NBA Offseason: 5 biggest blunders

A First Rounder for Hedo Turkoglu?

It’s hard to totally blame the Clippers in general and Doc Rivers in particular for missing some details this summer. Certainly, the Donald Sterling saga and attendant litigation dominated the spotlight, and rightly so.

However, that inattention to the minute details appears to have come back to bite the Clippers. Much like Van Gundy, Rivers dual role as coach and GM befuddled him to a degree. Adding big man depth and replacing (perhaps even upgrading) from the departed Darren Collison were vitally important tasks. However, the haste to fill those spots created further complications.

By signing Spencer Hawes to the full mid-level exception and Jordan Farmar to the full bi-annual exception, Los Angeles found themselves right up against the hard salary cap imposed by the “luxury tax apron” (short version acquiring  players via sign-and-trade, MLE or BAE imposes a hard cap on a franchise for that season.) With only 13 players under contract, meaning not only could the Clippers not afford to sign new players, they would be severely limited in their ability to invite players to training camp.

So L.A. had to cut salary. Which means they had to pay somebody (in this case Milwaukee) a first rounder to take on Jared Dudley’s contract. Waiving Carlos Delfino and Miroslav Raduljica also entails the Clippers owing nearly $1 million in dead money for each of the next five seasons. The total effect is that the Clippers have enough room under the apron to sign three players to fill out the roster. But at what cost?

By virtue of ignoring the small details, Doc and co. effectively traded a first rounder, Jared Dudley and $1 million every year for five years for the right to sign Hedo Turkoglu and Chris Douglas-Roberts to minimum deals.