LA Clippers Player Previews: Terance Mann & Mfiondu Kabengele

Mfiondu Kabengele

In Mfiondu Kabengele’s first season of NBA action, he only saw the floor in twelve games. In those games, he played an average of 5.4 minutes (mostly garbage time) and put up 3.5 points, 0.9 rebounds, and 0.2 assists per game with shooting splits of 43/45/100 (5-5 from the charity stripe). With bigs like Ivica Zubac, Montrezl Harrell, and JaMychal Green who stayed in good health through the entirety of the 2019-2020 season, Kabengele wasn’t provided many opportunities to play with the big boys. Rather, spending the vast majority of his time suiting up for the Agua Caliente Clippers; with whom he averaged 18.7 points, 9.3 rebounds, and 1.4 assists in 31.2 minutes per game on 48.2/32.3/81 shooting.

Like Terance Mann, Mfiondu will likely need an injury (and/or a few blowouts along the way) to occur for him to see truly significant time on the floor this season, but his development is being closely monitored as well. Coach Tyronn Lue hoping that bringing in a veteran like Serge Ibaka will be beneficial for his development, as Ibaka is more or less the archetype of player that Fi aspires to be–a long rim deterrent that’s capable of knocking down threes at a high clip. A role that he played quite well in college.

Developing into a Serge Ibaka type player is exactly what the Clippers drafted Kabengele for, but he’ll need to improve on both the offensive and defensive sides of the floor to eventually carve out a niche in the league.

Defensively, Mfiondu did alright in the G-League, but as a relatively undersized center at 6’9″, there remains plenty room for improvement before he’s facing NBA-level talent. Particularly in keeping up with the speed of players in the NBA.

On the offensive end, Fi has shown real value in his ability to shoot the deep ball. Shooting a league-average 35% in the G-League, his shooting could stand to take a slight jump, but at the center position, that’s serviceable. The knock against him on this side of the ball is that he really likes throwing up shots. Not terrible in a vacuum, as long as they’re going down, but if he’s to play a meaningful role with the LA Clippers, he’ll need to look to swing the ball more often to set up his teammates and display better shot selection in general.

As essentially the third center on the team’s depth chart, it’s not entirely out of the question that Mfiondu is able to pick up spot minutes here and there, assuming he does enough to show the coaching staff in practice that he’s taking a step forward. If motivation was ever an issue, he’ll now have the Clippers’ second-round pick from this past draft in Daniel Oturu, who plays a very similar role, to push him. Even if he doesn’t get the large swaths of minutes that he may want, Kabengele will need to show consistent signs of improvement in practice and with the Agua Caliente Clippers (assuming the participate in the G-League bubble) to stick.

All of that being said, the potential that’s been shown by both Mfiondu and Terance is very exciting, and they may well play a big role on LA Clippers teams now and in the future. We all look forward to seeing how they develop and wish them the best heading into this season.