Blazers to Face Clippers Without Injured All-Star Guard Sunday

Jan 27, 2025; Phoenix, Arizona, USA; Phoenix Suns guard Bradley Beal (3) guards LA Clippers guard James Harden (1) during the second half at Footprint Center. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images | Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images

The Portland Trail Blazers will be facing the LA Clippers without an ailing All-Star vet as they seek to build their first win streak of the young 2025-26 season.

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Per Underdog, former three-time All-Star shooting guard Bradley Beal will sit out with a back injury. The Clippers will elevate reserve guard Bogdan Bogdanovic to a starting role in his stead, Underdog reveals.

Lineup alert: Clippers will start Harden, Bogdanovic, Leonard, Jones Jr., Zubac on Sunday.

— Underdog NBA (@UnderdogNBA) October 26, 2025

Bogdanovic will join normal starters James Harden, Kawhi Leonard, Derrick Jones Jr. and Ivica Zubac to fill out head coach Tyronn Lue's first five.

Beal joins Jordan Miller (left hamstring strain) and Kobe Sanders (right knee soreness) on LA's bench.

Both Portland and the Clippers currently sport 1-1 regular season records and are looking to improve to a record above .500 for the first time this year, having each dropped their season openers.

Two Teams Embroiled in Controversy

The Clippers must be thanking their lucky stars that the FBI announced it was indicting the Trail Blazers' current (technical) head coach Chauncey Billups — who is being replaced on an interim basis by former assistant Tiago Splitter — and Miami Heat point guard Terry Rozier, among others, in separate gambling stings.

With the Billups and Rozier controversies now stealing NBA headlines, Clippers majority owner Steve Ballmer's involvement with disgraced, fraudulent former "tree-planting" LA sponsor Aspiration has faded from fickle fan memories a bit.

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It has been alleged that Ballmer may have used Aspiration to potentially launder an unofficial "bonus" salary — and thus, subvert the NBA's punitive salary cap and forego the league's very spirit of competitive balance — to Leonard, who was ostensibly involved in an individual sponsorship agreement with Aspiration that may have been worth up $48 million (although he didn't collect the full amount before Aspiration shut down) but did zero recorded promotional work.

Healthwise, Portland has started the season with three key absences.

The Trail Blazers will play a third straight game without point guards Damian Lillard (Achilles tendon rupture) and Scoot Henderson (left hamstring tear), plus perennially-unhealthy backup center Robert Williams III. The 6-foot-9 former All-Defensive Teamer is rehabbing an offseason injury. After Sunday, he will have appeared in just 26 of a possible 167 games for Portland since the start of the 2023-24 season.

For more news and notes on the Portland Trail Blazers, visit Portland Trail Blazers on SI.