Los Angeles Clippers: Why the Tobias Harris trade is brilliant

The Los Angeles Clippers just made late-night headlines by trading Tobias Harris to the Philadelphia 76ers and getting a pretty penny in return.

Jerry West is responsible for the super team that is the Golden State Warriors and has already made his mark on the Los Angeles Clippers.

Just over one year after trading away Blake Griffin after signing him to an extension, the Los Angeles Clippers have agreed to trade Tobias Harris to the Philadelphia 76ers.

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski was the first on the coverage and provides the following details. First, the Clippers will be sending Boban Marjanovic and Mike Scott alongside Harris in exchange for Mike Muscala, Wilson Chandler, Landry Shamet, a 2020 first-round pick and a 2021 unprotected pick that belongs to the Miami Heat.

Wojnarowski also reports that the 76ers will be sending two second-round picks to the Los Angeles Clippers as well.

The first fan response when a team trades its best player is often outrage. Fans get attached to these players and do not think about the benefits of trading said, players.

The benefits of trading Tobias Harris are astronomical and it seems absolutely silly that the Los Angeles Clippers pulled off this trade. The Logo won this trade by every sense.

The Clippers were never going to extend Harris after this season. He had already rejected an extension prior to the year and was going to get a hefty payday from some NBA team that the Clippers likely could not match.

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Thus, with no real shot at contending for the title this year and the chances of Harris leaving, the Clippers naturally started shopping the last 25 games on Harris’ contract.

That is when the 76ers came knocking with two draft picks. Yes, two draft picks for less than half a season of a borderline all-star at best.

The 76ers’ 2020 pick is not going to be great as the team is going to look to re-sign Jimmy Butler and Harris after this season. That is what this trade is all about and if the 76ers can keep that big four intact then it is worth it to send those picks.

So that pick will be in the 27-30 range. Typically those players are not that great, but hey, that is a nice asset to have in exchange for 25 games of someone.

The other pick is the lucrative one: that Miami Heat pick. Hassan Whiteside and Goran Dragic are both going to be out of Miami by the time the 2020-2021 season starts and the Heat do not have a sensational young core that will ease the transition.

The team will be starting to build that core in those years and legitimately have a chance of being a bottom-five team in the NBA. If that is not the case, it seems almost impossible that the pick will fall outside of the lottery.

Even if it does, two first-round picks for 25 games is not a bad trade-off as well. Muscala and Chandler are both on expiring deals and do not hurt the Clippers’ goal of opening up cap space for this summer and Shamet is a rookie first-round pick that has shown potential in his rookie year.

The Los Angeles Clippers are doing what the Boston Celtics did to restart their franchise: flipping a once formidable core for assets and a ton of cap space. The Clippers now have the assets to either use themselves or use in a trade as well as the cap space to add two superstars this offseason.

This trade was absolutely sensational. It is hard to see any other NBA team topping what the Los Angeles Clippers just accomplished by trading Tobias Harris.