The Los Angeles Clippers are figuring out if Avery Bradley can be helpful

Avery Bradley is not having his best season in his career, but he has the opportunity to redeem himself with the Los Angeles Clippers.

As happened to many players who left the Boston Celtics (Jae Crowder, Isaiah Thomas, Jared Sullinger, Evan Turner) Avery Bradley is struggling to perform in a different environment than the Brad Stevens one. Thankfully, moving to the Los Angeles Clippers may help.

Bradley’s problems are especially due to the offensive end. Bradley is averaging 14.4 points per game, but shooting just 41.2 percent from the field, 36.9 percent from the arc. These numbers say a lot, but not all the problems he is going through. The True Shooting Percentage is just 49.5 percent, which makes him the sixth worst starting guard with at least 35 games in the league behind Lonzo Ball, Tyler Ulis, Dennis Smith Jr, Jarrett Jack and De’Aaron Fox. The player impact is negative, averaging at -3.31, the worst since his rookie season. More impressive, the Offensive Impact moved from +1.7 in 2016 to -2.3 in this season.

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Going deeper in his offensive playstyle, Bradley is scoring more points over expectation in Spot Up and averaging little below the zero in Putbacks and Transitions, while the relation is strongly negative for Off Screen and Handoff points scored. This is in contrast with the Clippers strengths.

In fact, watching the total points scored over expectation after 52 games, the relation points scored/points expected is +41.4 in Isolation and +15.7 in Cut, while it is -26.2 in Spot Up and -33.1 in Transition.

With so much different data, there are a few possible scenarios:

1. Avery Bradley helps the Clippers playing faster and score more points in Transition and Spot Up
2. The Clippers help Bradley to be an element in their system, improving his numbers in isolation and cuts
3. They figure out to be too different and the relationship is not going to work.

For now

After his first five games with the Clippers, Bradley has 104.9 as offensive rating. His personal offensive rating is almost two points less the team, which is at 106.8. If you cut open the numbers with Bradley on and off the court using the Individual Net Impact spreadsheet created by Jacob Goldstein, the Clippers are averaging 106.4 points when he is playing, but 109.9 when he is off the court.

Defensively, the situation is different. In fact, the Defensive Rating with Avery Bradley on the court is 101.2, but when he is out the stat falls to 109.1. This means he is giving a big effort to the Clippers on defense, allowing thinking he is the natural substitution of Patrick Beverley, who is out for the season because of a knee injury.

The sDPOE is the stat that counts the points conceded over the course of the year are more/less than an average player would be expected to give up if they faced the same shots. It’s possible to calculate it using the 2017-2018 NBA Data archive. Avery Bradley has an sDPOE of +0.6, so that means he is defending basically as an average player.

Just to give an idea, Andre Roberson was a Defensive Player of the Year candidate before the injury and his sDPOE was -39.9. This means that Bradley is having offensive troubles, while the defense is “just” okay.

However, the Individual Net Impact document shows how the other guards are enjoying playing with Bradley. The Net Rating for Lou Williams with Avery Bradley On/Off the court is +8.6, for Austin Rivers is +13.9 and for Milos Teodosic is +10.0. This means the point guards needed a perimeter defender who is able to help them to stop the opponent. Thanks to him, the Clippers are fixing some problems and, also if he is not playing at his best, this is enough to make the difference.

The future

It will interesting to understand what the Clippers and Jerry West will decide to do this summer with him. He will be an unrestricted free agent in July and his current contract is around $8.8 million per year, more or less the same value of a mid-level exception. Lou Williams, who signed an extension of $24 million per three years before the trade deadline, set the value market for the free agents next summer.

If a borderline All-Star, who is living his best season so far, decided to extend his contract for $8 million per year, how much can Avery Bradley, who is struggling after the experience with the Celtics, really demand? Will he have a chance to get more money than Williams? Or will the Clippers have a good chance to sign another flexible and advantageous contract for a role player?

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In this moment, this team has eight players with a guaranteed contract for next season. The salary cap for them is $62mln, but there are other four players with an option for other $49.2 million. If all of them should use it, the Clippers would have twelve players for $111 million. Considering the luxury tax at $119 million, the front office has some space to sign at least another good player and Bradley could be the right asset if he will improve and adjust his lacks during the rest of the regular season.