The LA Clippers have waived two-way center Moses Brown, the team announced Friday. The decision was first reported by The Athletic’s Law Murray on twitter:

Brown was never likely to remain with the Clippers for the full season, as the team used his two-way contract eligibility as a way to avoid the luxury tax penalty of signing a veteran center for the full season. Two-way contract players can only be on their team’s active list for 50 games in a given season, and as Brown’s appearances reached the 30s in January, it became apparent that he would hit that limit well before the end of the regulars season.

One a two-way player hits his 50 games, teams have a few options. The Clippers could have converted him to a spot on their 15-man roster, but opted not to do so after the addition of Mason Plumlee in the backup center role at the deadline. If they believed that Brown was a piece for the future, they could have kept him until this summer and attempted to re-sign him, but once again his limitations as a player and the presence of Plumlee (who will be a free agent with bird rights this summer) made that an ulikely path forward. So, with no games remaining on his two-way deal and no desire to have him on the 15-man roster either this season or next season, the obvious decision was to release him so that they can sign a replacement player to that two-way slot.

Brown had a solid campaign for the Clippers in his role, exceeding expectations based on prior stops for competitive teams in Dallas and Cleveland where he was completely overwhelmed. His point and rebound averages have always been gaudy due to his size, but relative inefficiency and a lack of mobility on defense have kept him from a steady role on an NBA team. In games against Charlotte and Houston, Moses played a rotation role throughout the game (as opposed to just garbage time) and helped lift the Clippers to victory through his work on the offensive glass. Overall, I never developed hope that he’d be able to be a real piece for the Clippers due to his defensive weaknesses relegating him to playing a deep drop coverage in the restricted area, but Moses was always ready, always played hard, and legitimately exceeded expectations and helped the team at times in a limited role this year.

So far, there have been no immediate signs as to where the Clippers will look to replace this two-way slot. Given their current very strong depth situation, it’s unlikely that they feel they have to fill a rotation “need” like they did with Brown, although another frontcourt player would make sense in a Clipper garbage time contingent that currently includes Bones Hyland (a rotation guard who seems likely to get extra reps in garbage time), Jason Preston (guard), Brandon Boston (guard/wing), Amir Coffey (wing), and Moussa Diabate (big). Xavier Moon, who was with the Clippers last season and has been in Ontario with their G-League team this year, seems like an obvious candidate due to his good vibes and relationships on the team, but doesn’t seem to have a use case with Hyland and Preston around. Other Ontario Clippers who could see consideration are Nate Darling and Keaton Wallace, who have been among the team’s most impressive producers in the last two seasons, and former Clipper Malik Fitts, a 6’8″ stretch forward who is back in the Clippers’ G-League system after stints as a benchwarmer with the Utah Jazz and Boston Celtics last season.

Clippers Waive Moses Brown
Lucas Hann

Note: When this piece was originally published, one of the central themes was the idea that January 15th was the deadline to sign new two-way contracts, meaning the Clippers could not replace Moses if they kept him past the 15th. This is the standard rule and has been since two-way contracts were first introduced to the NBA, but it was suspended last year to give teams more flexibility due to COVID impacting availability and roster decisions. After publishing the original post, I was privately notified by several people that the January 15th deadline is also not in effect this season (for unclear reasons, since COVID has had a minimal impact on player availability this year). This information was not publicly available, so while I regret the inaccuracy, I would never have learned it if I hadn’t published the original piece. The article has been updated to reflect that Brown’s two-way spot can be filled with another player past January 15th.

Perhaps the most unheralded player in the Clippers’ organization, two-way contract center Moses Brown has quietly had the best season of his career in an inconsistent role off of the bench for Ty Lue this year. It’s not necessarily saying much, as Moses’ first three seasons in the league saw him feature for four different teams and struggle severely at each stop, eventually being released. But nonetheless, in his 5th NBA opportunity in Los Angeles, he’s scoring and rebounding at higher rates than any of his prior stops and beating his career average for shooting efficiency (61.9% vs 56.6%, both bad marks for a center who only shoots at the rim but one notably less bad).

