Los Angeles Clippers Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Western Notes: Topic, Beal, Abdelfattah, Holsopple

August 12th, 2025 at 6:05pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Nikola Topic, a 2024 lottery pick, spent his entire first season in the NBA rehabbing a partially torn ACL in his left knee that required surgery. The Thunder guard took some positives from his long road to recovery, he told Justin Martinez of The Oklahoman.

“I didn’t play a basketball game for a very long time, and that was really hard,” Topic said. “But as you go through that process, you learn something about yourself that you didn’t know you had. … I took positives from it and learned from it.”

Topic returned to action during the Summer League. He averaged 10.8 points, 5.8 assists and 1.8 steals in 27.3 minutes per game in five appearances.

“I feel more confident,” Topic said. “Going into a game, sleeping before a game and just everything about it, I feel way more confident.”

Here’s more from the Western Conference:

Bradley Beal‘s primary motivation to sign with the Clippers was the opportunity to join another contender. “I need a ring. I want one bad. I feel like I’ve got a new life of rejuvenation, for sure, a new hunger. I’m excited about the opportunity, new city, a new environment but a hungry environment, too,” he told KMOV’s Tamar Sher (video link). After getting bought out by the Suns, Beal signed a two-year, $11MM contract with a player option.
The Timberwolves are hiring Mahmoud Abdelfattah as head coach of their NBA G League affiliate, the Iowa Wolves, Michael Scotto of HoopsHype tweets. Abdelfattah will also be an assistant coach for USA Basketball’s AmeriCup Qualifying Team. He was previously the head coach of Australia’s Sydney Kings.
The Lakers are hiring Jeremy Holsopple as their new head strength and conditioning coach, Marc Stein of The Stein Line tweets. As the Mavericks’ athletic performance director, Holsopple was named as the NBA’s top strength and conditioning coach in March 2021.

Contract Details: Gill, Potter, Spurs, Clippers

August 11th, 2025 at 2:44pm CST by Luke Adams

Anthony Gill‘s new one-year, minimum-salary contract with the Wizards is guaranteed, Hoops Rumors has confirmed.

While that had been expected, it’s worth noting that it once again creates a roster crunch in Washington, where the team is now carrying 15 players on guaranteed contracts along with rotation regular Justin Champagnie on a non-guaranteed deal. The Wizards will have to trade or waive one of those 16 players before the regular season begins, with Dillon Jones and Malaki Branham among the potential odd men out.

As part of his new agreement with the Wizards, Gill also waived his right to veto a trade during the 2025/26 season. A player who signs a one-year contract with his previous team typically gets an implicit no-trade clause, but a club can ask the player to give it up when he re-signs.

While the Wizards can now freely trade Gill beginning on December 15, he has established himself as a veteran locker-room leader in D.C. in recent years and will be earning the minimum, so he doesn’t seem like an obvious candidate to be moved ahead of February’s deadline.

Here are a few more details on recently signed contracts:

The non-guaranteed contracts that Micah Potter and Adam Flagler signed with the Spurs contain both Exhibit 9 and Exhibit 10 language, Hoops Rumors has confirmed. Potter and Flagler would each earn bonuses worth $85,300 if they’re waived by San Antonio and then spend at least 60 days with the Austin Spurs in the G League.
Both Riley Minix and Harrison Ingram simply accepted their two-way qualifying offers when they re-signed with the Spurs, so their two-way deals are both one-year pacts that include partial guarantees of $85,300 apiece.
Patrick Baldwin Jr. and TyTy Washington Jr. both got maximum Exhibit 10 bonuses ($85,300) on their deals with the Clippers. Los Angeles already holds Baldwin’s G League rights and could obtain Washington’s by designating him as an affiliate player, so it appears likely both players will end up with the San Diego Clippers in the NBAGL if they aren’t converted to two-way contracts prior to the regular season.

Clippers Sign Baldwin, Washington To Exhibit 10 Deals

August 9th, 2025 at 10:32am CST by Rory Maher

The Clippers have officially signed Patrick Baldwin Jr. and TyTy Washington Jr. to Exhibit 10 contracts, tweets Keith Smith of Spotrac.

Washington (29th overall) was selected directly after Baldwin (28th) in the first round of the 2022 draft. Neither player has found much consistency at the NBA level to this point, and they’ll reportedly be competing for a two-way contract in training camp.

Baldwin, 22, was drafted by Golden State and spent his rookie season with the Warriors. He was traded to Washington in the 2023 offseason and spent a year-and-a-half with the Wizards, who sent him to San Antonio in February.

