The latest Clippers scouts present clear priorities ahead of the NBA trade deadline

ClutchPoints NBA Insider Brett Siegel contributed to this report.

The NBA trade deadline is just two weeks away, and teams across the league are preparing for what should be an active couple of weeks. The LA Clippers are expected to be one of the many teams in active discussions to make moves, but they are expected to come much closer to the February 5 deadline.

The Clippers started the season 6-21 with three losing streaks of at least five games in the first 26 games. Despite playing better in the first half of December, LA was still losing games at a rate that saw them as one of the worst teams in the league.

Then, on December 20th, something finally seemed to click. Coach Tyronn Lue came out before the Clippers’ home game against the Los Angeles Lakers and stated that the team’s internal goal is to finish the season 35-20 or better. At 35-20, they would put the Clippers up 41-41.

“We don’t have the record we think we should have right now, but that’s behind us,” Lue said before the Clippers hosted the Lakers on Dec. 20. “Just talking to our guys today, our main focus, our main goal is to go 35-20 the rest of the way and just keep putting wins together from there.

Since that goal was mentioned, Lue’s Clippers have gone 13-3. Their only three losses were to the underdog Chicago Bulls, the Boston Celtics — who fired the ball led by Jaylen Brown’s record 50 points — and the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.

While the Clippers have certainly improved in many areas, one of the biggest changes is that the Clippers are simply playing better on both ends of the floor. Everyone from Kawhi Leonard and John Collins to the young guys in Jordan Miller and Kobe Sanders have raised their level of play, giving the Clippers some much-needed life in a season that was quickly slipping away.

So where does this leave the Clippers, 19-24 on the season, with just over two weeks until the Feb. 5 NBA trade deadline?

Clippers focus on trade deadline

So far, there really haven’t been any major moves in the league, and that’s mostly because the league has been waiting for a pair of dominoes to fall first *cough cough* Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jonathan Kuminga.

As it stands, the LA Clippers’ biggest focus at this NBA trade deadline is to clear one or two more roster spots, league sources tell ClutchPoints. As mentioned on ClutchPoints’ weekly show with insider Brett Siegel, Clutch Scoops, the Clippers are looking to free up roster spots and money further down the line to sign two-way players Kobe Sanders and Jordan Miller to standard contracts.

Sanders, selected 50th overall in the 2025 NBA draft by the organization, has been a good guy for the Clippers as he continues to fill multiple needs, whether it’s Kawhi Leonard or Derrick Jones Jr. Since entering the rotation on Nov. 12, Sanders has played in every game and made seven starts for the Clippers.

Miller has dealt with a number of injuries early in the season, including a strained left hamstring late in the preseason. He returned in November to play two games before re-aggravating the hamstring injury in Boston when the Clippers played the Celtics.

Finally healthy, Miller is playing at a level that makes him a borderline fixture in the Clippers’ rotation, no matter who is healthy. Through just 21 games played, Miller has already played more games of 20 or more minutes this season than in his first two seasons (45 games) combined. Miller is also in his third year in the league and won’t be two-way after this season, putting even more pressure on the Clippers to find a way to move him to a standard contract.

The NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement states that any game played by a team with fewer than 15 standard contracts on the roster is considered an “under-15 game,” adding that “no team shall be permitted to have a two-way player on its active roster for more than 90 ‘under-15 games'” during the regular season.

The Clippers were just 16 games away from the under-15 rule, but they were able to extend the number of games Miller and Sanders had left to play by signing Patrick Baldwin Jr. on Jan. 16. 10-day contract, giving them 15 full roster spots and the ability to play all of their two-way players who had an impact on Washington, with no impact on the Washington players.

They can also sign Baldwin Jr. to a second 10-day contract, and that would effectively get them through the Feb. 5 trade deadline and give them time to make roster decisions.

The Clippers’ paths to signing Sanders and Miller begin with two names expected to be moved at the trade deadline: Chris Paul and Kobe Brown.

Chris Paul was brought home by the Clippers on Dec. 3, during the team’s four-game trip to the East. The organization made it clear that Paul was not the scapegoat for their poor start to the season, but the turnaround in the weeks since his departure has certainly raised eyebrows around the league.

Up to this point, the Clippers have been unable to find a trade partner to acquire Paul. Teams like the New York Knicks, Milwaukee Bucks and Minnesota Timberwolves have been interested in adding depth at the point guard position, but it remains to be seen how interested they are in the 40-year-old Paul.

