LA Clippers 2019-2020 Season Grades: Judging the Guards

Lou Williams – B-

The captain of our bench unit comes in at a B- for me last season.

Lou Williams had a pretty typical Lou Williams regular season last year. He put up 18/5.6/3 as a statline on middling efficiency, and he hit an acceptable amount of threes while playing horrendous defense.

That’s fine. Lou coming off the bench is a part of why we got the second seed for the first time in franchise history. His weird ESP pick and roll plays with Montrezl Harrell were nearly unstoppable.

But then the playoffs started. And as has happened in the past with Lou, his performance dropped. His three point shooting went from an acceptable 35% in the regular season to a horrendous 23.5% in the playoffs.

While Lou tried to counteract this by playing some of the best defense we’ve seen him play, it wasn’t enough to undo the terrible shooting.

That said, I don’t want to totally forget his fine performance in the regular season. As much as we want to (maybe rightfully) put blame on him for his playoff performance, our bench is a huge part of why we got to the high seed in the first place.

Rodney McGruder – D+

Rodney McGruder gets one of the low scores of the piece for me.

After being claimed off waivers by the Clippers, McGruder never really found a way to contribute to the team, either in the regular season or the playoffs.

Rodney appeared in 56 games in the regular season, averaging 15.6 minutes per game but only putting up a 3.3/2.7/0.6 statline on really poor efficiency. The 28 year old shot 27% from behind the line, only 39.8% from the field as a whole and 56% from the free throw line.

On offense, McGruder couldn’t find a place; he only averaged 0.6 assists compared to 0.4 turnovers per game, so his lack of scoring was not counteracted by his playmaking.

There was a slight silver lining to his game; it’s nice to see rebounding from the guard position, and his defense was at least not awful. Those weren’t nearly enough, though, to make him a positive after you take his offense into consideration.

Terance Mann – C+

The rookie out of Florida State University, Terance Mann comes in at a C+ for me.

This isn’t a bad grade for a rookie! It’s rare that first year players come in and are productive players, so a C+ for Mann indicates some positivity from me.

Just like many rookies under Doc Rivers, Terance didn’t see a ton of playing time – 9 minutes per game in 41 games in the NBA. He managed to make some impressions, though, in his limited minutes.

In a very good sign for a rookie, Mann had above average scoring efficiency and found ways to contribute all over the court. A 54.5$ true shooting is a pretty good mark, and his per 36 numbers were 9.8/5.5/5.3, showing Mann doing a little bit of everything. Even his defense was promising, putting up a positive 1.2 DBPM.

He got plenty of playing time for the Agua Caliente Clippers in the G-League. In 35 minutes per game for the ACC, he put up 15 points, 9 rebounds and 5.7 assists on some hyper efficiency at 64.6 true shooting.

I’d be remiss if I wrote about Terance Mann without mentioning that he nearly dropped a triple double against Oklahoma City, missing it by just 1 assist.

If Terance Mann can keep finding ways to contribute everywhere, he’s sure to get more and more playing time, and we could be seeing a legitimate rotation player in the future.

Amir Coffey – D

Our other rookie, Amir Coffey hits the lowest point for me, but don’t take that too seriously. This is 50% for his performance and 50% just a “who knows about this guy?” grade.

Coffey only played 159 minutes total for the LA Clippers, which translated to 8.8 minutes per game in 18 games.

What can you really say in such a small sample size? He put up 3 points and less than 1 of everything else. He didn’t shoot particularly efficiently and he wasn’t particularly good on defense. But again, he practically didn’t play!

In the G-League, he was able to up scoring numbers, but not much else. For the ACC, Coffey put up a per 36 minute statline of 19.5 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists. That doesn’t stand out too much to me, but I’m not writing him off yet.

There’s not much more to say about Coffey. Maybe next year we will see him for more minutes and can evaluate him a bit better.

Keep tuned to Clipperholics; in the future we will give out grades for the rest of the roster, as well as constant coverage of the coaching search and any other Clippers news!