Kris Dunn played all 82 games last season at 27.2 minutes a night, posting a 58.1 true-shooting mark on barely any usage. Cleared from a rest-related day-to-day tag on October 17, he returns to a backcourt now thinner by Bradley Beal, Brandon Ingram and Max Strus.
He is built to not need the ball.
Dunn's 7.3 points and 3.6 assists per game undersell what he did with them. He shot 47.6 percent from the field and 37.4 percent from three on 2.6 attempts a night, both career-caliber marks, while his usage sat at just 12.2 percent, among the lowest of any rotation piece on the roster. The 58.1 true-shooting figure that came out of that mix is the headline: a defensive specialist who, when he does shoot, doesn't miss often. Durability matched the efficiency. Dunn suited up for all 82 games, the only Clipper to do so, at age 31.
The advanced numbers back a connector, not a creator.
His 114.6 offensive rating and 114.1 defensive rating netted out to 0.5, roughly team average, with a 17.9 percent assist rate and 6.3 percent rebound rate that peg him as a complementary guard rather than someone asked to generate offense. That profile is why Clipperholics' Iliyan Lakhani argued on October 16 that starting Dunn would only make things harder on Darius Garland: pairing two ball-dominant decision-makers makes less sense than deploying Dunn as the stabilizer who guards the other team's lead ball-handler.
The contract is the easiest line on the payroll to defend.
At $5.7 million for 2026-27, Dunn is a rounding error next to Garland's $42.2 million and Brandon Ingram's $40.0 million on a $193.7 million payroll already over the cap. For a team with no first-round pick of its own through the decade, a cheap, durable veteran who defends at a high level is the kind of asset the roster has few of.
He is healthy exactly when the Clippers need him to be.
Dunn carried a Day-To-Day tag for rest starting October 14 and was cleared on October 17, with no injury listed against his name now. That clean bill matters: Beal, Ingram and Strus are all out, and Jordan Miller is sidelined into March. Dunn's job this season is less about scoring and more about absorbing minutes and matchups the shorthanded backcourt can't otherwise cover, without turning into a liability on offense.
Is Kris Dunn hurt?
No. He was cleared on October 17 from a Day-To-Day rest designation and is not on the injury report.
Will Kris Dunn start for the Clippers this season?
He has not been named a starter; Clipperholics has argued against starting him alongside Darius Garland, and his low-usage, defense-first profile fits better as a rotation piece.
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