Los Angeles Clippers: 5 Overreactions To Avoid

4. “DeAndre Jordan Isn’t Worth The Max”

As an unrestricted free agent this summer, DeAndre Jordan will have options. Jordan loves playing with the Clippers and swears by his head coach, but according to ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne, he’s also interested in an expanded role with another team and will sit down with other teams to hear their free agency pitches.

It gets even more troubling. As Bill Reiter of FOX Sports reports, a rift between DJ and Chris Paul could prompt him to seriously consider leaving.

So what? you’re thinking. If he doesn’t want to stay with the Clippers, let him go! A max would cost LAC a ton of money for a center who is limited offensively and can’t make his free throws anyway.

Here’s the problem with that line of thinking though: it’s completely and fundamentally stupid.

For starters, it no longer matters what we believe to be the true value of a “max player.” All that matters is whether or not an NBA team will pay max-level money for a player, and rest assured, if the Clippers don’t offer DJ a max, someone else will.

The Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks have already been mentioned as teams that would potentially be interested in doing so.

Secondly, letting Jordan go is not going to suddenly free up cap room for the Clips to revamp the bench. Lob City already has $66.8 million on the books for next season, with the salary cap projected to be $67.1 million. The luxury tax is coming, with or without a new contract for DeAndre Jordan. If you’re going to go into the tax, why not make it worth it?

When you look ahead, the Clippers will get some relief in the next few seasons after 2015-16. In 2016-17, the cap is projected to skyrocket to $89 million before launching to $108 million the season after that. At age 26, Jordan is a long-term piece the Clippers need as a part of their Big Three.

They have the inside track to re-signing him, since they can lock their rebounding machine up to a five-year, $108.7 million deal. The most another team can offer is four years and $80.7 million, though Jordan could also take a different route in re-signing with the Clippers:

Letting Jordan go simply because of the luxury tax (or even worse, because he can’t make free throws) would be a foolish move. At that point, the Clippers would be better off completely blowing it up, which, as we’ll cover in a bit, would be an even bigger overreaction.

Side note: if free throw shooting is really your chief concern here, remember that the Hack-A-Shaq strategy is complete and utter garbage. It is not basketball, and if the NBA is smart, they’ll change the damn rule so we can go back to playing the game again.

Next: No. 3