The Clippers’ trade of Ivica Zubac on Thursday at the trade deadline didn’t just mark the end of the tenure of one of the Clippers’ best players in franchise history, it signified the end of a whole era. Zubac was the longest-tenured player on the team, the last remnant of the pre-Kawhi Clippers. With Zu gone, Jordan Miller (in his 3^rd season!) is now the second-tenured Clipper behind Kawhi. This team has been torn down to the studs the past couple years, and continues to pivot into the future.

Zu was moved (alongside Kobe Brown) for Bennedict Mathurin, Isaiah Jackson, the Pacers’ 2026 1^st round pick (protected 1-4 and 10-30), the Pacers’ 2029 1^st round pick, and the Mavs’ 2028 2^nd round pick. While Zu has been a pillar of this team for seven years, that is a package that I think was just impossible to pass up. If we’d found out the Clippers had received that offer and declined it, I think the general tenor of the fanbase would have been displeased.

It’s tough to let go of Zu. He grew up with the team, arriving as a somewhat raw but promising young player and departing as one of the sturdiest and most reliable starting centers in the NBA. A stout defensive player for much of his career, Zu has matured on the offensive end, becoming a quicker decision-maker and cleverer scorer around the rim. He’s a double-double machine who offers plus play on both sides of the ball, something that not very many big men can provide. Zu is also constantly available; he’s rarely been injured, and almost never suffered anything serious. That availability has been huge for the Clippers over the years as they dealt with unreliable stars.

All that said, why trade Zu now? He’s on a fantastic contract (just over $40M over the next two years when he’s worth much more than that), will be 29 in March, and has a game that should age well. One part is the sheer value – he was never going to net more in a trade than this. The other is that even though Zu is in his prime, this Clippers’ team was clearly not going anywhere. While they’d made great strides over the past two months to move back into the play-in in the West, the Clippers deduced (correctly) that this team’s ceiling was a first-round playoff loss (and probably not a competitive one). With Harden and Kawhi aging, and no true young difference makers on the roster, the chances of turning the Clippers around in the next couple of years seemed unlikely. By the summer of 2027, when the Clippers are hoping to find their next superstar, Zu would be 30 and going into the last year of his deal. It’s possible Zu could have been around for the next great Clippers’ team, but the Clippers decided that the value they are getting from him would be more likely to help create that new era.

Let’s look at what the Clippers got. The prize is clearly this year’s Pacers’ pick. It will only go to the Clippers if it lands in the 5 to 9 range in the draft, but the chances of that are around 50-50 unless the Pacers start winning a lot the second half of the season (unlikely). If the Pacers stay as one of the three worst teams in the league, the Clippers’ chances of getting the pick will hover around 48-50%, but it will be most likely they’d get pick 5 or 6 if it does convey. If the Pacers win more and get the fifth, sixth, or seventh best lottery odds, the Clippers’ chances of getting the pick goes into the 60s, but it will be more likely picks 7-9. Regardless, that’s an immense asset in an absolutely loaded 2026 draft. Pick 5 would be ideal, of course, but the Clippers would have a chance at a star player anywhere in their range. If it doesn’t convey this year, the Clippers will get the Pacers’ unprotected 2031 pick, which is also extremely valuable: Pascal Siakam will be retired, Zu will be in his mid-30s, and Haliburton will be in his 30s as well. If, on draft day, the Clippers were offered pick 5 or even 6 straight up for Zu, I’d probably say yes. That the Clippers got a lot of other stuff shows the value of this deal.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Bennedict Mathurin. Benn can score, absolutely no doubt about it: in his four NBA seasons, he’s never averaged less than 14.5 points per game. This season, Mathurin is averaging career highs in points (17.8), rebounds (5.4), assists (2.3), three-point volume (5.6 attempts), and three-point percentage (37.2). That all sounds promising! The problem is that despite being a highly athletic, full-sized shooting guard (6’5, 210), Mathurin has consistently rated as a poor defender. He’s also a flawed playmaker, averaging just under one assist to turnover in his career and with consistent blinders on during drives. It’s hard to be a starting level player as a guard with those flaws – we have seen Norm Powell excel as that type of player but with clear weaknesses that were frustrating, and Norm is the optimized version of Mathurin.

All that said, Mathurin is just 23 years old (turns 24 in June), and plenty of players have made leaps later in their career. His three-point shooting improving significantly this year is a massive deal. If he can continue this level of outside shooting, that shooting packaged with his driving and ability to get to the free throw line will make him at the least an efficient bench scorer. The Clippers can get a look at him the rest of this season and then have the chance to re-sign him in restricted free agency this summer. I’m skeptical Mathurin will turn into a star (his impact numbers are really bad), but there’s certainly a chance he could be an excellent sixth man or starting-level player that could be around the Clippers for the long haul.

Isaiah Jackson is not nothing, either. The 22^nd pick of the 2021 Draft, Jackson has been with the Pacers his whole career in a backup center role. His best season was 2024, when impact metrics valued him as one of the better backups in the entire league. Unfortunately, he tore his Achilles five games into the 2025 season, and has not been quite the same this season. However, Jackson is just 24 years old, and a torn Achilles is a two-year injury. He signed to a 3-year, $21M deal last summer, so the Clippers have him under contract for two more seasons at a very reasonable cost. I think he can definitely return to being a solid backup big man those two seasons, and having that type of player under a cheap-ish contract is a nice throw-in to this deal, even if Jackson probably doesn’t offer much more upside as an undersized big.

Add in to all these items the Pacers’ unprotected first round pick in 2029 (far enough out that it could be good) and a second round pick in 2028 (probably not that valuable but useful as trade ballast) as well as the Pacers taking back Kobe Brown (maintaining an open roster spot) and the deal moves into the “stunningly good value” range for me. Ivica Zubac is awesome and I will miss him on the Clippers, but this trade could turn the Clippers’ franchise around either through a top pick in this draft, through moving off of the acquired assets for a star in a future deal, or even through a Mathurin breakout. I’ll write more about Zu (as well as Kobe Brown!) in our annual end-of-season exit interviews, but it’s hard for me to give this trade anything other than a long round of applause. Kudos to Lawrence Frank and the rest of the Clippers’ front office in pulling this deal off.

The Clippers Trade Ivica Zubac for Picks, Mathurin, Jackson
Robert Flom