The Clippers waived Cam Christie on Wednesday, one day before $2.30 million of his salary was set to become guaranteed. Shams Charania reported the move, sources tell ESPN. Michael Scotto of HoopsHype tied the timing directly to the guarantee date, which means Los Angeles keeps the money.
That is the whole story. A 21-year-old second-round pick, 46th overall in 2024, got released on the last day the team could release him without paying him.
The shooting never came
Christie did not make the decision hard. He appeared in 13 games as a rookie at 4.5 minutes a night. Last season he got into 55 games at 8.7 minutes, averaging 2.8 points, 1.4 rebounds and 0.6 assists.
His career splits are the real problem: 36.8% from the field and 22.6% from three. For a guard whose entire draft case was his jumper, 22.6% from deep ends the argument. At Minnesota he averaged 11.3 points as a freshman and shot 39.1% from three on his way to the Big Ten All-Freshman Team. Two NBA seasons later, none of it had carried over.
The preseason gave him two auditions and neither one changed anything. Against Golden State he filled a box score with 8 points, 8 rebounds and 3 assists, but it took 28 minutes and came with 2-of-8 shooting and five turnovers. Against Toronto he was cleaner, 8 points and 3 rebounds on 2-of-3 in 21 minutes. Clean in 21 minutes is not worth $2.30 million to a team that already has guards.
Third cut in eight days
Los Angeles waived Fletcher Loyer on Oct. 7 and Yuki Kawamura on Oct. 13. Christie made three in eight days, a roster being filed down ahead of the Oct. 20 season opener.
Cutting a player before a guarantee date is routine bookkeeping, and the Clippers have not done anything unusual here. The timing is just loud when the player is a 21-year-old the team drafted two years ago and handed 68 games of mostly empty minutes.
The depth chart explains the rest of it. Darius Garland, Gradey Dick, Max Strus and Kris Dunn all sat ahead of Christie, and so did No. 5 pick Keaton Wagler. Even with Brandon Ingram, Strus, Jordan Miller and Yanic Konan Niederhauser all out to start the season, the Clippers would rather carry an open spot than a sixth guard.
What happens to him now
Christie is 21, the younger brother of Mavericks guard Max Christie, and he has 68 NBA games on his record across two years, nearly all of them in low-leverage minutes. That is usually the profile a team hangs onto, because it costs almost nothing and a 21-year-old shooter can figure it out at 23.
The cost here was $2.30 million and one day on the calendar. Los Angeles looked at the shooting, looked at the five guards in front of him, and decided that was too much. Teams do this every October and it rarely gets written down anywhere. But a 46th pick cut 24 hours before his money locks in is the clearest statement an organization can make about what it thinks of a player.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.