Did Derrick Jones Jr. Request a Trade From the Clippers? Why LA Should Be Sellers Anyway
Short answer: no. Derrick Jones Jr. has not asked the Clippers for a trade, and reporting out of Los Angeles this week says he is not expected to. The two sides are actually on good terms, and extension talks are on the table.
That is a strange sentence to write about a franchise that just got hit with the heaviest cap-circumvention penalty in modern NBA history. On September 2, the league fined the Clippers $30 million, stripped their first-round picks in 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032 and 2033, suspended owner Steve Ballmer for a year, and put the organization under a five-year compliance program.
Team president of business operations Gillian Zucker was suspended a year without pay. President of basketball operations Lawrence Frank got six months without pay. That is a front office with a hole in the middle of it and a draft board with five straight years of nothing on it.
So of course the rumor mill went looking for the first guy who might want out. Jones was the obvious candidate: a useful wing on a reasonable deal, roughly $10.4 million this season as part of the three-year, $30 million contract he signed in 2024. Every contender in the league has a use for that player.
The Clippers Should Be Selling Regardless
Here is where the loyalty story and the smart basketball story split. Jones staying is nice. It should not change what this front office does between now and February.
Kawhi Leonard is gone, and by all accounts he has made peace with Toronto. James Harden was moved to Cleveland for Darius Garland. Ivica Zubac went to Indiana for Bennedict Mathurin. Bogdan Bogdanovic, Nicolas Batum and John Collins all walked. The roster that made this team relevant does not exist anymore.
What replaced it is a collection of pieces with no spine. Rui Hachimura came in. Bradley Beal is still around. There is talent scattered across the depth chart and no version of this group that wins a playoff series.
Now add the part that actually matters. When you have no first-round picks from 2029 through 2033, your only path to young talent is trading veterans for other teams’ picks. That is it. There is no draft-your-way-out option available to the Clippers for half a decade.
Which means every movable veteran on this roster should have a price tag on him by December. Not out of spite, and not because anyone is unhappy. Because the math leaves no other route.
What Jones Is Actually Worth
A 3-and-D wing who can guard multiple positions on an eight-figure expiring-ish deal is exactly the kind of player that gets overpaid for at the deadline. Teams talk themselves into that archetype every single year. The Lakers have already been connected to him in the rumor churn, which tells you the market is real.
Extending him is the sentimental move. Trading him for a second-rounder plus a young player with an option year is the one that helps the Clippers in 2030.
None of this is a knock on Jones. He handled an ugly situation like a pro, did not leverage the chaos into a public exit request, and appears willing to sign again. That is admirable. It also should not stop the front office from picking up the phone.
The Clippers have spent a decade trying to shortcut their way to a title. The league just made sure they cannot shortcut anything for five years. Selling is not an admission of failure at this point. It is the only tool they have left.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
