The Sixers have gotten off to a fairly promising start to the 2025-26 NBA season. You know who hasn’t, though? The Los Angeles Clippers.
The Clippers dropped their sixth straight game Wednesday night against Nikola Jokić and the Denver Nuggets. Kawhi Leonard has missed their past five games with a sprained ankle, while Bradley Beal is now out for the season due to a hip fracture. (The latter might be addition by subtraction, honestly.)
On paper, the Clippers are one of the deepest teams in the NBA this year. Beyond Leonard, Beal and James Harden, they have Ivica Zubac, Kris Dunn, John Collins, Derrick Jones Jr. Bogdan Bogdanović, Sixers legend Nicolas Batum, Brook Lopez and Chris Paul. Even without Leonard and Beal, they shouldn’t be tied for the third-worst record in the Western Conference. Alas!
You know who should be reveling in the Clippers’ misery? Your Philadelphia 76ers. After all, the Sixers own the Clippers’ fully unprotected 2028 first-round pick, and they have the right to swap first-round picks with the Clippers in 2029 as long as the Clippers’ pick falls outside of the top three.
While the Clippers have a ton of depth for now, they’re also one of the oldest teams in the league. Collins, who turned 28 in late September, is their youngest regular rotation player. They have a few young players buried at the end of their bench (namely Cam Christie, Kobe Brown, Kobe Sanders and Yanic Konan Niederhäuser), but none of them have cemented themselves as keepers yet. That’s an issue for a Clippers team whose long-term future remains very much up in the air.
Harden has a $42.3 million player option in 2026-27, and the Clippers have team options on Bogdanović ($16.0 million), Lopez ($9.2 million) and Batum ($5.9 million) next summer, too. If they run this same group back next season, they’re currently set to have almost an entirely blank slate during the 2027 offseason aside from Zubac (who will be entering the final year of his contract), Christie and Niederhäuser. They theoretically could go big-game shopping that summer, but that would require big names to actually hit the free-agent market.
The alleged salary-cap circumvention scandal that Pablo Torre has spent months reporting out is also looming large over the Clippers. The law firm that the NBA hired to investigate the allegations isn’t expected to finish its work anytime soon, but if the Clippers are found guilty of cap circumvention, they could face the loss of one or multiple first-round picks, a massive fine and/or the voiding of Leonard’s contract.
It’s premature to start fully dancing on the Clippers’ grave, but the combination of the Aspiration scandal and their rocky start to the season couldn’t be working out better for the Sixers. As they look ahead to building around Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe in the coming years, they could have two premium assets in their back pocket courtesy of the Clippers.
If the Clippers continue to stumble, the trade value of that pick and pick swap will rise accordingly. However, unless the Sixers can pull off a Luka Dončić-esque heist with those picks, they should be loath to part with them until the NBA reveals the results of the cap-circumvention investigation. If the NBA comes down hard on the Clippers, it might be more difficult for them to recruit star free agents even if they are sitting on a mountain of cap space in 2027.
Three years is an eternity in the NBA, so the Clippers’ outlook could be far sunnier by the 2028 offseason than it currently is. But as of now, they’re a team built around two stars in their mid-30s with a bunch of mercenary veterans, few (if any?) of whom seemingly fit into their long-term future.
The Clippers also owe their 2026 first-round pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder, so they won’t benefit if they can’t pull out of their early-season tailspin. There’s no Edgecombe-esque prospect waiting at the end of the tanking rainbow for them. (The Thunder can swap first-round picks with them in 2027, too. The Paul George trade is the gift that keeps on giving.)
Whether the Sixers ultimately keep the Clippers’ future picks or wind up flipping them in a trade down the road, every Clippers loss this season is the Sixers’ gain. So far, the Sixers are gaining a lot.