As January drags on, the Clippers will be forced into a decision on Moses Brown’s future with the team. A two-way player can be active for up to 50 of his team’s games in a single season (pro-rated for deals signed mid-season). Moses Brown has been active 44 times for LAC this year, setting up an obvious looming decision: he can only play six more games before they have to choose between keeping him the rest of the year, or having to go without a backup center until they find a veteran in buyout season. However, they can use 10-day contracts to stretch his availability.

As I mentioned at the start, this has been the best season of Moses’ career. At 7’2″, he’s one of the tallest player in the NBA, with lanky limbs that present Boban-like complications to opponents on the glass. In fact, he is second in the NBA in TRB% (total rebound percentage, or the percentage of available rebounds a player grabs while on the floor) among players who have played at least 200 minutes, behind only Andre Drummond. When he checks in, he works hard and has impacted games with his size, and he has actually seemingly worked his way into Ty Lue’s rotation of late. However, this has been with Nico Batum, who has been the primary backup center this season, starting in place of injured star Paul George, so there is some reason to believe that George’s return might push Batum back into that role and in turn remove Brown from the rotation altogether.

While Moses has overall done what has been asked of him this year, his limitations are no secret. As a roll man, he is relatively inefficient for his size, making just 66.7% of his shots at the rim and 79.5% of his dunk attempts (Ivica Zubac, who does not exactly count finishing in traffic as a strength, is at 68.1% and 83.3% this season after 71.5/89.4 last year). Those numbers aren’t terrible, but they are significantly better than Moses has done in past opportunities, which could suggest regression is looming. Regardless, the bigger concern by far is his lack of mobility defensively–while he runs fast in a straight line, he is almost entirely confined to the restricted zone defensively due to a lack of lateral agility, giving opposing guards huge amounts of space in the pick-and-roll. It is this, primarily, that causes me to think that Moses is not going to get a rest-of-season contract from the Clippers–my assumption has always been that eventually, whether via trade or the buyout market, LAC would bring in a veteran center with more playoff utility.

So, if we accept that Moses sticking around for the rest of the year is unlikely, but acknowledge that he’s doing a job for the team right now that seems likely to continue for some undetermined short span of time as Paul George works his way back into the lineup, then the Clippers are left trying to squeeze whatever possible out of his remaining tenure.

Without signing him for the rest of the year, the way to maximize Moses’ games played as a Clipper is to play him his 6 more active contests (beginning Sunday vs Houston), and then cut him and sign him to two 10-days. Moses’ 6 remaining active nights don’t have to be the next 6 games, either–so hypothetically, if George were to return and the team were to resume a normal rotation with Batum playing backup C and Moses on garbage time duty, they could deactivate Brown and “save” him for games where they know he will play. For example, the Clippers kick off a road trip this week by playing the Sixers at home on Tuesday and visiting the Utah Jazz on Wednesday. Even if George is back, it is unlikely that Kawhi Leonard will play in both games, likely meaning Batum starting in his place and Brown pushed into backup duty again. The downside with this plan is that garbage time is one of Moses’ main duties to buy Zubac (and the Clippers’ ancient PF options) rest. The team could always bring up Moussa Diabate to fill that role, but the entire point of this arrangement with Moses was to keep Diabate in the G-League playing starter’s minutes instead of riding the bench for the NBA club.

If the Clippers used Moses’ last 6 games on their next 6 games, his two-way eligibility would be used up January 24th vs the Lakers. He could sign his first 10-day on January 26th, covering 6 games before expiring on February 4th. A second 10-day would run through the trade deadline and be able to cover all but one of the Clippers’ games before the All-Star break, essentially giving the team a second center up through the point where they are likely to be able to acquire the player who they want to have that spot for the remainder of the season and into the playoffs.

If the Clippers release Moses’ two-way contract once his 50 games have expired, they will be able to replace him with a new two-way player. This requires waiving Moses, which would let him go to another team if given the opportunity, but if the Clippers aren’t willing to give him a spot on the 15-man roster then they should give him that freedom (they would need to waive him to re-sign him to 10-day deals anyway). Brown is not eligible for two-way play next season, so there is no future for him in his current role–he will have to make someone’s top 15 next year.

