Podcast: Why Max Strus Trade Puts Clippers in Roster Dilemma

The Los Angeles Clippers added a familiar type of player last week, landing Max Strus from Cleveland in a five-team trade the club announced last week.

On paper it is a sensible move for a team that wants shooting around Darius Garland, and the front office clearly believes in it.

The problem is what the deal does to an already crowded wing picture, because the Clippers were supposed to spend the rest of the summer settling the future of a much younger wing, and Strus makes that conversation more complicated instead of less.

"We are going to be a highly competitive team this season and Max will be a big part of it. He is a great shooter with good feel who can handle and pass," president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank said in the team's announcement.

The fit is obvious when he is healthy.

Strus shot 40.2 percent from three last season, and he reunites with Garland after their time together in Cleveland.

Health is the catch, since a Jones fracture in his left foot limited him to 12 games a year ago, despite Frank's high hopes for the newcomer.

The Clippers' own outgoing pieces were modest, with the announcement listing the draft rights to Ismael Kamagate and a 2027 second-round pick, and Strus' $16.6 million expiring salary slid into an existing trade exception, so the books barely felt it.

The dilemma sits in the locker room itself.

Bennedict Mathurin remains an unsigned restricted free agent who averaged 17.6 points per game last season between Indiana and Los Angeles, and there have been reports this month that he is seeking roughly $15 million a year.

The Clippers were trending toward re-signing him despite outside interest from several teams.

Strus plays the same spots Mathurin would, and after the deal, the crowded rotation now makes a Mathurin return unlikely.

Paying both players to share the same minutes is hard to defend, but letting a 24-year-old scorer walk over a 30-year-old coming off foot surgery is the choice that can age badly.

The Kawhi Leonard trade with Toronto is still sitting in limbo while the league sorts out its investigation, Bradley Beal is back on a two-year deal, and fans have argued earlier this month that the team should be chasing Peyton Watson, only for Watson to land in Cleveland in this same five-team deal on a four-year, $88 million sign-and-trade.

Every one of those moving pieces touches the same handful of minutes on the wing, which is exactly why one more shooter changes more than it seems to.

Strus is a good player on a fair salary, and this trade will look smart if he stays on the floor.

It just forces the Clippers to answer the Mathurin question for real this time, and there is no version of that answer without a cost.