The LA Clippers Are In Disarray And Need To Find Answers

In a lot of ways, this seems to be the low point for the LA Clippers in the Kawhi Leonard and Paul George era.

There is currently a cloud of uncertainty hanging above the team. It’s reminiscent of how awful the vibes were in the 2020 bubble, when the Clippers suffered an epic meltdown that triggered a coaching change. Their recent struggles, losing nine of the last 11 games and sitting just a half-game above 10th place in the West, have brought a preseason Finals favorite down to mediocre status – the largest gap between expectation and reality the franchise has faced since the end of Lob City.

Last season, the championship aspirations were present in the locker room, but the organization knew it couldn’t expect a deep playoff run with Leonard on the sidelines. Thus, it felt more like a gap year than anything.

Entering training camp in September 2022, the Clippers had every intention of taking this regular season seriously and building title-winning habits from day one. Part of last year and the ensuing summer was dedicated to shoring up the roster, improving on the margins, and safeguarding themselves for potential injuries. What many claimed was the deepest rotation in the league has looked painfully average in comparison to the top of the Western Conference.

Clippers owner Steve Ballmer was set to a pay a total of $191,952,857 in player contracts this season, along with a luxury tax penalty of at least $144.7 million. It made L.A. the second-most expensive team in NBA history behind only this year’s Warriors, who are also underachieving with a below .500 record.

As the Feb. 9 trade deadline approaches, the Clippers will have choices to make. For a team that historically makes huge deals the week of the deadline, they will be looking for backup center options, improvements in the backcourt, and potentially huge deals that will shake up the rotation.

At the same time, one could argue the biggest deadline acquisition they need is a semblance of continuity from their on-court leaders.

Entering game 48 of the season, Leonard and George have only appeared in 16 together. It’s 33.3% of the team’s total games and, digging even deeper, only 16.3% of the season minutes. For perspective, looking back at the 2021 campaign, the Clippers’ two superstars shared the court for 59.7% of the team’s games and 29.7% of the total minutes.

In a season that was supposed to mimic 2021 and be the recipe to championship-level basketball, the Clippers have simply missed the most critical ingredient. It doesn’t matter what team you are, or which stars you have — if the two highest-paid players and best creators on your roster aren’t available, everything else goes out the window. The continuity, rotational patterns, and play style are constantly interrupted with major absences.

Both sides of the ball are greatly affected when starters are moved in and out of the lineup. Offensively, a team has core sets and play calls that are intended to optimize its best players, ball-handlers, and shooters. Removing a player of Leonard or George’s caliber for a handful of games, then reintegrating them, doesn’t give the team a steady diet of those offensive packages. As a result, role players are asked to fill different responsibilities — whether it’s spacing to certain spots, toggling between a screener and creator, or making reads they usually wouldn’t be asked to — when star players aren’t in those lineups.

Defensively, teammates often use a full season to learn each other. Players are eventually able to sense rotations ahead of time, trusting where certain teammates are going to be if a breakdown occurs. Communication is also heavily involved in defensive schemes. Although most of this Clippers unit has played together before, you have to continue sharpening your defensive communication over time. It’s not something you form in one season and stop building. The best defensive squads are able to react instinctively to one another. Without the reps, there is no way for that chemistry to form.

While it’s true every professional player should be comfortable with circumstances changing, the Clippers are the extreme. Their situation has been an outlier for any team built around two dynamic stars, especially in contrast to the health and availability of other teams who entered this season with title hopes.

Let’s be crystal clear, though. Nobody should blame Leonard or George.

This has not been a scenario where either of them are content with the games they’ve missed. If it were up to both of them and not the medical staff they trust, Leonard and George would have appeared in more games this season, including back-to-backs. Through a long-term lens, which is reasonable for the medical staff to use considering these stars have expressed the desire to stay in L.A for the long haul, caution has always been the best approach.

To the Clippers’ credit, being safe with Leonard has actually yielded great results in terms of him getting back to peak ‘Klaw’ form. Over his last 14 games, Leonard has been in a real groove. He’s averaging 26 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 4.3 assists per 36 minutes during that time — while shooting 55.6% from two, 37.9% from deep, and 82.7% at the line.

So, any concerns about Leonard’s long-term effectiveness after ACL surgery should be erased. But the bigger deal is that L.A. is only 7-7 in those 14 games. And they can rarely match Leonard’s positive nights with George’s.

Over the last five weeks (since Dec. 15), the Clippers have been subpar in every way. In that stretch, removing garbage time, they rank 23rd in offensive rating (113.5) and 21st in defensive rating (117.8). It gives L.A. the sixth-worst point differential during that time, and only marginally better than the injury-mauled Phoenix Suns, who could seemingly never win without Devin Booker.

One thing optimists, including myself, got egregiously wrong this season was how challenging it would be for head coach Ty Lue to manage this rotation — and the belief that he’d get it right. Based on his first two seasons in L.A., there was glaring evidence suggesting he finds the proper lineups to use after some brief experimentation. During his first season taking over this group, Lue benched or reduced the minutes of guys that were redundant or couldn’t survive defensively (namely Reggie Jackson and Lou Williams). He would give certain lineups a 10-game sample to see how it performs, then make adjustments from there.

