Wes Johnson On The Move As Clippers Finalize Roster

By Connor Aylward
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Updated: October 15, 2018

Entering Monday the Los Angeles Clippers had 17 players on their roster. Knowing they needed to get down to 15 by 5 PM EST the team decided it was time to make a move.

New Orleans is acquiring Clippers forward Wesley Johnson in a trade for center Alexis Ajinca, league sources tell ESPN. Clippers will waive Ajinca and guard Juwan Evans to get to 15 for opening night.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) October 15, 2018

Yet again it is the team’s most senior member that gets the ax by the Clippers front office. Johnson, however, didn’t quite have the impact former Clippers seniors like DeAndre Jordan or Blake Griffin did on their departures. Johnson’s best season with the team was his first in ’15-’16 where he put up 6.9 points and 3.1 rebounds per game playing in 80 games that season.

This season Johnson was going to be near the end of the bench in what has become a deep Clippers forward group centered around Tobias Harris and Danilo Gallinari. With a cap hit of $6.1 million for this season, the team decided the contract was just too much for a player with that little of involvement and traded with the Pelicans for Alexis Ajinca.

As mentioned in the report by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski Ajinca will likely be waived immediately and his cap hit will be $5.2 million to the team. Saving Los Angeles a bit of money with the move.

Los Angeles also plans to waive second-year guard Jawun Evans, whom the team bought a draft pick for in the second round of the 2017 draft. Evans played sparingly for Los Angeles in his rookie season, putting up 4.8 points and 2.1 assists in just 48 games.

With the trade and subsequent waiving of Ajinca and then Evans, that puts the Clippers roster at 15 and ready for action as they prepare for their first game of the season Wednesday against the Nuggets at Staples Center.

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