Clippers don’t hire Bob Myers as their new GM

Bob Myers won’t be the Warriors’ general manager any more, but at least he won’t be working for the Clippers

The Los Angeles Clippers had an open general manager job after Michael Winger left to run the Washington Wizards, Mystics and Capital City Go-Go. Bob Myers is stepping down from is job as Golden State Warriors GM. Could there be a match?

The answer is no.

The Clippers went with a different former college basketball player to be there GM, promoting assistant GM Trent Redden. Redden played college ball at Southern Methodist University, then worked his way up in the Cleveland Cavaliers organization from intern to senior vice president of basketball operations. When the Cavaliers fired David Griffin after the 2016-17 season, Redden joined the Clippers as an assistant GM.

Mark Hughes, the new senior vice president, also joined the Clippers in 2017, after many years in the New York Knicks front office. Like Myers, Hughes was an NCAA champion with the 1989 Michigan Wolverines. Unlike Myers, he actually played for his title team.

There were a number of reasons for the Myers-Clippers rumors, despite his suggestion that he needed a professional break. Myers played college basketball at UCLA, and lived and worked in L.A. for many years as a sports agent. The Clippers also have a history of poaching Warriors’ executives when Joe Lacob won’t pay them, recruiting Jerry West to the team when Lacob cut his pay in 2017.

While the Clippers job would have likely been lucrative, Myers would be facing many of the same problems he had with the Warriors, only more dire. The Clippers also have an aging core of Paul George and Kawhi Leonard, who both make an enormous amount of money - and can both opt out of their contracts in one year. Leonard is a wing player whose defense has declined after tearing his ACL, and doesn’t pass the ball much, not unlike Klay Thompson.

It’s an expensive team that’s disappointed in the playoffs recently - although the Warriors have actually won something - and the new Collective Bargaining Agreement is going to punish big-spending teams, with new penalties for going over the tax lines that seem specifically aimed at the Warriors and Clippers.

Plus, the Clippers also have a very enthusiastic, hands-on owner. Really hands-on.

Bob Myers is not going to the Clippers. So Warriors fans can sit back, take a deep breath, and relax. Until rumors start swirling about him replacing James Jones with the Phoenix Suns.