The LA Clippers off-season player movement paints a blurred picture for the 2023-24 NBA season as two stars exit Los Angeles. Will Kawhi Leonard and James Harden be able to carry the team as it opens the season in a brand new arena? Or will injuries devastate again leaving newly-extended head coach Ty Lue in a bad spot?
LA Clippers Off-Season: A Review To Date
Clippers Off-Season Rushes In A New Era With New Home
The LA Clippers off-season has been rather eventful as the NBA moves closer and closer to the start of training camp. For the Clippers, this summer included a franchise groundbreaking milestone. The newly developed Intuit Dome officially opened on August 15th. The Clippers, popularly known as LA’s basement team, will at last vacate Crypto.com Arena (formerly Staples Center) for good and begin a new saga for the organization on their own home court. The new basketball and multipurpose arena in Inglewood has already been named host for the 2026 NBA All-Star weekend and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic games.
During the Clippers’ off-season, the extension of head coach Ty Lue was also noteworthy. Lue is coming off winning a gold medal in Paris as an assistant coach. He will now enter a new Clippers era on a new contract. The Clippers roster has also experienced a shuffle this off-season. While two high-profile stars departed, a couple of important additions in the form of role players entered.
Key Player Departures
Russell Westbrook certainly enjoyed a better stint with the Clippers than with the other LA team, the Lakers. His fit was more attuned to the style of play the Clippers ran with. Unfortunately, Westbrook is again on the move this off-season, leaving the Clippers to join the Denver Nuggets. The bigger roster shift was Paul George leaving for the Philadelphia 76ers as a free agent. The partnership between George and Leonard was never able to blossom fully. Injuries were a thorn in each player’s side throughout their tenure together. Now a 76er, George is in a much better situation and has a better chance to go deep in the playoffs.
Other off-season departures included Mason Plumlee and Daniel Theis,
Key Player Acquisitions
Despite losing George and Westbrook, the Clippers couldn’t bring any star power to replace them. Having said that, the additions of Nicolas Batum and Derrick Jones Jr. should be reliable secondary piece acquisitions. Jones and Batum played well for their teams last year as support pieces. For Batum, he’ll enter his second go around with the Clippers, having spent three previous seasons with them from 2021–2023. Kevin Porter Jr. and Kris Dunn also signed with the Clippers over the off-season.
A Muddled 2023-24 Season Outlook
As exciting and motivating as it may be to play in a brand-new arena and kick off a new era for your franchise, it is difficult to predict how the upcoming season will flesh out for the Clippers. James Harden and Kawhi Leonard remain. However, Leonard’s clouded injury history is dark, leaving little reason to express confidence that anything will be different this year. Getting sent home from Team USA before the Olympics started couldn’t have made things better from an outside perspective, either. Although Harden still plays exceptionally at times and lights up the backboard, he’s not in a position to carry teams anymore.
The Clippers might find themselves outside the playoff picture when all is said and done. Whether the season plays out that way, missing the postseason isn’t a great start to a new era of Los Angeles Clippers basketball—brand new state-of-the-art arena or not.
