LA Clippers: 7 Questions We Have After the First 7 Games

Do any young guys see important minutes in the postseason?

The history of the LA Clippers on draft night is not a pretty one, to say the least. Not counting this year’s class, which is far too early to judge, you’re looking at a history of Terance Mann, Mfiondu Kabengele, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jerome Robinson, Brice Johnson and C.J. Wilcox, to name a few.

Not exactly an All-Rookie team, that, outside of Shai. For the youngsters on this team, Fi has looked fairly good, especially in this year’s preseason, and Terance Mann has had a couple moments, but nothing that confirms he’ll be a long term rotation player for the Clippers. Amir Coffey is struggling to see the court, and isn’t particularly productive when he does.

At this point, fans of the team should start feeling better and better about the Paul George trade. His performance aside, the odds that the Clips would actually get a contributor with any of those draft picks seems pretty low.

If Mann, Coffey or Kabengele are going to turn into rotation players for us, they’ve got to be able to see the court in meaningful minutes, and in important games. So far we’re only seeing them play big minutes in games that are heavy on garbage time, like the Dallas loss and the Minnesota win. Outside of those games, Terance Mann, for example, has seen about 21 minutes in 4 games.

I want to see these potential future rotation players in the playoffs, but I want them to deserve those minutes. Our guys aren’t getting any younger, and at some point we’re going to need an injection of youth if we want to stay relevant. It doesn’t have to be Mann, Coffey and Fi. But if it’s not any of them, we don’t have a whole lot of cracks at getting somebody else.