It's not 1849, but the Clippers are still looking to strike gold.
LA's "other NBA franchise" was one of just six teams granted a meeting with the top prize in this summer's free agency class: Kevin Durant.
Durant can officially meet with team's at 9:01PM PST on Thursday and is expected to fly to Oklahoma City to meet with his current team, the incumbent Thunder, before flying to the Hamptons to meet with five teams over the weekend including the Clippers.
For Lob City to land a meeting with Durant over their co-tenants, the Los Angeles Lakers is a victory in and itself. For decades, the Clippers were seen as nothing but a tick on the arm of the mighty purple and gold, but for the past four years, the Clippers have proved to be the better and more talented team in the City of Angels, something Durant recognizes.
The Lakers may have more cap space—nearly 60 million—compared to the cap-strapped Clippers, but Durant's next landing spot will be a basketball decision, not necessarily a financial one.
The problem for the Clippers: the could only offer Durant about $24.5 million under that scenario, which is below his maximum salary. — Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) June 30, 2016
The 27-year-old All-Star has played all nine seasons of his career with the Thunder. He averaged 28.2 points per game last season and with the help of Russell Westbrook, Durant led the Thunder to the Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals where they were one win away from a meeting with LeBron James in the NBA Finals.
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Since their elimination, the Thunder have gotten better. A draft day trade sent Serge Ibaka to Orlando in exchange for Victor Oladipo, Ersan Ilyasova and the No. 11 pick in the 2016 NBA Draft, Domantas Sabonis. According to sources, the Thunder aren't done either as they are looking to add free agent Al Horford to help entice Durant to stay.
The Thunder are trying to clear up cap space to go after free agent Al Horford 🤔 — NBA Lowdown (@NBALowdown) June 30, 2016
So with Oklahoma City as the frontrunners to land Durant, what are the Clippers chances of signing the 2014 MVP?
Of the five other teams in the running to sign Durant: the Golden State Warriors, San Antonio Spurs, Boston Celtics, Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder, the Clippers are likely in the middle of the pack behind the Thunder, Warriors and Spurs.
Bovada odds on Durant decision:
OKC 1/6
Warriors 4/1
Heat 12/1
Knicks 14/1
Spurs 16/1
Celtics 20/1
Clippers 50/1
Lakers 66/1
Wizards 100/1 — Bill Reiter (@sportsreiter) June 29, 2016
However, the Clips can offer Durant something that those other teams cannot. For starters, if Doc Rivers and owner Steve Ballmer can get creative with the salary cap, the Clippers can offer Durant a chance to play with three other superstars in Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, otherwise hypothetically known as "The Big Four." Only the Warriors can come close to matching that with their All-Star trio of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green.
The #Clippers plan to pitch a "Big 4" to Durant, notes on Crawford and Rivers and other possible options in FA https://t.co/YtASfRGG82 — Dan Woike (@DanWoikeSports) June 30, 2016
Second, the Clippers have one main advantage over the other five teams vying for Durant's services: location, location, location.
Durant currently owns a home in Los Angeles and as of the publication of this piece, he is in LA filming a commercial. On par with winning for Durant is his brand. A client of Nike, Durant needs to grow and expand his brand internationally and living in Los Angeles will give him the endorsement deals, television and film appearances and opportunities to do exactly that.
Another option and potential selling point for the Clippers is the ability to offer a sign-and-trade agreement with the Oklahoma City Thunder. Unlike say another free agent (Dwight Howard), Durant seems to be a somewhat loyal guy. It's likely, that if he wanted to make a move to Los Angeles, that Durant would love the opportunity to send his former team something back in return rather than leave them high and dry.
The Clippers have the option of trading Oklahoma-native Griffin to the Thunder in exchange for Durant. That would still leave the Clips with a formidable "Big Three," and arguably the second best team in the Western Conference behind the Golden State Warriors.
The sign-and-trade option would also leave enough cap space for the Clippers to add talent around Durant through free-agency and trades in order to flesh out the roster with complimentary pieces.
Wherever Durant signs, it's possible he would only sign a one-year deal in order to sign a long-term contract next offseason when the NBA salary cap grows higher. This could make sense for the Clippers as both Paul and Griffin are in the final years of their contracts. Durant could sign with the Clippers for the 2016-2017 season, see how things go and then do it all over again next summer.
If the Clippers don't sign Durant, plan B will be to resign most of the team's free agents such as Jamal Crawford, Jeff Green, Austin Rivers and Cole Aldrich and try and keep the team together in order to see if they can make a deep playoff run with everyone healthy.
Injuries to Griffin and Paul in the NBA Playoffs didn't allow Los Angeles to see how far they could have gone had they had a healthy roster of talent to compete with the depleted Golden State Warriors in the second round.
Durant is expected to meet with the Clippers on Friday afternoon, after first meeting with the Golden State Warriors. He will sit down with the Spurs and Celtics on Saturday and finalize his meetings with the Miami Heat on Sunday.
It's likely that the Clippers future could look drastically different come this time next week, or it could look largely the same once a decision from Durant arrives.
In the meantime, just getting a meeting with Durant when the Lakers could not, is a slight moral victory for one of the last remaining teams without an NBA title.
