Six former LA Clippers who would have helped this season
These six former LA Clippers could have made big impacts to the team if they were still on the roster for the 2019-20 NBA season.
The 2019-20 LA Clippers already have one of the deepest, most well-rounded rosters in the NBA.
The team sits with a record of 44-20, good for second in the Western Conference and fourth overall in the league. They are third in the NBA with a 113.3 Offensive Rating and ranked fifth with a Defensive Rating of 107.2. They are one of the favorites to win the title should the season eventually return from its current hiatus.
It would be hard to improve on the group of players the Clippers have put together this season. But we’re going to try to anyway.
We wanted to take a look at former Clippers who would positively impact the team if they were still around for the 2019-20 season.
There are some self-established rules here. We’re looking at players who are still active in the NBA. Of course, we’d love to put an in-his-prime Elton Brand on the Clippers any year, but for the purposes of this experiment, it’s current players only.
We’re also not looking at any stars.
So don’t expect to page through this list and see Chris Paul or Blake Griffin. Somehow magically adding them to the team this year would certainly make the Clippers even better. So would pulling off the Kawhi Leonard signing and Paul George trade without having to lose Shai Gilgeous-Alexander or Danilo Gallinari, but you won’t see them on this list either. We’re not even throwing in Tobias Harris.
We sticking strictly to role-players. Key rotation guys who can help the Clippers in some areas we say they could use some assistance.
And what are those areas? Thanks for asking.
One area the team could use some improvement on is three-point shooting. While the team is second overall in the league shooting 34.1 percent from beyond the arc, they are ranked 26th overall in three-point attempts, and 17th in three-point attempt rate, only taking 37% of their total shots from deep. This is party due to scheme, as the Clippers certainly have shooters on their roster, but we wanted to identify some former long-range bombers that would help the team take even more long-range shots.
The team could also improve in rebounding, as they’re ranked 17th in the league in Defensive Rebounding Percent at 77.3. They also only force turnovers on 12.3 percent of opponents possessions, which is the 23rd worst in the NBA.
A true title contender like the Clippers don’t have many weaknesses. But we’re here with some “what-if’s” on former Clippers players who would make their current roster even more solid.