The 20-year-old NBA guard stayed in shape and continued to train in Los Angeles, but there wasn’t much traction on a deal that would allow him to finish his career elsewhere.

The Clippers are among multiple teams interested in trading for the guard, such as the Toronto Raptors with Immanuel Quickley, the Charlotte Hornets with Collin Sexton and the Chicago Bulls with Kobe White, to name a few.

Once things on the market start to develop, trade destinations for Chris Paul could surface based on who can and can’t be traded for guard depth.

Kobe Brown is the second Clippers player expected to be moved by the Feb. 5 trade deadline. A four-year forward out of Missouri, the Clippers drafted Brown in hopes that his ball handling, playmaking and his 6-foot-7 frame could lead him to develop into a Draymond Green-style player who can play on both ends of the floor.

But the now 26-year-old forward hasn’t been able to consistently make it into the team’s rotation despite injury issues due to a lack of shooting and uneven play in the minutes he’s been given. And that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been working on it. Brown is always among the last players in the gym still working on his three-point shot with Chris Dunn, Cam Christie and Jordan Miller until the boys head home.

At this stage, Brown simply hasn’t developed as the franchise hoped he would. In October 2025 The Clippers declined the fourth-year option to Brown’s $4.79 million contract, making him an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2026.

They are expected to clear Brown’s $2.7 million expiring contract, which, coupled with the $2.3 million owed to Chris Paul, would give the Clippers enough cap room to sign both Kobe Sanders and Jordan Miller to at least the prorated veteran minimum, assuming they can take almost nothing in salary in return.

Are there other clippers on the market?

The Clippers have a number of highly mobile contracts if they want to create some roster flexibility or trade for a big player. And while the trade deadline will offer them an opportunity to improve their roster by making moves that include those players, there haven’t been many that have done so.

Ivica Zubac was widely considered the Clippers’ top trade, with the Boston Celtics, Indiana Pacers and Charlotte Hornets among at least five teams inquiring about the big man’s availability when the team was going through its struggles, league sources told ClutchPoints.

The Clippers, however, rejected trade offers for Zubac, with the league believed to be looking for multiple first-round picks in any potential deal for him. One team offered an unprotected first-round pick and a pick trade in an offer for Zubac, sources said, but those talks went nowhere.

HoopsHipe reported that the Sacramento Kings have had “exploratory talks about a trade that includes DeMar DeRozan and Keon Ellis for Clippers forward John Collins and another little bonus,” but that was before the Clippers won 13 of their 15 games and turned the season around.

The Clippers don’t seem interested in moving John Collins and his expiring $26.5 million contract at this point, as the power forward has played well as a starter, averaging 14.7 points, 4.9 rebounds, 1.0 assists, 1.0 steals and 1.1 blocks over his last 23 games while shooting 6.8 percent from 68 percent.

Bogdan Bogdanović is not a player that the Clippers are actively shopping either, but he is a player that could attract some teams in the market. The Serbian guard, who has struggled to stay healthy this season, is making $16 million this season and has a $16 million team option next season, giving any team that acquires him rights and flexibility.

One name previously linked to the Clippers who could find himself on the move and in need of a new destination is Bucks forward Kyle Kuzma. With Milwaukee expressing a desire to make a significant roster upgrade before the deadline, Kuzma has emerged as the player most likely to move from the Bucks.

Talk around the league surrounding Kuzma has focused on his past desire to return to Los Angeles, with the Clippers a team mentioned as suitors for the former NBA champion when he was still with the Washington Wizards in 2024.

Other players who have been linked to the Clippers in recent days include Collin Sexton, Anfernee Simmons and Coby White. All three players are out of contract and currently with teams that would likely prefer to move them at the right price. The Clippers need another ball handler and playmaker who can spell James Harden and Kawhi Leonard, so any of those three players could be an upgrade at the point guard position for LA.

The Clippers’ moves aren’t expected to be anything groundbreaking, but the franchise will continue to focus on building a team around Leonard and Harden without investing a first-round draft pick in this iteration of the team.

Amid the Clippers’ recent surge to put themselves in a position to contend for a playoff spot, caution and flexibility remain core principles Steve Ballmer and this front office continue to preach. Whether or not the Clippers make a roster upgrade depends solely on their ability to buy low at the trade deadline.