After Thursday’s NBA trade deadline, Kawhi Leonard is now the longest-tenured member of the LA Clippers.
The team traded away Ivica Zubac, who was the most-seasoned Clipper and only veteran signed beyond 27, in a multi-player trade with the Indiana Pacers and received Bennedict Mathurin, Isaiah Jackson and multiple first-round picks from the Pacers. Indiana also received Kobe Brown.
That means Leonard is the only healthy star left from a team that had Paul George, James Harden, Norman Powell and Russell Westbrook just 20 months ago.
That shift has been coming since the 2024 offseason when, as one writer prescribed, the championship window became shut. Leonard was rehabbing an inflamed knee that had already been operated on multiple times. George left on a max contract, a consequence of the new CBA. Westbrook opted into his deal, only to be traded away weeks later. Powell briefly looked like he was addition by subtraction, until he too was subtracted. Harden signed multiple contracts to stay and keep the Clippers afloat, but once he identified his next destination, retiring as a Clipper was no longer part of the plan.
For years, LA has looked at the 2026 and 2027 offseasons as a true pivot point. What this week did was put some faces to that future.
Darius Garland, the fifth pick of the 2019 NBA Draft and a two-time All-Star, is in and under contract through 2028. Mathurin, the sixth pick in 2022 and a restricted free agent this summer, now has a chance to show that he can play winning basketball for a team that wants to extend its longest active streak of consecutive winning seasons.
With Zubac gone now, Brook Lopez is a better fit as a starter than a reserve, and now he will start with rookie Yanic Konan Niederhauser as the backup and Jackson filling in as depth.
The Clippers have a lot of free agents in 2026. Mathurin’s extension is the most pressing, but John Collins is headed for unrestricted free agency. Lopez, Nicolas Batum and Bogdan Bogdanović all have team options. Derrick Jones Jr. and Kris Dunn are under contract through 2027, with Dunn’s deal only becoming guaranteed if he gets an All-Defensive selection. Bradley Beal has a player option that he will likely exercise for next season, but he is coming off of hip surgery.
All of it circles back to Leonard, the last star remaining and the face of a franchise that bridges who the Clippers were and what they are becoming. Leonard has one season left on his deal after this one, with uncertainty surrounding him in the league’s investigation into the Aspiration situation, in which Leonard and the Clippers are accused of circumventing the NBA’s salary-cap rules.
For now, the Clippers are still trying to make the most of this season. But after Thursday’s deadline, it has never been clearer: The Clippers surrounding Leonard now belong to the next era, not the one he once led.