Our player preview series for the 2027 Clippers continues with one of the newest additions to the team, young guard Gradey Dick.
Basic Information
Height: 6’7
Weight: 205 pounds
Position: Shooting Guard/Small Forward
Age: 22
Years in NBA: 3
Regular Season Stats: 6.0 points, 1.9 rebounds, 0.7 assists, 0.6 steals, and 0.6 turnovers in 14.0 minutes per game across 76 games played (1 start) on 41.9/30.1/87.5 shooting splits (2.4 3PA, 1.2 FTA) with 53.8% TS
Contract Status: In the last year of his first-round rookie contract, making $7.13M this year
Expectations
To be brutally honest, Gradey Dick was a throw-in to the Kawhi Leonard trade to make salaries work. It’s possible the Clippers wanted Gradey in the trade (he was a lottery pick just three years ago), but based on what we know of the negotiations, there were other young players that the Raptors held onto, and the Clippers “settled” for Gradey as the second salaried piece of the deal.
Gradey will probably face an uphill climb to get minutes, as positionally he is an off-ball wing, and there are a bunch of those on this roster. Jordan Miller being out for most of the season takes one of those players away, but Gradey will still be competing for minutes with Brandon Ingram, Derrick Jones Jr., Kris Dunn, Max Strus, Bradley Beal, and Kobe Sanders – and that’s not even counting fringier youngsters like Cam Christie (probably going to get cut) or Nick Martinelli (two-way). The Clippers seem like they want to compete this year, which makes sense given they don’t own their own draft pick, so I don’t think just being young will give Gradey an edge over the other guys.
Ultimately, fair expectations for Gradey would be that he gets rotation minutes at some point during the season, and is able to fill in competently enough as a reserve guard. He’s young enough and has shown enough in the NBA that a breakout in a new situation is possible, but I just don’t know if he’ll get the minutes to have such a breakthrough.
Strengths
Gradey hasn’t revealed a ton of strengths at the NBA level, at least consistently. Over his first two season, Gradey was a relatively good shooter, making 36.5% of his threes in his rookie season on medium-low volume (4.0 attempts) and then 35% of his threes his second season on higher volume (6.0) attempts – not great, but certainly a capable outside marksman. Unfortunately, one of the reasons Gradey was pushed out of the Raptors’ rotation last year is that his three-point shooting fell off a cliff, with percentages and volume plummeting. He was billed as a good shooter out of Kansas, so maybe some tweaks to his jumper or approach could get him back on track. If the three-point shooting doesn’t come around, he probably won’t have much of an NBA career.
Sadly, there’s not a whole lot else to bank on. Gradey has good size for an off-guard, standing at 6’7 and weighing somewhat over 200 pounds. While not a good defender, he’s improved over his career to being more or less fine, and is big enough to not get bullied or picked on as much as smaller guards can be. If he continues bulking up a bit, he could be able to guard larger players more consistently, making him a fit for switch-heavy defensive schemes.
Weaknesses
Gradey is somewhat below average or worse at scoring inside the arc, rebounding, and playmaking. He did improve as a driver last year, attaining by far his best mark on two-point scoring (53%) in his career, with a notable jump to at-the-rime scoring all the way up to 71.7% (pretty good). However, he rarely gets to the line, and is an inefficient shooter from floater, midrange, and long two distances. Gradey made strides as a rebounder and passer his sophomore season, when he had the largest role of his three-year career, but those numbers both fell back last year as well.
In short, Gradey isn’t awful, but he has not shown above-average skills at almost anything through three seasons. That’s a base that can be worked upon – if he can just nudge up his three-point shooting and become average at defense, he’d be a fine “3 and D” role player that a lot of teams would value – but does mean that he doesn’t have much to fall back upon if the three-point shooting doesn’t improve.
Summary
Gradey Dick is in the last year of his deal and this front office probably has no attachment to him, so it’s hard to map out his future on the team. If he plays well this season, he’s young enough to become part of this team’s core moving forward. If he doesn’t play well, the Clippers will be able to part ways at the end of the season, or use his salary as ballast for a larger trade. Even if he doesn’t play much or play all that well, the Clippers could keep him around as a back-of-roster flier on a veteran’s minimum. I think there’s at least some hope for Gradey to turn his career around, and it would be a really nice story if he rehabbed his career in Los Angeles. I don’t have a ton of confidence that happens, especially since it’s hard to map his road to minutes, but he is talented and this team could use a player of his archetype.
