The Los Angeles Clippers have been left with a hard roster-building problem after the NBA ruled they circumvented salary cap rules with Kawhi Leonard. The penalty stripped the team of five first-round picks from 2029 through 2033, fined Steve Ballmer $30 million and suspended him from team activities for one year.
That is why Baron Davis is sounding the alarm now. In a recent interview, the former Clippers guard said the next five years will be super important for how the team stays competitive, because the usual path to improvement has been narrowed. The Clippers missed the playoffs, and they already traded away their best player in Leonard, so the margin for error is thinner than it looks.
Davis argued that the team will have to develop the young players it can get, while also leaning on scouting and free agency. He said the club is behind the eight ball when it comes to getting better through the draft, and that problem matters because the NBA Draft has only two rounds. Losing five first-round picks removes the kind of premium talent pipeline that usually helps a team reset or stay ahead while its roster ages.
That is where the friction sits: Davis is not dismissing free agency, but he is also acknowledging how much harder it becomes to build without those picks. He said the Clippers will be heavily burdened by free agency and scouting, and that the real question is whether they want to get young and take chances or stay built around bringing in veterans who can push them back toward playoff contention.
The next two years should make that answer visible. If the Clippers choose youth, they will have to find value in players others overlook and turn development into a competitive edge. If they lean on free agency, they will be betting that the market can do the work the draft no longer can. Either way, the punishment has changed the timeline, and Davis’s warning is that the Clippers do not have five quiet years to sort it out.
