Getting No. 5 pick gives LA Clippers draft lottery win and a new lifeline

The LA Clippers did not have an on-stage representative for the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery. Despite missing the playoffs with a 42-40 record and flaming out of the Play-In Tournament against the Golden State Warriors, the Clippers did not have their own first-round pick, part of the cost for the 2019 swap of 2018 lottery pick Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and 2019 MVP finalist Paul George.

But the Clippers did have a representative in the drawing room. Rishabh Desai has been with the Clippers since 2016 and is now the executive director of basketball operations. There was a 47.9 percent chance the Clippers would get the Pacers’ 2026 first-round pick, as a result of a blockbuster trade-deadline deal that sent center Ivica Zubac and 2023 first-round pick Kobe Brown to the Pacers in exchange for Bennedict Mathurin, Isaiah Jackson, a 2028 second-round pick and a 2029 first-round pick.

The only way the Clippers would get the Pacers pick is if the Pacers didn’t land in the top-four after a 19-63 season. If the 2026 first-rounder didn’t convey, then the Clippers would get Indiana’s unprotected 2031 pick, which is the same year franchise star Kawhi Leonard turns 40 years old.

Desai told The Athletic that he wore the first suit and tie that the late Jerry West ever gave him. West, a three-time inductee to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, served as a special consultant with the Clippers from 2017 until his death in June 2024. That good luck charm was validated when the fifth pick in the 2026 draft was revealed to be the Clippers’, giving them a major asset toward a re-tooling of a roster that has been competitive in the regular season but hasn’t won a playoff series since the franchise’s lone conference finals appearance in 2021.

“Amazing,” Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue told The Athletic.

Trading Zubac was not an easy decision for the Clippers. Zubac might not have even been under consideration to be traded if James Harden did not find a trade destination ahead of the deadline. Harden was traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers in exchange for the much younger (and much smaller) Darius Garland. The Clippers sold high on Zubac, a point that Clippers basketball president Lawrence Frank acknowledged in February.

“We told this to Zu, ‘We’re not looking to trade you,’” Frank said in February after trading Zubac. “But if someone makes us a ‘Godfather-type’ offer, we have to look at it. Just because, you know, we’ve kind of — there’s not much left in the piggy bank prior to this trade in terms of premium picks. We’ve kind of gone all in. We’ve made a bunch of trades to kind of please today’s team.

“Well, we need to start only if there was ‘an offer too good to refuse,’ we need to then, ‘OK, how are we gonna bridge this era to the next era?’” Frank continued. “And with it is, guys who are part of the team now can also be part of the next era. But if everyone is part of the team, there’s a cliff, and you can, it could take years, years to get out of it. So, we never would have traded Zu unless there was a significant draft-haul opportunity that gives us the upside of those premium picks, whether it’s drafting, whether it’s using in trade, combined with cap space, to be able to get back to contender status as soon as possible.”

The Clippers have never had the fifth pick in the draft. The last time they picked in the top five was in 2009, when LA won the lottery and selected six-time All-Star Blake Griffin, the only player in franchise history with more than 10,000 points since the team relocated to California from Buffalo in 1978. Griffin actually has lineage to this Clippers 2026 first-round pick, as he was part of a trade to the Detroit Pistons in 2018 in exchange for Tobias Harris and Boban Marjanovi?. A year later, Harris and Marjanovi? were part of a trade to the Philadelphia 76ers that allowed the Clippers to acquire Mike Muscala, who was in turn flipped to the Los Angeles Lakers for Zubac.

Frank has said that the Clippers would not be a tanking team. They were able to get a pick that is higher this year than two 60-loss teams in the Brooklyn Nets and the Sacramento Kings, not to mention Indiana falling out of the lottery entirely. After the Clippers were eliminated in the Play-In Tournament last month, Frank reiterated the organization’s stance, while looking ahead to the possibility of the lottery turning out a good fortune.

“If I’m a Clipper fan, I’m paying money. I know, wait a minute, the basement is competitive,” Frank said last month. “Whereas I could be a fan at many different organizations, some highly, highly performing organizations that have totally bottomed out. And you’ve had to deal with 19-win seasons and 22-win seasons. That’s not happening here. But what is going to happen is, OK, well, all of a sudden, now I went from the oldest team to a team that has seven players that average out at the age of 24 in the rotation. Plus, I have huge cap space coming down the road where I can get max players. Plus, I finally am getting that piggy bank that was empty with draft capital. Now, it’s getting full with, call it a coin flip chance of getting a high, high lottery pick in a loaded draft.”

Now, the Clippers’ work begins with the clarity of a valuable short-term asset rather than a long-term asset. And it comes in a draft class that had five teams losing 60-plus games for a reason. The Clippers are going to have their pick among whoever falls out of the top four among point guards Darius Acuff Jr. of Arkansas and Keaton Wagler of Illinois, shooting guards Brayden Burries of Arizona, Kingston Flemings of Houston, and Darryn Peterson of Kansas, small forward Yaxel Lendeborg of Michigan, power forwards Cameron Boozer of Duke, AJ Dybantsa of BYU, and Caleb Wilson of North Carolina, and center Aday Mara of Michigan.

The Clippers don’t have a specific position in mind to target. But they could use help at any position:

• Garland is the franchise point guard and in his prime, but the Clippers have ended each of the last two seasons without a true backup, which matters with Garland’s durability concerns.
• The Clippers lack shooting depth, and though Mathurin is a restricted free agent, Bradley Beal has a player option, and Bogdan Bogdanovi? has a team option, the Clippers could consider a big guard.
• Leonard and the Clippers are still under league investigation for the Aspiration scandal, and while the Clippers have perimeter defenders such as Derrick Jones Jr. and Kris Dunn, they could use more athleticism on the wings; all of Leonard, Jones, and Dunn are extension-eligible as well.
• Starting power forward John Collins is an unrestricted free agent, and the Clippers were a poor rebounding team all year; they could be very interested in the slim chance that Dybantsa, Boozer, or Wilson slip.
• Trading Zubac left the team with 38-year-old Brook Lopez as the starting center, while injuries to 2025 first-round pick Yanic Konan Niederhäuser (Lisfranc) and Jackson (ankle) left the team without a true backup down the stretch last month. Lopez has a team option, while Konan Niederhäuser is not expected to be ready to start the season, though there is virtually no chance that the Clippers use a top pick on a center.

Wagler is particularly intriguing as a big guard who could potentially fit next to Garland in the short term as a backup and in the long term as a shooting guard. The last time the Clippers took a guard in the lottery was in 2018, when Gilgeous-Alexander went one-and-done at Kentucky. Wagler has concerning physical traits as far as strength and athleticism, and he doesn’t profile as an impact defender. But like Gilgeous-Alexander, Wagler gets to the free throw line at a high rate, has a stellar assist-turnover ratio, and shoots the ball well with even more 3-point volume than Gilgeous-Alexander had.

In addition to the fifth pick, the Clippers also have two second-round picks: 36th and 52nd overall. The Clippers like this draft and are eager to keep their pick instead of using it in a trade for a veteran. But there is a lot to be done with the draft six weeks away. At least the Clippers know that they are in a position of strength. And perhaps they had the blessing of Jerry West to thank for it.