Clippers Continue to Fumble the Chris Paul Situation

The Los Angeles Clippers have not resolved the Chris Paul problem, which is actively hurting the team.

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

The Los Angeles Clippers made the abrupt decision to move on from Chris Paul last Wednesday. In the middle of an East Coast road trip, the team told the 40-year-old point guard to go home. The optics of doing that to a franchise legend aside, the Clippers are continuing to mismanage the situation as it remains unresolved almost a week later.

When the Clippers sent Paul home, they didn't actually waive or trade him. They don't want to waive Paul, because that would bring their roster to 13 players. NBA teams are only allowed to be under 14 standard contracts for 14 days at a time and 28 days in total, per NBA cap expert Keith Smith. Releasing Paul doesn't actually save the Clippers any money because he is on a guaranteed deal. The Clippers are about $1.3 million under the first apron hard cap, which means that they can't sign anyone else, even on a minimum deal, and still stay under the cap.

Clippers Continue to Be Short-Handed Because of Unresolved Chris Paul Saga

So with Paul out of the picture, the Clippers are down to 13 players on standard deals on the roster. With Bradley Beal out for the season and Derrick Jones Jr. out for an extended period of time, the Clippers have only 11 players on the roster. That is why they have been relying extensively on their two-way players, most notably Kobe Sanders. Per Smith, one legal way they could handle the situation is by releasing Paul and converting Sanders to a standard deal. This would still keep them under the cap and allow them to sign another player to a two-way contract.

For some inexplicable reason, the Clippers have not done this. Instead, they continue to play with a depleted roster.

The only other option the Clippers have is to find a trade for CP3. The problem is that Paul can't be traded until December 15 because he signed a new deal in the offseason. This means that the Clippers have no choice but to wait another week before being able to make a move.

Every day that the Clippers don't resolve the Chris Paul situation, they are actively hurting their depth. The team currently has very little backcourt depth and has no reliable backup point guard behind James Harden. Could the Clippers really not have Paul as a part of the team until December 15 to have some decent backup PG play? Could Ty Lue and Lawrence Frank not work out a deal with Paul behind closed doors that would keep him on the team until they could trade him to a team of his preference?

If the answers to those questions are negative, then the Clippers should have already waived Paul and converted Kobe Sanders to a standard deal. The continued fumbling of the roster construction by Lawrence Frank & Co. has been unacceptable.