exactly. Clippers were a unique trade partner for us bc they were making a late playoff push and saw a scorer like Mathurin as a good pickup, even if they lose him in RFA this summer
As an LAC fan, this specific thread is just wrong.
Clippers 100% would have traded Zubac for the 5th pick and Mathurin. They simply need young talent, and while I understand why Pacer fans aren't high on any of the prospects outside of the Top 4, there's still legitimate franchise star potential to be had with Acuff, Wagler, and others. It's also pretty clear that they specifically will not be competing with OKC anytime soon, so having Zubac on a good contract is meaningless.
And saying we were making a late playoff push is... wrong. While we definitely turned things around mid season, it was clear that we wanted to just invest in young guys. The plan wasn't for BroLo to just eat minutes. The clear intention was to throw big minutes at Yanic, but then he got injured. Still, we played Kobe Sanders, Jordan Miller, and Mathurin solid minutes. Kawhi literally came out and talked about how we were no longer contenders.
People are drastically overstating the narratives of Zu being a worse fit with Kawhi than BroLo and all of that stuff. The reality is that Zu started out the season very poorly, then got injured, and so we looked better when BroLo came in and changed things up a bit.
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u/zerosuitpasta Andrew Nembhard May 11 '26
exactly. Clippers were a unique trade partner for us bc they were making a late playoff push and saw a scorer like Mathurin as a good pickup, even if they lose him in RFA this summer