The Los Angeles Clippers can't delay the inevitable: it's time to end this era of Clippers basketball.

With a talented roster and All-Star weekend in their home arena, the LA Clippers were poised to have a great 2025-26 season. What happened?

James Harden’s blunt postgame comments highlight a Clippers team unraveling amid losses and rising frustration.

The upcoming five-game stretch could lead to big decisions for the Clippers.

The Clippers aren’t alone, however. They’re only a piece of a much broader story about risk management that has left a plethora of teams exposed to worst-case draft scenarios. The bill is coming due soon in several other situations where unprotected picks or swaps traded in heady moments of star acquisition earlier this decade now hang over teams that should otherwise be starting a rebuild.