards aging curve is impossible to ignore, and the concern is not just whether he can still play at a high level, but whether he can stay available long enough for that level to matter. For the Clippers, that leaves the franchise in a familiar spot: tied to a talent few can match, while waiting for the rest of the gamble to reveal itself. [Read more 🡒]