How the LA Clippers can dethrone the Lakers: Address the holes in their roster
This one seems obvious. The LA Clippers have to make improvements to their roster. This isn’t just so they compete with the Lakers, however. The playoffs exposed a couple of big holes that the team needs to address.
The biggest two? The backup center and point guard position. The team needs more playmaking from the guard position and a backup center who can play minutes against bigger centers. Does that mean Montrezl Harrell and Reggie Jackson are gone? Not necessarily.
Harrell seems the more likely of the two to depart after winning Sixth Man of the Year. He will be sought after by several teams given his offensive capabilities. For the Clippers, bringing him back makes sense to some extent given their limited cap space but we saw his limitations in the postseason. There are several bigs that are available on the free agency market that the team can acquire for their mid-level exception. Doing so could upgrade the spot even if they do lose Harrell.
For the point guard spot, the growth may come internally. Sure, the Clippers’ front office can look at the free agency market for an upgrade but perhaps having Reggie accept a more playmaker type of role from the new head coach or just having Terance Mann play and learn through the year will be enough.
Whatever the team decides to do, they need to do something.