Due to Blake Griffin, the Clippers have reached a point of transformation where even a player of Chris Paul’s stature will consider them a viable option and an almost 32-year-old wing who hasn’t played in nearly a year due to a serious knee injury will take a deal that pays $24 million over three seasons

While Caron Butler was offered $30 million over four seasons by the Nets, Donald Sterling, Neil Olshey and the Clippers were the preferred option.

Los Angeles clearly needed to upgrade the small forward position from Ryan Gomes, who is a quality player best suited for rotation minutes. Al-Farouq Aminu is also in the mix at small forward and is a lottery pick entering his second season, but his production seemed to decrease as the season progressed and the Clippers are on an accelerated timeline.

Butler is not a particularly gifted three-point shooter, so he won’t be able to spread the floor by taking his man away from Griffin. He is a mid-range jump shooter at this stage of his career as I believe his 43.1% shooting from beyond the arc during those 29 games last season is an unquestioned outlier.

Furthermore, Tom Haberstroh brought up an important insta-argument on Twitter in regards to Butler’s assist rate being incredibly low for a wing. Butler’s assist rate was in the 9.3% category in each of the past two seasons, but was around 20% in his final two full seasons with the Wizards. He is more than capable of being a strong distributor and he is shrewd enough to know that the usage rates for both Griffin and Gordon will need to be approaching 30%.

Defensively, there is a lot to like about Butler even though Gomes was already a strength for the Clippers in that area. The Mavericks were several points stingier with Butler on the floor last season.

If he’s healthy again, Butler is a decisive upgrade over Gomes and Aminu, but a marginal one relative to the value. The Clippers had enough cap space for something truly creative and bold, but this is certainly a half-measure. Every move the Clippers make to build around Griffin and Gordon needs to be compared to what Sam Presti does with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. This certainly doesn't feel like a Thunder-move.

But as much as the Clippers would prefer to acquire Andre Iguodala, they couldn't afford him along with the impending extensions for DeAndre Jordan, Gordon and Griffin.

Grade for Clippers: C

Butler left a few million on the table and an equally intriguing opportunity with the Nets in favor of joining the Blake Show. It is an interesting decision, but you would think a high usage rate wing would have preferred to go to the team offering more money and where he only had Anthony Morrow, Stephen Graham and Damion James competing for minutes and shots.

Grade for Butler: B-