The Clippers face the Lakers tonight at the Crypto.com Arena in a highly anticipated NBA Cup fixture. The Clippers have had a 5-12 start to the season in their first 17 games and their struggles this season have mainly been caused due to injury issues with the roster.
Before the game, Tyronn Lue, the Clippers’ head coach, addressed JJ Redick’s comments on the Clippers becoming a lot stronger with Kawhi Leonard’s return and the ‘next man up’ mentality with the roster.
“No, I agree with it. You know, I think, when you get Kawhi back and he’s healthy, James and Zu, you know, the way they’ve been playing this season, you know, adds a different dimension to your team,” said Lue in agreement with JJ Redick that Leonard’s return makes the Clippers more lethal.
“When you lose, you know, your best player, the top 10 player when he’s on the floor, um it’s hard to to really make up for that. I know a lot of people say next man up, but you know, if he’s making 60 million, your next man up is making $400,000. It’s not really the same, you know,” Lue further added.
“We just got to continue to just keep playing through it and like you said, you know, hopefully getting Kawhai where he can start getting his minutes up and start feeling better, we will be a different team.”
Kawhi Leonard is currently expected to earn $50,000,000 in the 2025-26 season. While Kobe Sanders, who saw a significant increase in his minutes when Kawhi Leonard and Derrick Jones Jr. both went down with injury, is on a two-way contract and is expected to earn approximately $600,000 this season. Lue seems to be pointing at this disparity.
Leonard averaged 23.7 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.3 assists in his first seven games of the season, while shooting 50% from the field, before going down with a right ankle sprain for several games. Initially Jones Jr. saw an increase in his minutes before even he went down with a right knee injury.
And thus, the lack of frontcourt depth forced the Clippers to use Sanders in this time. In comparison, Sanders averaged only 7.1 points, 1.6 rebounds and 1.2 assists in the nine games he played while shooting 39.6% from the field, which is a fraction of the production that Leonard brings to the floor.
Lue’s comments are a bit vague but they indicate his frustration with the lack of depth in the Clippers’ roster. He could be pointing to the star player’s greed (who in this case is Kawhi Leonard) but he is likely pointing towards the disparity in salaries that has created a gap in the type of talent available on a star-studded roster like the Clippers when it comes to depth.
Several NBA players have recently voiced their concerns that the NBA’s pay structure allows the star players to retain a majority of the salary cap’s permissible percentage and leaves other players scrambling for their future.
The NBA’s salary rules allow a single player to get a maximum of 35% of that season’s total salary cap. In an era where every championship contending team has at least two star players who compete for such a contract, in effect, 13 of a roster’s 15 players are paid with only approximately 30% of the teams’ total salary cap amount.
It is thus likely that Lue resonates with that sentiment instead of criticizing his own star player, like some fans believed he was doing. He is seemingly indirectly throwing shade at the league for coming up with such a system.
