Clippers trade Russell Westbrook in deal to acquire Kris Dunn from Jazz
The Clippers have swapped one bench point guard for another.
The LA Clippers traded guard Russell Westbrook to the Utah Jazz on Thursday after the 35-year-old picked up his $4 million player option for the upcoming 2024-25 season earlier in the offseason.
The Clippers acquired guard Kris Dunn via sign-and-trade from Utah to complete the deal. The guard will ink a three-year, $17 million deal with the Clippers. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski had the news first. The Clippers sent a second-round pick swap and cash in the deal, as well. Westbrook will be bought out and join the Denver Nuggets following the completion of the trade.
The seeds of discontent with Westbrook had been sewn throughout the season as the guard was not happy with a move to the bench following the team’s winless streak after James Harden arrived from the Philadelphia 76ers in an early-season trade, league sources tell Russo Writes.
As first reported by ClutchPoints’ Tomer Azarly, Westbrook was constantly talked to by higher-ups throughout the season to assuage his dissatisfaction:
And, even once the move was finally done and the team publicly said he offered to come off the bench, Lawrence Frank, Tyronn Lue, and the Clippers needed to speak with Westbrook repeatedly throughout the season to get him to continue to buy in on a bench role behind James Harden.
Westbrook averaged just 19 minutes per game in the postseason and shot 26 percent from the field in the team’s six-game first-round loss to the Dallas Mavericks after contributing 11.1 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 4.5 assists in 68 regular-season games.
Despite the fizzling end to Westbrook’s tenure with the franchise, the future Hall of Fame guard was beloved by fans and is someone who will undoubtedly be cheered when he returns to play against the Clippers in Los Angeles.
In Dunn, the Clippers get a defense-first guard that pairs nicely with their other signings this offseason and can provide spot minutes at the backup point guard position. Dunn finished fourth among point guards in Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus (DEPM), a stat tracked by Dunks and Threes. Only Marcus Smart, Dennis Smith Jr., and Jose Alvarado graded out higher.
The 30-year-old Dunn averaged 5.4 points, 3.8 assists, and 2.9 rebounds in 18.9 minutes across 66 games for the Jazz last season. Dunn shot 36.9 percent on 3s, albeit on a scant 111 attempts.
Utah was 8.3 points per 100 possessions better in Dunn’s 1,249 minutes on the floor last season as opposed to when he was off the court. That was the second-best mark on the team among all players to log at least 1,000 minutes.
It appears that Dunn will be used as a defensive weapon by the Clippers to take on the task of guarding opposing score-first guards to ease some of the defensive burden that both James Harden and Kawhi Leonard might face on that end of the floor. Dunn fits in well alongside Derrick Jones Jr. and Nicolas Batum as three above-average switchable defenders who play the brand of basketball the front office has been looking for to surround Harden and Leonard.
Dunn was selected with the fifth overall pick by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the 2016 NBA Draft and has played 333 career games in the league. Dunn spent time with the Clippers’ G League affiliate, then called the Agua Caliente Clippers, back in 2021-22, where he averaged 11.8 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 4.4 assists in 15 games.
This developing story will be updated with more details as they become available.
