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Clippers Trade Kevin Porter Jr. for MarJon Beauchamp
The Clippers’ final of three trades before the 2025 NBA deadline was sending Kevin Porter Jr. to the Bucks straight up for MarJon Beauchamp.
On one hand, in terms of actual assets and roster construction impact, this was the least important of the three deals by far. On the other hand, this was the most important of the trades for me personally, because it saved my eyeballs from watching Kevin Porter Jr. play basketball every game.
Even leaving aside the off-the-court stuff (Law Murray said the NBA’s investigation into Porter Jr. is still ongoing), KPJ was one of my least favorite Clippers to watch play basketball of all time. His ball-stopping, over-dribbling tendencies are traits that I despise (I understand this is an aesthetic thing to some extent), and his taking contested midrange jumpers with 10+ seconds on the shot clock made me want to throw things out windows. On top of all that, Porter Jr. was simply bad in his role of being the Clippers’ lead scorer and ballhandler off the bench, shooting insanely bad 42.3/24.5/64.5 splits. He couldn’t make threes, he didn’t get to the line, and he finished his 45 games as a Clipper with a dreadful 47.6 True Shooting. There were times Porter Jr. was helpful as a rebounder, defender, and scorer, but they never outweighed his awful inefficiency and high turnover rate. He will not be missed on the court.
Beauchamp is not being brought on because the Clippers are high on him. Beauchamp was the 24th pick in the 2022 NBA Draft, but has played in just 126 games across 2.5 seasons and averaged 11.4 minutes per game, with a lot of that playing time coming in garbage time. A 6’6 wing, Beauchamp has shown signs of competence on defense, but is not able to contribute much on the offensive end. If the Clippers are able to find a buyout guy they like, Beauchamp might well get waived so that the Clippers can convert Jordan Miller from his two-way deal to a full NBA contract. If the Clippers don’t get a buyout player, it’s possible Beauchamp does stick on the Clippers for the full season, but it seems very unlikely he will get any rotation minutes.
Really, this trade was done because the Clippers as an organization did not want to see any more Kevin Porter Jr. minutes, but knew that if he was on the team, Ty Lue would play him. As people on Twitter put it, the trade was taking away one of Ty Lue’s toys. This is something front offices have to do semi-frequently in the NBA, which doesn’t necessarily make it better – but it is understandable.
There’s one final benefit, which is that Beauchamp’s contract is expiring (the Bucks turned down his 4th year team option) while Porter Jr. had a player option for next year he was probably going to pick up. Thus, the Clippers clear another roster spot and a bit of room for this offseason.
In short, this move lines up perfectly with the Clippers’ other trades. Their starting lineup will remain as it has been since Kawhi returned, while their bench rotation now will probably of Dunn-Amir-Bogdan-Nico-Eubanks, with a deep bench of Patty Mills-Miller-Beauchamp-Brown-Jones.
The Clippers are almost certainly going to be pursuing buyout players, but for now, this is their roster. MarJon, welcome to Los Angeles!
Clippers Trade Kevin Porter Jr. for MarJon Beauchamp
Robert Flom