The 6’9″ forward was released by the Spurs but caught on with the Clippers, inking a two-way contract in March. He was waived in late July to make roster space for Jordan Miller, with Law Murray of The Athletic stating at the time that Los Angeles was interested in re-signing Baldwin to an Exhibit 10 deal.

Washington, 23, played a limited role across 31 outings for the Rockets as a rookie and was traded twice during the 2023 offseason – from Houston to Atlanta to Oklahoma City – before being waived by the Thunder. He subsequently spent his second season on a two-way contract with Milwaukee and his third year on a two-way deal with Phoenix.

Both Baldwin and Washington have three years of NBA experience and one year of two-way eligibility remaining. The Clippers’ two-way spots are currently held by Miller, 2025 second-rounder Kobe Sanders, and 20-year-old wing Trentyn Flowers.

If Baldwin and/or Washington are cut before the 2025/26 season begins and decide to play in the G League, they would be eligible for bonus worth up to $85,300 if they spend at least 60 days with the San Diego Clippers.

The Clippers now have 19 players under contract, including 14 on guaranteed standard deals.

Look Ahead At Potential 2026 Free Agents

August 8th, 2025 at 9:59pm CST by Eli Cohen

Free agency is not the headline event it once was in the NBA, as a large portion of the top players on the market tend to extend, like Luka Doncic did last weekend with the Lakers, or move in trades rather than signing with new teams. However, there are still likely to be talented players available and ready to contribute to new situations, as Zach Harper details for The Athletic.

Teams like the Lakers, Clippers, and Heat have made an effort to keep their flexibility for next year, write Tim Bontemps and Kevin Pelton for ESPN. However, those teams are also expected to try to maintain cap space for 2027, a summer in which multiple MVPs – Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokic – could potentially reach the market, though of course neither is guaranteed to be available.

The Celtics will also likely look to retool their roster next summer after trading away key contributors in Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis for salary cap relief, as they seek to rebuild their roster into a contender around Tatum once he has recovered from his Achilles tear.

Trae Young, with a $48.9MM player option for the 2026/27 season, has the potential to be one of the top names on the board, and while Harper expresses confidence that an extension with the Hawks will get done, there have been rumors that it’s far from a certainty, and that next season could serve as an evaluation period for the Hawks’ core under a new head of basketball operations.

Other high-end veterans with player options for ’26/27 include James Harden (Clippers), Zach LaVine (Kings), Draymond Green (Warriors), Austin Reaves (Lakers), Andrew Wiggins (Heat), Fred VanVleet (Rockets), and Bradley Beal (Clippers). Harper considers Harden, Green, and Reaves very likely to remain with their current teams, and VanVleet also relatively likely to stay, though the Rockets have some level of flexibility in regard to the future of their roster.

Then there are the unrestricted free agents. As of this moment, LeBron James (Lakers) and Kevin Durant (Rockets) represent the cream of the crop, but there are other talented players such as Porzingis (Hawks), Anfernee Simons (Celtics), Coby White (Bulls), and others who are sure to garner suitors.

For what it’s worth, Durant has been widely expected to extend with Houston, but James is ineligible to be extended prior to free agency and White’s salary is so modest relative to his value that he’s considered likely to wait until he can get a bigger payday on the free agent market.

One interesting inflection point will be players on team options, such as Isaiah Hartenstein and Luguentz Dort on the Thunder, and Bogdan Bogdanovic and Brook Lopez on the Clippers. The Thunder, particularly, could have some tough decisions to make on their role players soon as lucrative extensions take effect for stars Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Chet Holmgren, and Jalen Williams.

Christmas Day Schedule Includes Thunder-Spurs, Rockets-Lakers

August 8th, 2025 at 6:00pm CST by Eli Cohen

The NBA’s highly anticipated Christmas Day schedule has been revealed, courtesy of ESPN’s Shams Charania (via Twitter). The five-game slate is heavy on Western Conference powerhouses, with just one game coming from the Eastern Conference, in a matchup of what is expected to be the top two teams in the Cavaliers and Knicks.

This will be the first Christmas Day game for the Cavaliers in the post-LeBron James era, writes Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com. Their last December 25 game came in 2017.

Following the Eastern Conference matchup, the Spurs will travel to Oklahoma City to face the Thunder, as Victor Wembanyama squares off against Chet Holmgren, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Jalen Williams.

Kevin Durant and the Rockets will then duel LeBron James, Luka Doncic, and the Lakers in a clash of teams balancing championship aspirations with their Hall-of-Fame veterans and younger future-facing casts. The Rockets last played a Christmas Day game in 2019, writes Danielle Lerner of the Houston Chronicle.

The final two matchups of the night will see the Mavericks face off against the Warriors, and finally, the Timberwolves going up against the retooled Nuggets in a battle of Northwest Division powerhouses.

