The San Diego Clippers have acquired former NBA first-round pick Patrick Baldwin Jr. from the G League player pool, the team announced today in a press release.
Baldwin, 22, was selected 28th overall in the 2022 draft by Golden State and spent his rookie year with the Warriors before being traded to the Wizards during the 2023 offseason in the Chris Paul/Jordan Poole deal.
Baldwin didn’t see much playing time in either Golden State or Washington — to date, he has appeared in 91 total NBA regular season games, averaging 3.7 points and 2.0 rebounds in 9.0 minutes per night. The 6’9″ forward posted a .401/.366/.658 shooting line across those 91 contests.
After originally appearing on track to be sent to the Bucks as part of the Kyle Kuzma/Khris Middleton trade earlier this month, Baldwin was rerouted to San Antonio when more teams got involved in that deal, turning it into a four-team trade. The Spurs waived Baldwin shortly after acquiring him.
Today’s announcement from the Clippers‘ G League affiliate suggests that Baldwin signed an NBAGL contract shortly after becoming an unrestricted free agent. Since no team held his G League rights, he was subject to the waiver process — San Diego either put in a claim or waited until after he cleared waivers and then added him to the team’s roster.
While Baldwin’s minutes at the NBA level have been limited, he has seen a little more action in the G League, including in seven outings for the Capital City Go-Go this season. He averaged 15.0 PPG and 6.0 RPG on .488/.349/.571 shooting in those seven games (27.2 MPG).
Thought it was 1980 for a minute there.
Patrick is a really nice kid. He is going through it in a lot of ways right now. He was a Top 5 player nationally as a high school senior. Was the most hyped kid from Milwaukee in at least 20 years. It went downhill for Patrick starting his freshman year of college when he played for his dad at Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Got hurt and didn’t dominate. A bunch of other guys from Milwaukee, Jalen Johnson, Tyler Herro, Jordan Poole, Brandon Podziemski have established themselves. ….. Podziemski was his teammate on the Nike EYBL circuit. Tough pill to swallow. Patrick was always known as an elite shooter. Can’t make 3-point shots consistently at NBA level. He’s even struggling at the free throw line now.
Definitely seems to have the talent, his involvement in the kuz trade is interesting from the perspective they’re really seemingly the same player, kuz has turned it into more $$ as of now…. But all the talent/ability in the world, seemingly good guy just needs to give it to God and allow it all to come together, keep grinding “Pat,” it may seem difficult now but could be way worse than playing “ball” all day!!
Now he will shine somewhere else as every ex wizards do…
It’ll be interesting to see how the Bullets respond to this move