The 2019-20 Los Angeles Clippers were the best team in an NBA that no longer existed. The Kawhi Leonard-Paul George duo was built to play the smaller, ultra-versatile style that worked against the Golden State Warriors dynasty. They doubled down on that approach by spending their only meaningful trade asset -- their 2020 first-round pick -- on yet another wing in Marcus Morris. They, like so many of us, missed the revolution (or, depending on your perspective, devolution) happening right under their noses.
If Nikola Jokic hadn't knocked them out of the postseason, the gigantic Lakers would've. It was their stubbornness that did them in as much as their lack of size. The Clippers ignored the league's newfound stylistic versatility to build a roster designed for opponents that no longer stood in their way. The result was Jokic bullying the 6-foot-8 Montrezl Harrell so ceaselessly that Harrell left money on the table to cross the Staples Center hallway and don the purple and gold seemingly out of spite.
Harrell's displeasure was hardly limited to the Denver series. Multiple reports detailed the season-long culture war between Doc Rivers' plucky 2018-19 overachievers and the hired guns brought in to supplant them. Now Harrell is gone, and so is Rivers, but the core issue remains unaddressed. A leadership vacuum remains, and captain-less ships tend to sink. The nigh flawless roster they thought they had a year ago might have been enough to overcome that. The surprisingly thin group we saw in Orlando was not.
Serge Ibaka will help fix their broken interior defense, but his signing triggered a hard cap that the Clippers are now less than $1 million below. They have no tradable first-round picks, and beyond Lou Williams, lack the sort of movable salary that would make an in-season upgrade possible. With perhaps an exception or two, the team the Clippers have now is probably going to be the one they take with them into the playoffs. It wasn't enough at Disney. Will the tweaks they've made be enough this time around?
Taking the temperature
Clippers believer: The Clippers had two fatal postseason flaws last season and they've addressed both of them. Harrell and Ivica Zubac couldn't stand up to Jokic, so the Clippers brought in Serge Ibaka to throw at him and Anthony Davis. They finished 22nd in assists and 28th in total passes, so they picked up playmaking on the fringes. Luke Kennard averaged 4.1 assists per game last season as he took on a heavier ball-handling role. That would have ranked third on the team last season. Nicolas Batum consistently topped five per game at his peak. No, they aren't the traditional point guards the Clippers need, but playmaking in the aggregate is still playmaking.
Clippers skeptic: Sure it is, until you get to the competitive portion of the playoffs all of the cute back cuts and scripted sets you've been running all season have been scouted out of the series. We saw this in three consecutive collapses against Denver. Having a real point guard just to organize the offense make heat-of-the-moment decisions about where the ball is going matters a great deal. Batum is not generating clean looks against LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
Speaking of Davis, Ibaka isn't keeping him away from the basket alone. Prior to last season, he had never even reached the 60th percentile league-wide in post-up points allowed per possession defensively, and the only reason he did so a year ago was because he was playing power forward alongside Marc Gasol, perhaps the best post-defender in basketball. Ibaka remains an effective deterrent at the basket to drivers, but leave him on an island against Davis or Jokic, and it probably isn't going to go very well.
Oh, and the Clippers hate each other. Solve that one, optimist.
Clippers believer: Los Angeles is full of acrimonious but successful partnerships. How many championships did Shaq and Kobe win at each other's throats? In Ty Lue, the Clippers have found the sort of coach who can manage a fractured locker room. If you can yell at LeBron James, you can yell at anyone. This team needed a dose of accountability and Lue will bring it, no matter how much sulking the stars might do.
How dare you doubt Nic Batum. Go ask Boris Diaw what happens to older French point forwards that leave Charlotte for contenders. It's one of the selling points of this roster, frankly. Reggie Jackson was once a high-level starting point guard, and the Clippers retained him for the minimum. Was he particularly good in the bubble? No. Will a year in the system make a difference? Probably. Between Batum, Jackson, Patrick Patterson and their inevitable buyout addition, the Clippers are bound to find at least one older postseason contributor at a bargain-basement price.
And don't discount how much room for internal improvement exists here. The Clippers were only 16th in 3-point attempt rate, but finished second in offense. What's going to happen when Lue unleashes the bombs away offensive philosophy that won Cleveland a championship?
Clippers skeptic: LeBron James won Cleveland a championship, and in case you've forgotten, the Clippers have to beat him if they plan to win the title. I will admit though, the Clippers were nearly unstoppable with a modern shot profile. They went 14-1 in the games which they took at least 38 3-pointers, and 27-5 when they took at least 34 3s. Ty Lue teams shoot 3s. He is going to optimize that offense. It just happens to be an offense that still has inherent flaws. Teams without point guards are predictable, especially in a postseason world in which individual creation is so disproportionally valuable.
How do the Clippers find the point guard they so clearly lack without matching salary and a tradeable first-round pick?
Clippers believer: The Lou Williams-Patrick Patterson combo gets the Clippers to around $11 million, before factoring in hard-cap concerns. That's not landing a game-changer, but an upgrade is feasible. George Hill fits in that slot, for instance. So does Rajon Rondo. The value proposition is dicier, but the Clippers still have some scraps to work with. They got four second-round picks in the Kennard deal. They can technically offer swap rights on their 2027 first-rounder as well. Considering the relatively mild upgrades in play here, that should be enough.
The real upgrades are going to be internal, though. Do you honestly expect Paul George to shoot below 40 percent from the field in the playoffs again? Of course not. Make all the memes you want, 2020 was the worst healthy playoff run of George's career and was not remotely sustainable. Is Kawhi Leonard going to score 14 points in another Game 7? Again, probably not. He scored 41 in his previous Game 7.
Leonard and George are fallible, and so is this team. They never coalesced into the juggernaut the basketball world expected last season, but regression to the mean alone is going to make a difference. So is superior coaching, and while the roster remains imperfect, it has at least been improved upon in areas of weakness from last season. This is a better version of the team that was universally considered last season's favorites. That doesn't guarantee that they live up to last season's expectations, but with a year-long failure to learn from, they are far likelier to do so this time around.
Eye on: Nicolas Batum
Batum is the swing piece here. He is what Markieff Morris was to the Lakers last year, the low-risk, high-reward addition that fills a role that's somewhere between "necessity" and "luxury." The Clippers could survive without another big wing at his best with the ball in his hands, but a renewed Batum unlocks some of the switchiest defensive lineups in the league and offers a sorely needed splash of playmaking, even if it isn't exactly championship-altering.
Leonard, George, Morris, Kennard, Ibaka, Williams, Ivica Zubac and Patrick Beverley are rotation locks. Batum seems to have the inside track on the ninth slot in the rotation based on his preseason starts. That's encouraging after a season in which he shot below 35 percent from the field and generally performed at a sub-NBA level. Batum doesn't have to be a star, but he has to be a contributor for the Clippers to keep up with a Lakers team that suddenly has more depth than it knows what to do with. If he's good enough to keep Jackson, a defensive liability that can't shoot, off the floor in the playoffs, he's done his job. He's only 32 years old. A Diaw-like rejuvenation is hardly impossible. Championship teams hit on exactly this kind of minimum signing.
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December 15, 2020 at 11:28PM
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Back Again: The 2020-21 Los Angeles Clippers season preview, starring Kawhi Leonard, revamped supporting cast - CBS Sports
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