As Marc Stein notes (via Twitter), between the Christmas Day schedule and the reported opening night schedule, the league has chosen not to highlight a Mavericks-Lakers matchup on either of these two anticipated dates. Instead, Stein reports (via Twitter), the battle of Doncic’s current and former teams will likely occur at the end of November during the NBA Cup.

As Law Murray of the Athletic notes (via Twitter), only three teams that won at least 49 games last season aren’t featured on the Christmas Day slate. Those teams are the Celtics and Pacers, who are expected to take a step back as their stars (Jayson Tatum and Tyrese Haliburton) recover from Achilles tears, and the Clippers, who will not play on Christmas for the fifth year in a row.

Brendan O’Connor Expected To Join Knicks As Assistant Coach

July 31st, 2025 at 6:33pm CST by Earnest Marshall

The Knicks are nearing a deal to hire veteran assistant coach Brendan O’Connor away from the Clippers, SiriusXM radio host Frank Isola reports (via Twitter).

O’Connor, who has been with the Clippers since the 2013/14 season, previously served for the Pistons under Larry Brown where he established and maintained a close relationship with New York executive William Wesley. He also worked for the Nets between his stints in Detroit and L.A.

O’Connor will act as the Knicks’ defensive coordinator, The New York Post’s Stefan Bondy tweets.

“A hell of a basketball coach and a great guy. Knicks just made their best offseason acquisition,” a Western Conference executive said to SNY’s Ian Begley (Twitter link).

The Knicks are still looking for an associate head coach to help with the team’s offense. Attempts to bring on James Borrego, Jay Triano and Pablo Prigioni were unsuccessful. The Clippers ranked fourth in defense last season.

Paul Excited For Clippers Reunion Despite Backup Role

July 29th, 2025 at 9:15pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Chris Paul started every game for the Spurs last season but he’s content to be James Harden‘s backup with the Clippers, he told reporters this week.

“My role on this team is obviously different than it’s been the past 20 years, being in the NBA,” Paul said, per Dave McMenamin of ESPN. “But showing up every day, if I can show some of the guys what it looks like every day to clock in and clock out, I’m excited for it.”

Paul signed a one-year, veteran’s minimum contract to continue his Hall of Fame career and once again chase a championship, the one thing that has eluded him in his career. He’s hopeful the drought will end during his second stint with the franchise.

“I’m just so excited about the moves that the team has made this offseason,” Paul said. “Brad (Bradley Beal) coming to the team, Brook Lopez, all the young guys. I talked to James, I talked to Kawhi (Leonard), and I’m even more excited about what I think we have a chance to do.”

Returning to Los Angeles as a free agent was a “no-brainer” for Paul, since his family is situated there..

“If I’m really honest, I wanted to get back and play here by any means necessary,” Paul said.

It was reported that Paul also seriously considered returning to Phoenix but the Suns brass was cool to the idea of a reunion.

There was well-documented friction between Paul and Harden when they played together in Houston but Paul shrugged off those past disagreements.

“You know we got on each other in different situations,” he said, per Law Murray of The Athletic. “But that team, I can honestly say, it was one of the funnest teams I’ve ever been on in my career, and James is one of those guys that loves to be in the gym all day long. And so it’s wild that you get this opportunity again after those two years and the success that we had, and we definitely know we had unfinished business. So we get a chance to see what’s going on here.”

Paul, who is entering his 21st year in the NBA, refused to reveal whether he plans to make this season his last.

Jordan Miller Signs Two-Way Contract With Clippers

July 29th, 2025 at 4:27pm CST by Arthur Hill

July 29: Miller’s two-way deal is official, according to Law Murray of The Athletic (Twitter link). Baldwin has been officially waived, as we detailed in a separate story.

July 26: After waiving Jordan Miller earlier this month, the Clippers are bringing him back on a two-way contract, sources tell Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link).

The 25-year-old small forward was one of the stars at the Las Vegas Summer League, earning first-team honors after averaging 22 points and 7.8 rebounds per game while shooting 53% from the field and 39% from three-point range.

L.A. will create an opening for Miller by waiving Patrick Baldwin Jr., according to Law Murray of The Athletic (Twitter link), who states that the team has interest in signing Baldwin to an Exhibit 10 contract if he clears waivers. TyTy Washington Jr., whose impending signing was reported earlier today, will have an Exhibit 10 deal and will also compete for a two-way contract, Murray confirms.

The Clippers elected to part with Miller 18 days ago rather than give him a $350K guarantee on his $2.19MM salary for next season. His previous contract would have included another guarantee if he earned a spot on the opening night roster.

