What will the Los Angeles Clippers do about their 9 free agents?
The Clippers have 7 unrestricted free agents and 2 restricted free agents coming into this summer. First things first, the Clippers look to be players in the free agent market before deciding whether or not to bring back any of their owns guys. It makes perfect sense to do it that way because they have Larry Bird rights to their own free agents which would allow them to go over the cap to re-sign any of them. To me Drew Gooden seems like the only Clippers’ free agent that’s sure to leave because I don’t think he would accept a bench role behind Blake Griffin. Rasual Butler, Steve Blake, Travis Outlaw and Craig Smith are the main four free agents that the Clippers might want to bring back but they could each get a decent offer on the free agent market. Brian Skinner and Steve Novak will likely be allowed to leave L.A. Backup guards Mardy Collins and Bobby Brown are restricted free agents and I don’t think the Clippers will be bringing them back either.
If they miss out on Lebron, Gay and Joe Johnson (hope they don’t overpay too much for the last 2) and can’t pull off a trade for Iggy, then they should try to re-sign Blake, Butler, Outlaw and Smith. Then finally bring in Big Sofo and add another quality player with the midlevel.
Pg-Baron/Blake
sg-Gordon/Butler
sf-Outlaw/Aminu
pf-Griffin/Rhino
c-Kaman/Jordan/Sofo
I think the Clippers would also have other options at small forward like Mike Miller, Matt Barnes and maybe even Josh Howard if he’s healthy. But it is nice to see the Clippers having enough cap room to chase down some big time players.