Reiterating a point that Jake Fischer made on Monday when the Clippers agreed to sign Rui Hachimura, Fischer and Marc Stein of The Stein Line (Substack link) say the addition of Hachimura doesn’t rule out the possibility of L.A. making a sign-and-trade play for Nuggets restricted free agent Peyton Watson.

If the Clippers ultimately decide not to pursue Watson, it’s unclear which team(s) would be Denver’s biggest threat for the 23-year-old wing. The Nets still have a good deal of cap flexibility and could put together either an offer sheet or a sign-and-trade proposal, but Stein and Fischer say that league personnel familiar with Watson’s situation have described Brooklyn as only a “conceptual” suitor. That wording suggests the Nets aren’t in active pursuit.

While this is just my speculation, the Clippers’ interest in Watson may be one reason why they’ve yet to officially complete the sign-and-trade sending John Collins to Detroit.

There are other ways L.A. could put a sign-and-trade offer together, but folding a deal for Watson into that transaction and using Collins’ outgoing salary for matching purposes would allow the cap-strapped Nuggets to avoid taking on any salary of their own — in that scenario, the Clippers would have to use draft assets to incentivize Denver, like the Lakers did to pry Walker Kessler away from the Jazz.

Here’s more from Stein and Fischer:

• Veterans Larry Nance Jr. and Georges Niang are among the free agent forwards who have received interest from some of the same teams who remain in the mix for LeBron James, league sources tell The Stein Line.
• Lonnie Walker IV, who spent last season with Maccabi Tel Aviv, has an NBA opt-out deadline of July 15, according to Stein and Fischer. Before determining whether or not to exercise that clause, the guard is expected to meet with teams at the Las Vegas Summer League to assess what NBA opportunities are available to him, per The Stein Line’s duo. Walker hasn’t been in the league since his contract with Philadelphia expired at the end of the 2024/25 campaign.
• Stein and Fischer provide some more details on Quinten Post‘s offer sheet from the Grizzlies, stating that it has a first-year guaranteed salary of $9MM, with $1.35MM in additional unlikely incentives for making the All-Defensive team. The non-guaranteed second and third years have base salaries of $8.55MM with $1.28MM per year in incentives. As we noted on Monday, the unlikely incentives count against a team’s apron, so they’re a bit of a poison pill for the Warriors, as is the slightly higher first-year salary.
• Before he agreed to sign with the Mavericks on a two-year, $6MM deal, Fenerbahce wing Tarik Biberovic had more lucrative NIL interest from college basketball programs, Stein and Fischer write. However, if he was going to leave the EuroLeague, Biberovic wanted to make the move to the NBA.