INGLEWOOD, CA — The LA Clippers fell short once again this season, but not reaching the playoffs is a new low for the organization that has prided itself on being a winning franchise at the absolute minimum. An end to this season brings the Clippers one season closer to their current goal of the summers of 2026 and 2027.

Friday’s media availability with President of Basketball Operations Lawrence Frank was more candid than prior years. Frank admitted that the Clippers have temporarily exited contention status, transitioning into a competitive team that looks to retool for the next phase of contention for the franchise.

One thing is clear, however, bottoming out and, “tanking,” will not be a thing the Clippers do.

But what does this summer look like for the Clippers as far as improving the team when tradable draft picks, good value contracts, and strong young talent are all available to them?

“I think first, we look at if we bring back everyone, what does that look like?” Lawrence Frank said Friday. “And then we literally have a lot of different iterations and scenarios. Like, we have four tradable firsts at the draft, so do you use those and you go get a superstar player? There’s other avenues where it’s more of a methodical build.”

This summer, the Clippers will be giving up their final draft pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder as a result of the Paul George-Shai Gilgeous-Alexander trade back in 2019. But they’ll also get the ability to trade two first round picks of their own down the line as well as the two firsts they’ll be receiving from the Indiana Pacers in some capacity as a result of the Ivica Zubac trade.

Lawrence Frank on Kawhi Leonard’s future with team:

“Our plan is to win with Kawhi. We obviously shown as an organization that we want to continue and we are driven to win. So at the appropriate time, we’ll sit down with with Kawhi and very similar to 2024, lay out our plan and… pic.twitter.com/7fMdm40Kuo

— Tomer Azarly (@TomerAzarly) April 17, 2026

“The one thing I do know is this: we have the option of either operating out of cap space or using our full non taxpayer mid level. Either way, we’re going to get the team better, we’ll add at least one significant piece to the roster. And there’s so many different potential options, some within our control, some that aren’t. But it’s our job, the back office, to literally turn over every stone, every rock to figure out how can we get this team back to, to contender status.”

The Clippers currently have seven players under contract for the 2026-27 season: Kawhi Leonard, Darius Garland, Derrick Jones Jr., Isaiah Jackson, Yanic Konan-Niederhauser and Jordan Miller.

They have team options to exercise or decline with Bogdan Bogdanovic, Brook Lopez, Nicolas Batum, and Kobe Sanders while Bradley Beal has a player option he can exercise or opt out of.

The team has multiple avenues to improve, so this summer can take various directions. The first big domino to fall will come on May 10th, when the NBA Draft Lottery takes place in Chicago, IL. If the Indiana Pacers pick falls out of the top four and lands between five through nine, it will convey to the Clippers.

That would allow the Clippers to either select a really good player in the 2026 NBA Draft and essentially reset their timeline for the future or trade the pick as part of a larger package for a superstar and accelerate their timeline.

“There’s more questions than answers in terms of how long it’s going to take,” Frank explained. “But you do put yourself in a position that there’s all these different pathways. The opportunity to make a big jump this summer and the opportunity where, in each transaction cycle, you’re taking steps towards it. Time will tell how long it will take to to get there.

“We’re in a position either to operate as a space team potentially, or using a non taxpayer mid level, along with there’s a chance we get a high lottery pick, we have two seconds. If the lottery pick from Indiana doesn’t convey, well, we still feel really, really good that we’ll have two future firsts from that trade. There’s decision to be made that we have free agents, some are our options, some are their options, we have guys that are extension eligible. So there’s a lot of different things in play.”

Beyond that, the future is unknown because a lot of it could depend on the rest of this postseason. Could a team with championship aspiration fall short or suffer an early playoff exit see their superstar ask out? Will a team’s tax and apron penalties mean they’re willing to offload good players in favor of keeping younger ones?

So much has yet to be determined, but the Clippers have given themselves multiple avenues to improve the roster.

INGLEWOOD, CA — The LA Clippers fell short once again this season, but not reaching the playoffs is a new low for the organization that has prided itself on being a winning franchise at the absolute minimum. An end to this season brings the Clippers one season closer to their current goal of the summers of 2026 and 2027.