Even dating back to his Cleveland days, Lue would constantly search for the combinations that made the most sense. Fans would get upset that he used the regular season to experiment and tinker as often as he did, but that was his style. And it led to an improbable championship victory in 2016.

However, the difference this season is that Lue spent way too much time playing lineups that actively hurt the team’s chances of stringing together wins, and inexplicably benched one of their small-ball center options in Robert Covington.

Too often did we see the Clippers trot out three or four-guard lineups that were intended to generate offensive burst, but instead turned the ball over at an alarming rate and hemorrhaged points due to the lack of size. For a wing-heavy team that prides itself in lengthy and versatility, they rarely utilized the “wingstop” combinations that would minimize the number of weak links on the floor.

Another player that found himself in the doghouse and not receiving enough minutes was Terance Mann, who serves as a guard-forward hybrid that gives L.A. the best of both worlds. Mann’s minutes were all over the place to begin the season. Then, during a stretch in late December, he played just 12.3 minutes across a six-game span that raised a lot of questions. When asked about Mann’s role on the team on New Years Eve, Lue responded by saying he didn’t know what it would be moving forward. It wasn’t exactly a vote of confidence that he’d be an important part of the rotation.

Then, Mann would start eight of the next nine games, average 30.9 minutes, and supply the Clippers with the two-way impact and jolt they needed.

Mann’s infectious energy and downhill juice are way too valuable for a Clippers unit that lacks both on a night-to-night basis. He’s one of the only players on the team that can consistently break the first line of defense and get two feet in the paint with real urgency. Currently, Mann ranks in the 93rd percentile of his position in rim frequency. Inside the restricted area, he’s finishing 70% of his looks.

Perhaps the biggest difference in Mann’s game from the last couple years is how confident he is pulling up from deep in ball-screen action. In games that either Leonard or George are going to miss, his aggression is required.

If the Clippers are able to stay whole from now until the All-Star break in four weeks, it’s imperative they get as many reps as possible out of the Leonard-George-Mann lineups. Heading into Jan. 20, that trio has only played together for 83 possessions. That’s less than one full game’s worth of minutes.

With those three on the court, the Clippers have looked less stagnant and created the highest quality of shots they have all season. But 83 possessions at the midway point is comically low, and absolutely won’t cut it for a team looking to rise in the standings.

The same theme can be echoed for Norman Powell, who you could argue is supposed to be the third-best player on the roster. When Powell was acquired at the 2022 trade deadline, the notion was it would mitigate the team’s lack of rim (or paint) pressure and give them a major boost in second-side creation after Leonard or George do the initial work in ball-screen action.

But, here’s the kicker. For various reasons, including Lue putting too much stock in having a ‘real’ point guard on the floor, the trio of Powell-Leonard-George have only played 73 possessions together. Although the results of those lineups were ugly to begin the season, the Clippers are suffering from a lack of real sample size with their best players sharing the court.

When it comes to the Powell-Leonard-George trio, a big reason the minutes are low is due to injuries. Right when Leonard was ramping up for a return after nursing an ankle sprain, Powell was sidelined with a groin injury. Then, when Powell and Leonard were both finally cleared, George was experiencing issues with his hamstring.

So, to nobody’s surprise, the Clippers have just been dealt an unfortunate hand.

That core three, along with defensive stoppers such as Batum and Covington, is a grouping the Clippers need to experiment with in heavy doses before the playoffs.

To put Leonard and George in the best possible position for playoff success, they need an additional source of offensive creation (Powell or Mann) without sacrificing the defensive potency. We haven’t seen enough of those combinations, and that needs to change in a hurry.

For now, it appears they will have a chance to turn the corner and save this season. But if it’s going to happen, it will have to start during the toughest part of their schedule. Eight of their next 10 games will be played away from Los Angeles, with six of those opponents having a winning record. Here’s why that is significant: As of today, the Clippers are 6-17 against teams .500 and above. That’s even worse than the (tanking) San Antonio Spurs, who are 8-15 in such games.

If they don’t get it together, keep both stars on the floor, and gain some traction, there is a real chance they come out of this 10-game stretch in the bottom third of the conference. Not just outside the playoffs … but completely out of the play-in seeds (7-10).

With only 14 games until the All-Star break and 34 left in the entire season, the Clippers are running out of time.

Considering the No. 3 seed is only four games ahead of them and the West is largely grouped together after Denver and Memphis, it’s not too late. But if it doesn’t happen now, including two upcoming games against the 14-31 Spurs, the story of the Clippers’ season will already be known.

The average age of their top 11 players is north of 30 years old — 30.5 to be exact. The two superstars are not getting quicker, and the days of them playing 60-plus games a season are likely done.

It’s not anyone’s fault for random injuries popping up and putting them in this position. But you have to work around the unfortunate realities and figure out different ways to survive. There are 14 weeks left before the playoffs. To be a serious threat in April, the tide has to turn now. If it doesn’t, there will be no cohesion when the chips are down and their fate is on the line in clutch moments.

2023 was marketed as the year for L.A. to piece everything together, live up to their hype, and achieve the lofty goals they set for themselves when this team was assembled.

It was labeled as the year they would take the regular season seriously and become a feared opponent in the West. Both of those expectations have gone down the drain.

Still, there’s one thing Lue and the Clippers have in their pocket. They tend to thrive when people count them out. If that’s what fuels them and finally sparks the urgency to save the season, the stage is now set.