Then, the Clippers could identify a G-League player to sign to a two-way deal tomorrow afternoon and have him available to make appearances down the stretch of the regular season. The exact number of appearances allowed on a two-way contract is pro-rated based on when during the season a player is signed, but the Clippers could likely get 15-20 games out of a Moses replacement. For example, Nate Darling is a 6’6″ guard who has been a standout for the Ontario Clippers, averaging 20 points and shooting 44% from three in 19 showcase cup games this season. Former Clipper Xavier Moon is also featuring for Ontario and is well-liked by Clippers players and coaches alike, potentially giving a group that is struggling with morale a vibes boost and a deep bench PG option so that Jason Preston can stay in Ontario and get reps instead of being called up intermittently for potential garbage time duty. There are also a number of centers around the G-League who could be brought in to attempt to replicate Brown’s role as the team continues searching for a veteran big man.

Ultimately, as I said, I do think that they are unlikely to end up keeping Moses on a rest-of-season deal on the 15-man roster. Even though he has been solid and done what is asked of him this season, when it comes to playoff utility it feels like the Clippers can find a more dependable option for a backup big. The resulting scenario is that they will also likely add a new two-way player in the coming weeks to fill Moses’ spot once he reaches his games limit.

Clippers Must Decide Moses Brown’s Future
Lucas Hann

The Clippers have added center Moses Brown and guards Xavier Moon and Jay Scrubb to their 2022 training camp roster, the team announced Saturday evening. Just as the Clippers’ Summer League team, featuring Moon and Scrubb, got set to take the floor for their opening game of the Las Vegas Summer League, the team’s official PR twitter announced the three additions to the training camp roster.

Brown is a 7’2″, 22-year-old free agent center with three years of NBA experience who I wrote at length about last night. Moon leveraged three straight MVP awards in the Canadian Elite Basketball League into the starting point guard spot on the Agua Caliente Clippers last season. With the team in need of backcourt depth due to COVID outages and then the Eric Bledsoe trade, he found himself playing relatively well in 10 games for the Clippers last season and earning a two-way contract. However, he’s not a prospect at 27 years old, and seems unlikely to have a path to the opening night roster behind Reggie Jackson, John Wall, and Jason Preston. Jay Scrubb was the 55th overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft and has been on a two-way contract for the last two years, but has scarcely played NBA or G-League minutes due to two significant injuries. I would guess that Scrubb is also unlikely to have a path to the opening night roster, though his odds might be better than Moon’s since he’s just 21 years old and has NBA size on the wing.

More broadly, these moves are interesting because the Clippers are now officially facing a training camp roster crunch. NBA teams are only allowed to have 15 standard contracts + 2 two-way deals once opening night hits, but during the off-season the limit is raised to 20 contracts of any kind (including exhibit 10 deals and training camp invitations). LAC currently has 14 guaranteed contracts (Jackson, George, Leonard, Morris, Zubac, Wall, Powell, Mann, Batum, Covington, Preston, Kennard, Coffey, and Boston), three exhibit 10 deals (DeVoe, Williamson, and Bean), and three camp invites (Brown, Moon, and Scrubb), making for 20… without including currently unsigned rookie Moussa Diabate, who is a safe bet to be on that 17-player roster on opening night in one capacity or another.

That means that the Clippers have to trim at least one of the 20 guys with a curent deal at some point in order to officially sign Diabate, and frankly, I would expect them to trim two and bring another center into training camp to join the competition to be the team’s insurance big man behind Ivica Zubac. It seems likely that the team will play regular smallball minutes on the second unit throughout the regular season, but that means that the depth big man actually has a pretty important role for a third stringer: any time, over the course of 82 games x 48 minutes, that the team needs a real big and Ivica Zubac is unavailable (fatigue, injury, foul trouble, off night, etc.), that depth big is going to be pressed into duty. Brown has 1300 NBA minutes under his belt, but has been pretty rough, and Diabate is an extremely raw 20-year-old second-round rookie who underwhelmed in his only collegiate season at Michigan. It shouldn’t be a damning criticism of either to say that a championship-caliber team should probably head into the season with a more reliable second-best big man on their roster than a young guy who is more potential than proven.

