From a team-building perspective, probably the most ruinous factor of the NBA’s punishment of the LA Clippers for wage cap circumvention surrounding Kawhi Leonard is the lack of 5 first-round draft picks, one every in 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032 and 2033.
There is just one precedent for such a critical punishment in NBA historical past: when the league equally revoked 5 first-round picks from the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2000 for wage cap circumvention. In that case, the Timberwolves had come to an unlawful settlement with free agent large man Joe Smith. (Then-commissioner David Stern in the end returned two of the first-round picks.)
Trying again at how Minnesota navigated — and suffered from — that forfeiture may help inform our understanding of how the Clippers would possibly fare within the years to come back, as they bear the brunt of the NBA’s self-discipline.
Minnesota’s precedent
For the Timberwolves, the flip of the millennium was a horrible time to endure such a drastic punishment. They’d been the NBA’s worst group for years after becoming a member of as an growth franchise in 1989; for the primary seven years of their existence, they by no means received greater than 29 video games in a season.
However in 1995, they drafted excessive schooler Kevin Garnett with the No. 5 choose, and their trajectory lastly began to enhance. The Timberwolves received 21 video games in 1994-95, the season earlier than Garnett was drafted, however steadily rose to 50 wins by 1999-00.
Then the hammer got here down, and the Timberwolves misplaced their first-round picks from 2001 by way of 2005.
Their win totals quickly stalled out. After successful 50 video games in 1999-2000, the Timberwolves received 47, 50 and 51 video games over the subsequent three seasons — robust information nonetheless, however not displaying proof of additional development.
Minnesota lastly took a leap within the 2003-04 marketing campaign, after offseason trades for Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell. The Timberwolves received 58 video games and landed the West’s No. 1 seed, and Garnett received MVP. Minnesota went on to achieve the convention finals — successful the franchise’s first two playoff sequence within the course of — earlier than falling to the Lakers in six video games.
However that one superlative season proved to be the Timberwolves’ excessive level as a franchise (at the very least till the 2020s). Minnesota dropped to 44 wins and missed the playoffs in 2004-05, then peeled off 12 consecutive dropping seasons by way of 2017. Garnett was traded to Boston throughout that drought, and it took greater than a decade to get better.
So, how did the Smith sanctions in the end have an effect on Minnesota? On the one hand, the group nonetheless reached the playoffs in every of the subsequent 4 seasons after they have been levied, culminating in a convention finals run.
However then again, it is exhausting to not surprise how far more aggressive the Timberwolves might have been atop the Western Convention, and the way for much longer their run might have lasted, had they been in a position to make first-round picks throughout these misplaced draft years. Dropping all of these picks conceivably value the Timberwolves a title.
Garnett was a 24-year-old simply getting into his prime in 2000, however Minnesota did not have the sources so as to add extra younger expertise round him. In 2003-04, it was the third-oldest group within the NBA, in response to Basketball Reference. And from 2001 by way of 2005, solely three Timberwolves age 25 or youthful averaged double-digit factors in a season: Garnett himself, Wally Szczerbiak (the No. 6 choose in 1999, earlier than the Smith case) and Chauncey Billups, a free agent signing who’d depart for Detroit the next summer time.
The Timberwolves ended up deciding on seven gamers within the draft from 2001 by way of 2005: 5 second-rounders and two first-rounders. Solely a kind of seven gamers offered even modest manufacturing in Minnesota, and that was too little, too late for the Garnett period.
Why the Clippers’ future could possibly be higher — or a lot worse
The comparability between the Timberwolves in 2000 and the Clippers in 2026 is not good, for causes that would present each optimism and deep pessimism for Clippers followers.
On the constructive facet, seeing how the Timberwolves continued reaching the playoffs, and even reached their first convention finals, regardless of the dearth of draft picks needs to be encouraging. And whereas the Timberwolves have been devoid of first-round picks for half a decade after their punishment — till the NBA returned two of them — the Clippers’ cabinet is not naked, particularly if their commerce of Leonard again to Toronto goes by way of, now that the NBA has accomplished its investigation.
They nonetheless have a first-round choose subsequent summer time. (The Thunder can swap first-round picks with the Clippers in 2027, however the Clippers can then swap with the Raptors, per the reported phrases of the Leonard commerce.) And even because the NBA takes away one choose from 5 consecutive drafts beginning in 2029, the Clippers ought to nonetheless have picks in 2029, 2031 and 2033, because of holding extras from the Leonard and Ivica Zubac trades.
The Clippers additionally managed so as to add a prized prospect to their group just below the wire, once they chosen Keaton Wagler with the No. 5 choose in June. And their future cap sheet appears to be like squeaky clear, giving them the theoretical capability to make upgrades in free company — if any star participant is prepared to hitch a franchise that was so lately embroiled in scandal.
However there are additionally quite a few disadvantages for the Clippers, even relative to what Minnesota skilled after the Smith punishment. Most notably, the Timberwolves have been a 50-win group that revolved round a younger future MVP on the time, and his brilliance is the principle purpose that Minnesota remained aggressive in its years with out picks.
Conversely, the Clippers are coming off a season through which they missed the playoffs, they usually’re within the means of buying and selling their finest participant. Whereas Darius Garland and Wagler are each stuffed with potential, neither guard is prone to method Garnett’s particular person heights.
Furthermore, the Garnett-era Timberwolves’ finest season got here after they landed Cassell — who made the All-NBA second group in Minnesota — and Sprewell in trades. However they did not must commerce a single draft choose to accumulate these veteran contributors.
That was a unique time; now, virtually each win-now commerce entails draft picks headed the opposite method. But the Clippers cannot make these offers for the foreseeable future. Even when they’ve just a few picks from different groups, the Stepien rule forbids them from buying and selling these choices.
In different phrases, the Clippers don’t have any commerce flexibility for the foreseeable future, even when they see potential avenues to enhance their roster.
And whereas the Timberwolves’ lack of draft picks began instantly — the NBA’s ruling got here in 2000 and started with the 2001 draft — the Clippers’ will not kick in for an additional three years, which suggests it would lengthen even farther into the longer term. If there’s mild on the finish of the tunnel, it is a lengthy methods away.
It is attainable that the NBA might mellow its harsh self-discipline over time and return a few of the Clippers’ picks. There’s some precedent right here, not solely from the Timberwolves receiving this grace within the early 2000s, but additionally from the Eighties, when the NBA gave the Cleveland Cavaliers “bonus” draft choices in 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1986 after proprietor Ted Stepien had traded all of Cleveland’s picks away.
However that is a dim silver lining, as a result of in the meanwhile, the Clippers’ scenario appears to be like much more dire than the Timberwolves’ did a quarter-century in the past. Hopefully their followers loved their group’s journey to the convention finals in 2021 — which Leonard infamously missed because of a knee damage — as a result of it could possibly be a protracted, very long time earlier than the franchise is aggressive sufficient to return.
