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Give the Los Angeles Clippers credit. Plenty of teams make a big fuss about going all-in to win the championship, but the Clippers really went all-in. They do not currently have a tradable first-round pick. They have used roughly 99.6 percent of the salary that they are legally allowed to spend. Eight of their 10 minutes leaders are either already in their 30s or will get there by the Finals. The Clippers have done absolutely everything in their power to build a team equipped to win the 2021 championship.

But if the playoffs began today, the Clippers would be something of an underdog. The Los Angeles Lakers are a defending champion, after all, and the shiny new Brooklyn Nets have already beaten them twice. The Clippers probably need something more to put themselves on even footing with those two favorites, but their previous expenditures will make finding that final piece extremely difficult. The Clippers don't have the chips to make the sort of moves other contenders can. They are going to have to get creative in improving this roster before the postseason. Here's how they might try to do it.

Needs

  • Playmaking: Passing was a flaw for the Clippers last season as well, but rather than address it through the addition of a traditional point guard, they chose to add cumulative playmaking across the roster. Nicolas Batum has been helpful. Luke Kennard hasn't. All in all, the Clippers still rank 19th per game in total passes, 24th in potential assists and 27th in offensive distance traveled, via NBA.com tracking data. In layman's terms, they hardly pass and rarely move off the ball, and that has manifested most in clutch settings, where their offense troublingly ranks 19th. 
  • Offensive diversity: The Clippers have the best 3-point percentage in the NBA, but rank 27th in points in the paint and 26th in fast-break points. This is very much a jump-shooting team. The old axiom suggesting that jump-shooting teams can't win in the playoffs is flawed, but homogenous offenses genuinely don't hoist trophies. The Golden State Warriors led the NBA in fast-break points in each of their championship seasons. The Milwaukee Bucks shoot nearly as well as the Clippers this season, but pair that shooting with the stellar interior scoring of Giannis Antetokounmpo. It would behoove the Clippers to either find a way to run a bit more or attack the basket more often. 
  • Defense against smaller guards: Patrick Beverley is among the best defensive guards in the NBA, but he's far more successful defending bigger scorers than quicker guards. Kyrie Irving, Stephen Curry and Kemba Walker have all recently bested Beverley, and as valuable as his ability to defend up a position or two can be on certain rosters, it's a trait this particular Clippers team doesn't need with Kawhi Leonard and Paul George in place. Adding a defender that specializes in chasing smaller guards around would be beneficial in those sorts of matchups. 

Assets

Cap notes

  • By virtue of using the non-taxpayer mid-level exception (on Ibaka), the Clippers are hard-capped at the apron ($138.928 million). They cannot exceed that amount for any reason. At present, they have roughly $500,000 beneath that line to spend.
  • The Clippers are currently above the luxury tax line, meaning they can bring in no more than 125 percent of their outgoing salary plus $100,000 in any trade.
  • The Clippers have only 14 players on their roster. If they make a trade that sends out more players than it brings in, they must have enough room beneath the hard cap to get back up to 14 through minimum-salary deals.
  • Luke Kennard signed a rookie extension before the season. He is therefore bound by base-year compensation restrictions. To the Clippers, his outgoing salary in a trade counts only as his 2020-21 salary ($5.3 million). To an acquiring team, his incoming salary counts as the average of all seasons he is currently contracted for (roughly $12.3 million).
  • The Clippers have not yet spent their bi-annual exception (initially worth $3.6 million, but prorating by the day), and they have a $3.6 million trade exception, thanks to last season's Jerome Robinson trade. The former can be used only in free agency. The latter only in trades. Neither can be used if doing so takes the Clippers above the hard cap, though, so at the moment, they are functionally useless. 

Expiring contracts

  • Kawhi Leonard and Serge Ibaka have player options for next season. Leonard is expected to re-sign with the Clippers for the max through his Early Bird rights. Ibaka might test the market. If he does, the Clippers would only be able to pay him 120 percent of what he made this season via Non-Bird rights. Given his age and the desirability of the Clippers as a destination, he might be willing to accept that. 
  • Lou Williams will be an unrestricted free agent this offseason, and the Clippers will have full Bird rights on him. They can pay him anything up to the max in order to retain him. Williams has indicated that he plans to retire as a Clipper. 
  • Patrick Patterson and Reggie Jackson will have Early Bird rights, and the Clippers will therefore be able to offer them up to the average player salary (whatever amount the non-taxpayer mid-level exception comes in at). 
  • Batum will have Non-Bird rights. That allows the Clippers to give him only 120 percent of his 2020-21 salary unless they decide to dip into one of their cap exceptions to keep him. 
  • Mfiondu Kabengele's third-year option was declined by the Clippers this offseason. That will make him an unrestricted free agent. The Clippers cannot offer him any more than his option would have paid him (roughly $2.2 million). 

Possible trade targets

Low-end -- Rajon Rondo: The Clippers sniffed around Rondo in the offseason, but wisely chose to spend their mid-level exception on Ibaka. Predictably, Rondo has disappointed in Atlanta. He has struggled just as much in limited regular-season duty with the Hawks as he did with the Lakers. For whatever reason, he only becomes valuable in the playoffs. The Hawks might not get there. The Clippers will, and his half-court passing and transition brilliance could be just as impactful for them as it was for the Lakers last season. A one-for-one swap involving Williams would likely satisfy the Hawks. His contract is expiring whereas Rondo's is not, and he is a far more consistent regular-season player, which the Hawks need if they are going to reach the playoffs at all. 

Medium-end -- George Hill: He's not the pure point guard most expect the Clippers to pursue, but he's a happy medium that fits into the structure they've actually built. He'd add to their cumulative playmaking while juicing their shooting even further and adding to their surplus of switchable defenders. Williams could be the bulk of the salary filler in a deal, but another player would be needed to fit the deal underneath the hard cap. Second-round picks should suffice as compensation for Hill. 

High-end -- Kyle Lowry: It's a pipe dream. Lowry is a star, and while his age will preclude the Raptors from getting a star-level package back, a good first-round pick or a young starter would be a necessity. The Clippers have neither, and they lack the sort of matching salaries needed to add a $30 million player under that hard cap. But the Clippers will explore the possibility, because if they do manage to add Lowry without further compromising their rotation, they will win the championship. He's that good and fits that easily into their lineup. Perhaps they could argue Zubac fits the "young star" bill, and maybe they could extract a first-round pick out of a team interested in Beverley. That doesn't solve the hard cap conundrum, but it's a start. 

Possible buyout targets

Guard -- Darren Collison: He's already a free agent, and the Clippers danced this dance a year ago. Collison didn't want to come back. He probably doesn't want to come back now. But starting-caliber point guards don't grow on trees. Collison was one before he surprisingly retired. Considering how little the buyout market usually produces, it would be irresponsible of the Clippers not to at least explore a reunion with the Los Angeles native. 

Forward -- Otto Porter Jr.: Blake Griffin was the sentimental choice before choosing Brooklyn, so why not give the Clippers yet another aging wing to rehabilitate? Nic Batum has been a revelation for the Clippers. Patrick Patterson? Not so much. The Clippers were built on the premise that a team can never have too many talented wings, so there's little harm in throwing another onto the pile. 

Center -- JaVale McGee: There are maybe half a dozen players in the NBA who could reasonably stand up to Nikola Jokic (the player who knocked the Clippers out last season) or Anthony Davis (the one likeliest to knock them out this season), and I can assure you, none of them are sniffing the trade market, much less the buyout market. But McGee held his own for short stretches against Jokic in the Western Conference finals last season, and who knows, he might have picked up a trick or two to use against Davis when he played with him last season.