Rumors are circulating that the Los Angeles Lakers are “increasingly open-minded” to trading Jordan Clarkson. Does this make sense?
When Jordan Clarkson was in his rookie season, he pushed a fake baby doll in a pink stroller into the arena every day. Three years later, the soon-to-turn 25-year-old might be pushing his bags out of L.A. for good.
Moke Hamilton of Basketball Insiders reported earlier this week that the Los Angeles Lakers are “increasingly open-minded” to trading Clarkson.
Interesting.
Does this make sense for the Lakers though?
It seems like an eternity ago — before Jeannie Buss stiff-armed her brothers, before Magic Johnson took over as team president, before Rob Pelinka was named general manager, before LaVar Ball was a household name, and before his son, Lonzo, was fated for the purple and gold — but last summer, the Lakers had a decision to make on Jordan Clarkson.
They could have re-signed the young guard to a lucrative contract to cement his status as a young core piece, or they could have let other teams swoop in and try to steal him in restricted free agency.
Luckily, for the Lakers, the Gilbert Arenas provision limited what other teams could offer Clarkson in the first two years of a contract. Interested teams could still get the total contract value up to approximately $58 million over four years, but only by ballooning his salary in the back-end of the deal. This gave the Lakers a double advantage: they could offer Clarkson more money in aggregate, and they could offer more money in the immediate future. In the end, the two parties agreed to a $50 million contract over four years.
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One season later, with three years and $37.5 million remaining on his contract, the Lakers face another decision. Do they double down on their investment, knowing they would be doing so with the likelihood that Clarkson remains a bench player behind D’Angelo Russell and Lonzo Ball, or do they try to find a new home for Clarkson and free up additional cap space?
Before outlining the salary cap merits in detail, let’s take a look at the third-year guard’s fit on the Lakers.
As of right now, what Jordan Clarkson brings to the Staples Center is a volume shooter off the bench, who can penetrate to the rim. After playing mostly point guard in his rookie season, Clarkson found more time at shooting guard and a little time on the wing over the past two seasons. His defense showed flashes of improvement early last year, but is still horrendous overall. His strengths are on the offensive side of the ball, driving to the hoop and stretching the floor with three-point shooting.
With the Lakers expected to draft Lonzo Ball, it makes sense to think Clarkson is the odd man out in what would be a crowded backcourt; but that’s only if you consider starter minutes.
Nick Young is still undecided on his player option for next season, so leaving him aside for a moment, the depth in the backcourt is a concern.
While the Lakers received Corey Brewer, on top of a first round draft pick, in the Lou Williams deal, Brewer does not score or log minutes like either Williams or Clarkson do. The team has a decision to make on whether they bring back Tyler Ennis, who played fairly well over a small sample of games in 2016-17; but, again, he is not a piece you can write in marker as a legitimate bench contributor.
David Nwaba fits in the same category as Ennis as a nice story from the end of last season, but I don’t think the Lakers are counting on a player who attempted FIVE three-pointers over 20 games to be a heavy rotation player next season.
If Nick Young comes back after a successful 2016-17 campaign, he provides the team with flexibility as a shooting guard slash wing player on a reasonable one-year contract.
That’s a short-term depth fix. Jordan Clarkson is a decision for the long-term.
If Clarkson is traded, that leaves the Lakers with D’Angelo Russell and Lonzo Ball (assuming they draft him) as the main guards and a mix-and-match of bottom-of-the-rotation backups to fill out the guard spots. That, plus cap space to lure free agents in 2018 and beyond (more on that soon).
Blue Man Hoop
Of course, when discussing Jordan Clarkson’s fit with the Lakers, we can’t ignore his struggles sharing the floor with D’Angelo Russell. In over 700 minutes of playing time together last season, the team had a horrendous -19.1 net rating. The Lakers were awful no matter who was on the floor last season, but as a comparison, when Clarkson shared the backcourt with Lou Williams over 1,100 minutes, the team was only at a -1.1 net rating, per Basketball-Reference.
Lou Williams is an important factor in evaluating Jordan Clarkson.
As the numbers prove, the Lakers played their best when Williams and Clarkson came off the bench together. When the season started, this wasn’t necessarily the plan. Clarkson was signed to a big contract with the expectation that he would start alongside Russell. Nick Young surprisingly took his place, and the results were too strong to change them. Counterintuitively, if Lou Williams hadn’t played so well last season, the Lakers might be in a better position to evaluate Clarkson’s development.
Remember, it was after Lou Williams was traded that Luke Walton finally gave Clarkson a stretch of games starting with Russell, with mixed results.
Considering the direction of the roster, it seems clear that if Clarkson stays in LA, his role over the remainder of his contract will be in a bench capacity. It’s possible the Lakers don’t draft Ball and take a wing player instead, opening the door for Clarkson to find starting minutes; it’s more probable that they draft Ball and he becomes the starter of the future with D’Angelo Russell.
Jordan Clarkson is a good bench option. He’s a microwave scorer, and with his ability to drive to the hoop, he offers playmaking that would aid the entire bench unit.
Is that worth $37.5 million over three years?
It’s easy to think that Jordan Clarkson’s contract is reasonable since it’s not worth a gazillion dollars. With the cap spike over the past two summers, it seems like EVERYBODY is getting paid. What’s $37.5 million when Allen Crabbe is making $75 million?
A deeper look at comparable contracts tells a different story. If we define a player having a “good” contract as one who outperforms players on bigger contracts, Clarkson’s deal doesn’t look so good. Of the 16 players on non-rookie deals who are 24 or younger and signed at least through 2020, using Value Over Replacement (VORP) to quantify performance, Clarkson had the lowest VORP (-0.4) of those 16 players last season.
As a direct comparison, Tyler Johnson, who signed the same four-year, $50 million deal last summer, produced a VORP of 1.9 last season. Moe Harkless produced a 1.5 VORP in 2016-17, the first year of a four-year $42 million contract. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist turned the first year of his $52 million deal into 1.3 VORP.
You get the idea.
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It’s only one year into a four-year deal, but unless Clarkson suddenly learns to play defense or finds an increased role beyond the bench, his contract is a bad one relative to similar deals throughout the league in terms of player age, contract size and contract length.
There hasn’t been any information about the return the Lakers would seek for Clarkson in a trade. We know the Pistons are dangling the 12th overall pick for a win-now piece.
Having traded Lou Williams for a draft pick, if Magic and Pelinka decide to move Clarkson for another draft pick, they would be saving themselves cap space at the cost of their bench, a rare bright spot last season. Draft picks offer promise but there is no guarantee that an 18-year-old kid would be ready to take on the bench responsibilities vacated by Williams and Clarkson. Remeember, even Ball still needs time to develop as a starter.
This brings us to 2018 and beyond.
With Luol Deng and Timofey Mozgov taking up $34 million of cap space as nearly un-tradeable (or at least costly trade) pieces, removing $12.5 million from the books over the next three years would be important for opening the coffers for free agents.
Without Jordan Clarkson, the Lakers could get above $40 million in available cap space in 2018, enough to sign multiple stars.
Does it make sense to trade Jordan Clarkson?
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We don’t even know a possible return for him, making an evaluation incomplete. What we do know is the current value Clarkson provides to the Lakers relative to his contract, and it seems, given he is only 24 years old and has time to develop, that the organization could afford to take a hit to their bench in the short-term to gain financial flexibility to improve the roster for the long haul.