The L.A. Clippers Are Quickly Approaching Five-Alarm-Fire Territory

The Los Angeles Clippers have lost eight of their past nine games after blowing a double-digit fourth-quarter lead against the Philadelphia 76ers on Monday. Their lone win over that stretch came against the Dallas Mavericks, who were without both star forward Anthony Davis (calf) and star point guard Kyrie Irving (ACL).

At 4-10, the Clippers are now tied with the Memphis Grizzlies for the fourth-worst record in the Western Conference. They’re ahead of only the Mavericks (4-11), Sacramento Kings (3-11) and New Orleans Pelicans (2-12). It might only get worse for the Clippers before it starts to get better, too.

The Clippers are currently in the midst of a seven-game road trip. They’re next headed to take on the Orlando Magic on Thursday, and they have a back-to-back over the weekend against the Charlotte Hornets and Cleveland Cavaliers. After that, they’ll head back to L.A. to take on the Lakers, who’ll likely have LeBron James back by then.

The Clippers are going into those games well short of full strength. Star forward Kawhi Leonard missed his eighth straight game Monday because of a sprained right ankle and a “significant” right foot sprain, according to ESPN’s Ohm Youngmisuk,. Bradley Beal is now out for the year with a hip fracture. Meanwhile, Derrick Jones Jr. suffered a sprained MCL on Sunday against the Boston Celtics and is now expected to miss at least six weeks, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania.

The Clippers entered the year as one of the NBA’s deepest teams on paper, but that depth is already being put to the test. They’re only 1.5 games behind the Utah Jazz for the Western Conference’s No. 10 seed—and the final spot in the play-in tournament—so they aren’t in an insurmountable hole by any means. But if they can’t right the ship soon, they may be forced to face some existential questions about their roster before the Feb. 5 NBA trade deadline.

What’s Gone Wrong For The Clippers Thus Far?

The Clippers got off to an encouraging start against the Sixers, jumping out to a 13-point lead in the first quarter, and they held that lead for most of the game. However, the Sixers came surging back in the final quarter, outscoring the Clippers 37-25 over the final 12 minutes of the game.

With Leonard, Beal and Jones all sidelined, the Clippers are having to dig deeper into their bench than they ever expected coming into the year. Kobe Sanders, the No. 50 overall pick in the 2025 draft, drew his first-ever start Monday against the Sixers and scored a career-high 17 points on 5-of-11 shooting (including 3-of-7 from deep). He was the Clippers’ second-highest scorer on the night.

Chris Paul, who re-signed with the Clippers on a veteran-minimum contract this past offseason after spending the past eight seasons away from L.A., is setting career lows across the board. The 40-year-old future Hall of Famer started all 82 games for the San Antonio Spurs last season, but he’s been showing his age this year.

He isn’t the only Clippers reserve who’s been struggling. Bogdan Bogdanović is shooting a career-worst 39.4% overall and 34.1% from deep. Brook Lopez, who shot 50.9% overall and 37.3% from three-point range last year during his final season with the Milwaukee Bucks, is down to 42.3% and 35.2% this year, respectively. And John Collins, whom the Clippers traded Norman Powell for over the offseason, is averaging only 11.9 points and 4.8 rebounds in 25.4 minutes per game.

The Clippers already split their non-taxpayer mid-level exception between Lopez and Beal this offseason, which hard-capped them at the $195.9 million first apron. They’re only $1.2 million below that threshold at the moment, so they don’t have the financial flexibility to add an impact free agent to help them stem the bleeding for now.

The good news is that the Clippers aren’t committed to Bogdanović, Lopez or Collins beyond this season. Collins is set to become an unrestricted free agent, while they have team options on Bogdanović and Lopez. But if James Harden picks up his $42.3 million player option—or declines it and signs a deal at a similar value—the Clippers wouldn’t have much salary-cap space even if they did decline their options on Bogdanović, Lopez and Nic Batum.

In other words, significant external help isn’t on the way unless they swing some trades between now and Feb. 5.

Why The Clippers’ Slow Start Is A Major Concern

The Clippers have two black clouds looming over them in the wake of this slow start. The first is the salary-cap circumvention allegations that Pablo Torre of Meadowlark Media leveled against them in September.

The NBA hired a law firm to conduct an independent investigation into those allegations, which isn’t likely to conclude anytime soon. If the investigation does conclude that the Clippers intentionally circumvented the salary cap with a third-party sponsorship deal, though, the penalties could involve the loss of multiple first-round picks, hefty fines and the voiding of Leonard’s contract.

The bigger concern in the immediate term is that the Clippers owe their fully unprotected 2026 first-round pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder. If they can’t pull out of this early-season tailspin, the defending champions are the ones who stand to benefit, not the Clippers. That removes any incentive the Clippers might have to throw in the towel on the season at some point.

The draft-pick situation doesn’t get better for the Clippers in future years, either. The Thunder also have the right to swap first-round picks with them in 2027, which looks like a virtual lock to happen at the moment. The Clippers owe their fully unprotected 2028 first-round pick to the Philadelphia 76ers from the Harden trade, and the Sixers can swap 2029 first-round picks with the Clippers as long as the Clippers’ pick falls outside of the top three, too.

The Clippers have already traded away all of their second-round picks through 2030 as well. They will receive the Grizzlies’ 2026 second-round pick if it falls between Nos. 31-42—which appears likely in the early going—but they otherwise aren’t poised to get much help from fresh draft picks for the next few seasons.

That’s a dangerous place to be for a team built around two veterans in their mid-30s and with an increasingly creaky supporting cast. The Clippers have bottom-10 marks on both ends of the floor and are the second-slowest team in the NBA, trailing only the Celtics. They’re also among the worst in the league in transition defense.

“They move so slowly, they can’t recover when they turn the ball over or give up a quick transition,” one advance scout told ESPN’s Brian Windhorst.

While most of the league looked to emulate the Thunder and Indiana Pacers this offseason by getting younger and deeper, the Clippers took the opposite approach and gobbled up past-their-prime veterans on the cheap. It looked like a sound strategy in theory—they entered the year tied for the fourth-highest projected win total in the West—but it has quickly backfired on them in the early going.

At this point, the Clippers have to treat the future picks and pick swaps that they owe to the Thunder and Sixers as sunk costs. Although those deals reduce their incentive to rebuild over the next few seasons, there’s nothing they can do to undo those trades. But if they continue to struggle, they may need to consider selling high on Harden and/or Leonard before it’s too late. Losing them for nothing in free agency may be far more devastating than flipping them for whatever assets they can get for either one.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM. All odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.

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