The 2026 NBA Draft is over, and free agency is less than a week away! Therefore, it’s time to do a quick primer on what to expect from the Clippers during the offseason.
Let’s first map out the Clippers’ roster heading into free agency, not counting their recent draftees. The Clippers have only six players with fully guaranteed contracts next season: Kawhi Leonard, Darius Garland, Derrick Jones Jr., Isaiah Jackson, Yanic Konan Niederhauser, and Jordan Miller.
The Clippers have two players with partially guaranteed contracts that are likely to stick around unless they’re involved in trades, in Kris Dunn and Cam Christie. Dunn is of plus value on his deal and is beloved in the locker room, while Christie has not played much but is still very young and fine as a back-end depth piece.
There are two more players likely to be back in Kobe Sanders (team option – a lock to be picked up), and Bradley Beal (player option – would seem he picks it up unless he somehow gets a better offer elsewhere).
The Clippers have three other team options on Brook Lopez, Nicolas Batum, and Bogdan Bogdanovic, with John Collins as an unrestricted free agent and Bennedict Mathurin as a restricted free agent.
Finally, for the two-ways, only Sean Pedulla is under contract for next year.
Now let’s add in the Clippers’ 2026 NBA Draft. Keaton Wagler will be under a standard first-round rookie scale deal. Baba Miller, as an early 2nd round pick that was widely expected to be taken in that range, will probably secure a true NBA roster deal. Nick Martinelli, a late 2nd, will probably be on a two-way. Finally, Narcisse N’Goy will be stashed at Auburn.
That leaves the Clippers with likely 12 full roster players and two two-ways, giving them three open roster spots and one two-way. Here’s a rough breakdown of the positional situation.
PG: Darius Garland – Keaton Wagler – Sean Pedulla
SG: Kris Dunn – Kobe Sanders – Bradley Beal – Cam Christie
SF: Derrick Jones Jr. – Jordan Miller – Nick Martinelli
PF: Kawhi Leonard – Baba Miller
C: Yanic Konan Niederhauser – Isaiah Jackson
Considering Wagler will play a lot of shooting guard next to Garland, and Sanders, Christie, and Miller can play up or down, the Clippers are relatively set at wing, even if they probably would prefer to bring Dunn off the bench. Garland and Wagler together also make the Clippers ready to go at point guard, though they could probably use a third-string veteran in case of injury.
The obvious areas of need are in the frontcourt, especially considering Yanic’s injury and Baba Miller probably not being ready for NBA rotation minutes. Bringing back John Collins and Brook Lopez would pretty much round out the roster, but that would mean running back the same team from last year, more or less, with only the draft picks being new pieces of note. I can’t see the Clippers going in that direction based on how they’ve talked about their roster and pivoting towards more of a Garland-centric timeline.
The big question mark, of course, is Kawhi Leonard. Trade rumors have been rumbling around him for weeks, and have picked up some steam in recent days. If the Clippers do trade him, my guess would be it would be for a starting level wing to replace his production to some extent, as well as a frontcourt player. Regardless, a Kawhi trade would completely shake up the roster, and it’s hard to imagine anyone but Garland and Wagler being “safe” this summer if Kawhi is moved.
Ultimately, I think the Clippers will be active in the coming weeks. Collins and Mathurin are two of the more highly-regarded free agents on the market, and whether they come back or not will have major ramifications to the roster. There are also all the team and player options that need to be picked up, and each of those will have shifting effects.
Thus, it’s hard to truly predict what the Clippers will be up to, but I think a Kawhi trade is possible, and even if he isn’t traded, I think they will probably make a couple other trades as well as maybe one somewhat major free agent signing in the frontcourt.