There is no specific date by which the Clippers have to make any cuts to the current 20-man crew, but one would assume that they’ll want to get Diabate under contract sooner rather than later. The most vulnerable players for cuts certainly seem to be the three exhibit 10 guys, so if I had to guess, I’d say that the Clippers will ride out the next week of Summer League before making any decisions. Once the guys leave Vegas, I’d expect at least one of DeVoe, Williamson, or Bean to get released so the team can sign Diabate (likely to a two-way contract), and if not at the same time, I’d expect a second cut from that trio in the next few weeks as the team identifies another big man to try out for that depth spot.

Clippers add Moses Brown, Xavier Moon, Jay Scrubb to training camp roster
Lucas Hann

According to The Athletic’s Kelly Iko, the Clippers have extended “an offer” to free agent center Moses Brown. It’s unclear what exactly the offer is, or if Brown is going to accept it.

Based on Brown’s status in the league, it appears likely that this will be a training camp invite. Last season, the Clippers opted to leave their 15th roster spot open and bring two young centers, Isaiah Hartenstein and Harry Giles, in to compete for the spot. That strategy was an unquestioned success, maybe even too successful–Hartenstein had a phenomenal season for the Clippers and played himself out of their price range. If Brown does accept this offer, I would guess that it’s for a similar arrangement: he comes into LAC training camp this fall to compete with a yet-to-be-determined big man for the final roster spot. Brown, currently 22, will turn 23 this fall and has one year of two-way contract eligibility remaining. However, the Clippers already have a two-way spot committed to rookie big man Moussa Diabate and have multiple undrafted free agents on exhibit 10 deals auditioning for their second two-way spot in Summer League. With a pressing need for a big man for the 15th roster spot, it feels more likely that Brown would compete for that job–although the door is open for him to join on a two-way instead.

Brown has always generated a bit of buzz on NBA Twitter due to his size and play above the rim. Two years ago, he was a consistently featured player on the Oklahoma City Thunder after the trade deadline–remember, the Oklahoma City Thunder have spent the last few years shutting down any capable performers at the deadline and trying to lose games on purpose to get better draft positioning–and put up some huge numbers, including a 21-point/23-rebound effort (in a blowout loss) and an infamous 24-point, 18-rebound, 7-block game against the Clippers… when LAC intentionally threw the final game of the season to manipulate playoff seeding and Ty Lue sabotaged the team down the stretch by running the offense through Daniel Oturu. Overall, his per-minute stats have been staggering, with 15 points and 15 rebounds per 36 throughout his career, including 18 points and 15 rebounds per 36 minutes for the Cleveland Cavaliers late last season when he was signed as frontcourt depth to cover for injuries. Like I opened with, his play above the rim has always generated a lot of hype, with putback dunks and emphatic blocks against hopeless smaller opponents in a fashion reminiscent of former Clipper Boban Marjanovic.

But if you get a layer deeper, things start to get really troubling. Despite his size and highlights, he’s actually not a great finisher around the rim, making just 62.8% of his shot attempts inside 3 feet in his 3-year NBA career (and 64.2% last season with Dallas and Cleveland). For reference, Clippers center Ivica Zubac, who is not exactly celebrated for his above-the-rim finishing, shot 71.5% at the rim last season. When it’s not a dunk, it gets even worse: Brown has only made around 40% of his layup attempts in the NBA, according to basketball-reference, and is a career 29-87 (33.3%) on shots from between 3 and 10 feet (again, for reference, Zubac was 100-194, 51.5% last season). There is really very little offensive skill to speak of aside from being very tall. While his size makes him a legitimately good rebounder and solid deterrent at the rim, Brown has also proven to be a negative defensively at the NBA level due to his inability to defend in space and poor positioning, though perhaps in a manner that is easier to get away with in regular season second-unit and garbage time minutes. At each of his 4 stops, Moses’ teams have been worse with him on the floor, sometimes in significant fashion:

The column on the left is his team’s +/- per 100 possessions when Brown plays, while the column on the right is the difference between the team’s +/- per 100 possessions when he is on the floor compared to when he is off the court. So while the numbers on the left aren’t necessarily his fault–he’s been on some bad teams, including playing most of his minutes on a blatantly taking Thunder squad–it’s notable that every team he’s been on has dropped a level when he’s stepped on the court. Where he does add value, courtesy of his size, is as a roll man and rebounder. He’s just simply too big to ignore diving to the rim on the screen-and-roll, and like former Clippers center DeAndre Jordan (though he has nowhere near the explosive leaping and finishing ability of prime DeAndre) he makes for a pretty big target to just throw the ball up for a dunk if the defense doesn’t stay home. That can open up space for a ballhandler to turn the corner and get dribble penetration, and it has created easy buckets at times–just never consistently enough to actually positively impact games for his teams.

It’s easy to compare Brown to Isaiah Hartenstein–both are younger players coming (if Brown comes) to the Clippers relatively unproven, both are vying to prove themselves in training camp (if that is indeed what Moses’ contract is), both played a half-season for the Cleveland Cavaliers before becoming free agents and coming to LAC. I would resist that urge for a few reasons, first because Hartenstein was a massive success and even imagining that the Clippers could win a buy-low move for Moses in similar fashion is a combination of unrealistic and unfair, but also because unlike Moses, Isaiah had proven his ability to help teams win NBA basketball games but had struggled to stay healthy and find a consistent role behind star bigs. Moses has actually played more NBA minutes than Hart had before joining the Clippers, he just hasn’t been nearly as good in his 1,300 pre-Clippers minutes as Hartenstein was. And we all love Isaiah’s passing ability, so it’s worth noting that Moses had 0 assists in 176 minutes for Cleveland last year.

So while Brown has struggled to be an effective NBA player up to this point in his career, he certainly has intrigue because of his above-average size for an NBA center and above-the-rim play. I’m a little low on him for a full NBA roster spot, especially considering that the Clippers seem likely to only carry two centers next season (they’ll play Nicolas Batum and Robert Covington as the backup “bigs,” but the spot Brown would slot into would be LAC’s only “true big” insurance for Ivica Zubac), but I certainly think the consensus is that he belongs in an NBA training camp and will continue to get cups of coffee in the league, even if he’s probably more of a G-League All-Star than an NBA backup C. At just 22 years old, he certainly has room for improvement, and it’s certainly worth noting that it’s incredibly rare to find this combination of youth and NBA experience in an unrestricted free agent for the minimum salary (the other side of that coin is he could have been a restricted free agent this year, but Cleveland chose to not extend a qualifying offer and replace him with Robin Lopez instead). The disappointing aspect of the upside of signing a 22-year-old is that if it is indeed a training camp deal (which is a one-year, non-guaranteed minimum-salary contract), he’ll be in the same boat next summer that Hartenstein was this year: an unrestricted free agent with no bird or early bird rights. That means LAC wouldn’t be able to retain him if he’s a completely different player next year and impresses them enough to be kept.

They could offer him a two-year contract instead, but that’s not typical for training camp invitees–basically, if a normal player on a non-guaranteed deal gets injured, his salary becomes guaranteed, and since teams don’t want to be stuck paying a random guy who they never intended to keep past camp anyway, they include a clause in camp contracts called Exhibit 9 that means the salary is not protected in case of injury (shitty, right?). Exhibit 9 can only be added to one-year, minimum-salary deals. Other than that, there’s no rule prohibiting the Clippers from giving him a two-year, non-guaranteed, minimum-salary deal that allows them to cut him in camp if he loses the camp battle or keep him for up to two seasons if they like him, at which point they’d at least have early bird rights. The only downside would be that if he gets hurt, they’re on the hook for paying him his salary this year (and the luxury tax penalty for it) even if they choose to cut him and keep whoever his competitor is.

NBA Free Agency: Clippers extend offer to Moses Brown
Lucas Hann