LA Clippers: Examining Johnathan Motley’s stints with the Clippers
Jonathan Motley has been a member of the LA Clippers for two seasons. How has he played?
Inevitably, because the LA Clippers have risen to true contender status, the younger players are sidelined by the stars that make the team a contender. For LA, their youth is still the future, however. We have already covered most of what Mfiondu Kabengele, Terance Mann, and Amir Coffey have done for the team this season, but now, it is time to examine the two years that Johnathan Motley has given to the Clippers and their Agua Caliente counterpart.
Most LA Clippers fans will remember most of what Motley has brought from that magical 2018-2019 season in which the Clippers shocked the NBA with a 48-34 record, and it was in part thanks to the G-League players doing their parts. Thankfully, Motley was one of those G-Leaguers that was proving his worth.
In 2018-2019, Motley was averaging 4.6 points, 0.5 assists, and 2.3 rebounds per game through the twenty-two games he saw up with the Clippers. Although those are modest numbers, they proved to be big in multiple situations. Through his first twenty-two games, the Clips were 12-10 when Motley played. He was there when the team rallied to two critical three-game win streaks, and he came up with 58 points in the month of January alone when the team went 7-9.
In total, he finished with 102 points, 11 assists, and 51 rebounds once the season was over with, and it was a major accomplishment for him considering that he missed the 100-point mark in his first and previous season by four points.
Through the sixty-four games that the Clippers played in 2019-2020 before the stoppage of the regular season, Jonathan Motley only got to play thirteen games, which sadly led to a less stellar third year. He only managed 28 points, 8 assists, and 10 rebounds.
Still, he only played forty-one minutes compared to the 156 he played in 2018-2019, so those numbers require a grain of salt. The team went 8-5 when Motley played, and his final game of the season was in Boston on February 13th, and it ended up being a loss to the Celtics.
Johnathan Motley may not have found a ton of minutes with the LA Clippers but he has been a star in the G-League.
Despite his short time in the NBA, 130 points is a decent start, but the real important numbers can be found during his stints in the G-League. He was averaging 24 points, 2.8 assists, and 7.9 rebounds during the 2019-2020 G-League season, and just before the closure of the season, he dropped 38 points in his final three games.
Motley dropped seven double-doubles throughout his 26-game stint in Ontario, and as crazy as that is to read, it gets even better considering that four of those double-doubles saw him either book thirty-points or fall just shy of doing so. Simply put, he was doing wonders for the team with a 51.8% field-goal percentage and a 35.6% three-point percentage.
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In closing, Motley’s numbers in the G-League are incredibly promising, and considering his strong 2018-2019 season, he is due for some more time in the NBA quite soon. Although the eyes of most LA Clippers fans are on the stars, Johnathan Motley has already left a decent impression on the side of those same big-name players, and it is not too far-fetched to picture seeing more fans dawning Motley jerseys to the new arena in Inglewood in the near future.