The LA Clippers and president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank agreed to a multiyear contract extension, four league sources told The Athletic.
Contract details were not disclosed, though the extension is believed to be for four years. The Athletic reported in December that Frank and his senior staff were on track for contract extensions. Extensions for other front office staff are still expected to be developed, per league sources.
Frank, 55, has served as the Clippers’ front-office president since 2017, and his peers voted him NBA executive of the year in 2020. The Clippers finished 49-23 in a pandemic-shortened season, then fell in the second round of the playoffs in the Disney Bubble. The Clippers’ deepest playoff run during Frank’s tenure was in 2021, when Tyronn Lue, the only coach Frank hired in LA, guided the team to the conference finals.
The Clippers, who were just 6-16 when The Athletic’s first report about the forthcoming front office extensions was published, went on to lose their next five games. The optics around the team could not have been much worse, with Frank’s controversial decision to send future hall-of-famer Chris Paul home on Dec. 3 marking what appeared to be a low point for all involved. What’s more, the Clippers had spent the previous months navigating allegations that they circumvented the NBA’s salary rules by arranging a lucrative no-show job for Kawhi Leonard with a team sponsor. While team officials have consistently denied the allegations, the NBA’s investigation is ongoing.
Yet amid the off-court distractions, the Clippers (21-24) have certainly found their way on the court since then. They have orchestrated a stunning turnaround since Dec. 20, winning 15 of 18 games while trailing only the Detroit Pistons in net rating during that span (they were 25th in net rating, to that point). The Clippers, who are now 10th in the West, have received standout performances from their two aging stars — Leonard and James Harden — in recent weeks.
Leonard, the 34-year-old who has missed 13 games with knee and ankle problems, has been spectacular during that stretch (averaging 31.8 points, 6.7 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 2.4 steals in 15 games). The 36-year-old Harden, meanwhile, has averaged 25.1 points, eight assists, and 4.3 rebounds in that span. The recent emergence of veteran big man John Collins, who arrived on the team via a three-team trade with Miami and Utah that sent former Clippers guard Norm Powell to the Heat last summer, has been pivotal in the Clippers’ revival.