L.A. originally gave Miller a two-way contract in 2023 after selecting him out of Miami with the 48th pick in the draft. He remained on the two-way deal through most of last season before it was converted to a standard contract on March 1.

Miller appeared in 37 games last season, putting up 4.1 points and 1.6 rebounds in 11.4 minutes per night with .433/.211/.800 shooting numbers.

Kobe Sanders, who signed on July 10, and Trentyn Flowers occupy the team’s other two-way spots.

Clippers Waive Patrick Baldwin Jr.

July 29th, 2025 at 11:43am CST by Luke Adams

As expected, the Clippers have waived forward Patrick Baldwin Jr., according to the NBA’s official transaction log.

A report over the weekend indicated that Baldwin would be waived to open up a two-way contract slot for Jordan Miller. That report, from Law Murray of The Athletic, noted that the Clippers would have interest in bringing back Baldwin on an Exhibit 10 contract if he clears waivers.

The 28th overall pick in the 2022 draft, Baldwin played limited minutes as a rookie in Golden State before being sent to Washington in the Jordan Poole/Chris Paul trade during the summer of 2023. He also played a limited role in D.C. across a season-and-a-half until he was dealt to the Spurs at the 2025 trade deadline. San Antonio waived the 22-year-old shortly after acquiring him and he finished last season on a two-way contract with L.A.

In 93 total NBA outings, Baldwin has averaged 3.7 points and 2.0 rebounds in 8.9 minutes per game, with a shooting line of .405/.373/.658. The 6’9″ forward has played more of a featured role in the G League, including in 2024/25, when he put up 17.3 PPG and 6.8 RPG on .489/.364/.594 shooting in 23 games for the Capital City Go-Go and San Diego Clippers. He also filled up the box score with 2.4 assists, 1.4 blocks, and 1.3 steals per contest.

Baldwin still has one more year of two-way eligibility remaining.

The Clippers, meanwhile, can now officially move forward on their new two-way agreement with Miller, who will join Kobe Sanders and Trentyn Flowers as the team’s two-way players.

Latest From Stein, Fischer: Paul, Smart, Thomas, Kuminga

July 28th, 2025 at 9:50pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Chris Paul returned to Los Angeles and signed with the Clippers on a one-year deal last week. Paul showed strong interest in playing for one of his other former teams before making his decision, according to the latest Substack article from Marc Stein and Jake Fischer of The Stein Line.

The other team that Paul considered rejoining was the Suns. The team’s star, Devin Booker, was intrigued by the potential reunion, given how they meshed during Phoenix’s run to the 2021 NBA Finals. There was also seemingly a spot for Paul at the point, since Tyus Jones chose to sign with Orlando.

The Suns’ front office decided to go in another direction. Phoenix was much more interested in defensive stalwart Marcus Smart, who chose to sign with the Lakers after reaching a buyout with Washington. Phoenix’s brass also had some concerns how the future Hall of Famer’s presence might create some awkward situations for first-year head coach Jordan Ott.

The Suns wound up claiming Jordan Goodwin off waivers and signing Jared Butler to a non-guaranteed contract. Paul also drew interest from the Hornets, Mavericks and Bucks, as previously reported.

Citing a source, Stein said Dallas had D’Angelo Russell higher on its wish list than Paul. The Mavs’ brass believed Russell would be more comfortable in a complementary role once Kyrie Irving returns from his knee ailment. They also felt Russell was a better fit with Anthony Davis, considering they had played together with the Lakers. Russell signed a two-year deal with the Mavs.

Here’s more nuggets from The Stein Line:

The Hawks considered absorbing Smart’s contract into its $25MM traded player exception prior to his buyout. Atlanta opted instead to acquire Kristaps Porziņgis and make a sign-and-trade transaction for Nickeil Alexander-Walker. The Bucks explored potential trades for Smart and the Heat‘s Andrew Wiggins with the aid of Pat Connaughton‘s expiring $9.4MM contract. They instead dealt him to Charlotte for two future second-round picks.
Fischer reiterates that the Nets’ offers to restricted free agent Cam Thomas have yet to exceed two-year proposals featuring an annual average value in the range of the league’s $14.1MM non-taxpayer mid-level exception. Those offers also include a team option for the second year. Brooklyn appears to be in no rush to ramp up negotiations with Thomas’ representation, given Thomas’ lack of leverage.
Regarding another prominent restricted free agent, Jonathan Kuminga has not gotten an offer from the Warriors close to his reported $30MM annual asking price. The Warriors’ best offers to Kuminga have topped out in the two-year, $40MM range, per Stein. As previously reported, the Kings and Suns are regarded as the top suitors but Golden State wants a first-round pick in any sign-and-trade deal. Phoenix is unable to offer a first-rounder.