The Future of the NBA Depends on the LA Clippers Turning it Around

We interrupt your rabid NBA-hoops consumption with an important breaking news item: For the rest of this season, and perhaps next, everyone who doesn't root for the Oklahoma City Thunder is now an honorary LA Clippers fan. 

Not to be overdramatic, but the fate of the league's competitive landscape is contingent on you embracing the double-agent role. 

Oklahoma City controls L.A.'s first-round pick in both 2026 and 2027 (swap rights). These are the last remaining remnants of the Paul George trade that paved the way for this championship-winning-era of Thunder basketball. 

At this rate, they may also be the tools that ensure OKC morphs into a dynasty. 

The Clippers Could Send OKC a Top Draft Pick

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If the season ended today, the Clippers would have the league's seventh-worst record and be headed to the draft lottery. There would be a 7.5 percent chance they gift the Thunder No. 1 overall and a 31.4 percent chance of them shipping out a top-four selection. 

Put another way: There is a non-zero chance Oklahoma City could successfully defend its championship throne and then pick up Cameron Boozer, AJ Dybantsa or Darryn Peterson. That is harrowing.

Even giving the Thunder a top-10 pick rises to the level of existential crisis for the league at large.

Remember that Sam Presti's front office could mine gems in a snowstorm. Ajay Mitchell was selected 38th overall in 2024 and is currently racking up starts for the reigning champs. Jaylin Williams (the big one) was scooped up at No. 34 in 2022. 

Jalen Williams, who has yet to play this season due to a wrist injury, is an All-NBA player the Thunder grabbed at No. 12. Cason Wallace was taken at No. 10. Rookie Chris Youngblood went undrafted and has already racked up more minutes than San Antonio Spurs newbie Carter Bryant, who was selected at No. 14. Brooks Barnhizer, taken 44th overall this past June, has the outlines of a "Oh, he's a dude, too" prospect.

First overall, fourth overall, 10th overall—it doesn't matter. Arming OKC with more opportunities to strengthen its roster could put parity in peril. 

OKC's Window is Looking More Open-Ended Than Ever

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The Thunder already look primed to repeat as champs, even though J-Dub and their last two top first-round picks, Nikola Topić (No. 12 in 2024) and Thomas Sorber (No. 15 in 2025), aren't available.

Imagine what this team becomes if Boozer, Dybantsa, Peterson or even Koa Pete, Caleb Wilson, Nate Ament or someone else is added to the mix.

External concern could be minimized if this all amounted to OKC steamrolling the field exclusively in the short term. It actually means the exact opposite.

The cost of talent retention comes for every top contender. The Thunder will be no exception. They could have to grapple with second-apron concerns as early as next season. Even if they're prepared to pay the piper and subject themselves to punitive roster-building restrictions for a stretch, they won't be open to it forever.

Stocking the pipeline with cost-controlled prospects will keep Oklahoma City's window wide open for much longer. 

Perhaps the C-Suite isn't willing to pay all of J-Dub, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Chet Holmgren for more than a couple of years. Losing any one of them would suck, but it also won't be felt nearly as much if there's a star in-house prospect working his way up the ladder. 

Things get even more catastrophic for the rest of the league if the Thunder are prepared to bankroll the SGA-Chet-J-Dub trio until the wheels fall off. 

Players like Wallace (extension-eligible next summer), Isaiah Hartenstein (2026-27 team option), Lu Dort (2026-27 team option) will get more expensive. OKC could already be equipped to figure it out sans any combination of them thanks to Mitchell, as well as potentially Topić, Barnhizer, Sorber, maybe even Branden Carlson (seriously).

The Clippers adding another top-10 pick, if not a top-five prospect, to that mix is overkill.

But Wait, It Gets Worse…for the Rest of the League

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This says nothing of that 2027 swap by the way.

Rumor has it the Clippers aren't getting any younger. If they can't salvage this season, there's a chance next year is even worse. Oklahoma City could feasibly add two top-10 prospects over the next two drafts—at least one of whom, quite frankly, is a top-five selection.

Oh, and we haven't even gotten to the rest of the Thunder's asset armory. Just look at this list of inbound first-round goodies over the next seven years:

• Unprotected pick from the Clippers (2026)
• Top-four-protected pick from the Houston Rockets (2026)
• Top-eight-protected pick from the Utah Jazz (2026)
• Top-four-protected pick from the Philadelphia 76ers (2026 and 2027)
• Top-five-protected from the Denver Nuggets (2027; top-five protected in 2028)
• Top-five-protected pick from Denver (2029, if first conveys in 2027; top-five protected in 2030 if first is conveyed by 2028)
• Swap rights: The Clippers (2027)
• Swap rights: The Rockets (2025, top-10 protected)
• Swap rights: The Dallas Mavericks (2028)

This is just silly. And it gets sillier.

Oklahoma City also controls all of its own future first-rounders. Those picks shouldn't be very high, but as we've already established, it doesn't matter. 

More first-rounders will be on the way if and when the Thunder have to sell off more expensive talent. At this point, other front offices should be rooting for them to make a consolidation trade. The rest of the league will incur extra short-term pain, but it would come in exchange for hollowing out OKC's big-picture embarrassment of wishes.

By all means, please go on posting about how Victor Wembanyama or the Rockets are effectively monopolizing the NBA's future. It's fun to do.

Just know there is no greater threat to the league's competitive landscape, now or down the line, than the Thunder. That'll remain true even if the Clippers turn things around. But it stands to become a hilariously, hopelessly sure thing if they don't.

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Dan Favale is a National NBA Writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky (@danfavale), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes.