The LA Clippers’ depth might not be an issue come this postseason.
A lot is being made about the LA Clippers’ depth this season, especially following Friday night’s blown lead and loss to the Golden State Warriors.
You know what? That’s pretty fair. The Clippers’ second unit is statistically the worst in the league at this early point in the season and has ultimately cost them at least a couple of games. There’s a right to be concerned. When we do eventually get to the postseason though, they may not matter as much.
This is assuming that the roster doesn’t change at all. While that’s probably unlikely, we have no idea how this team will look come late April, so let’s just roll with what we have at this time.
Ty Lue will absolutely have to shorten the rotation. Currently, he’s playing 10 players a game, sometimes going as deep as 11 or 12 depending on the situation. Come playoffs, that rotation should shrink to eight or nine players, tops. What does that mean?
It means the Clippers’ black hole defensive trio of Lou Williams, Luke Kennard, and Reggie Jackson more than likely won’t see the court together, which is an improvement on its own. It also means that Ty Lue will be more likely to stagger Paul George and Kawhi Leonard, giving the Clippers a superstar on the court at nearly all times. The Clippers playoff rotation would look like this:
- PG: Patrick Beverley
- SG: Paul George
- SF: Kawhi Leonard
- PF: Nicolas Batum
- C: Serge Ibaka
- 6th: Marcus Morris
- 7th: Luke Kennard
- 8th: Ivica Zubac
- 9th: Lou Williams or Reggie Jackson
A combination of keeping the rotation short and staggering the stars would improve the defensive side of the ball and would keep defenses focused on Kawhi and PG, leaving all the rotational pieces to perform to their best ability in their roles. The team would also always have at a minimum two positive defenders on the court with a third out there most of the time.
It has only been 10 games thus far so some of the issues are still a bit overblown. There’s time to fix this. Even so, if the team stays as they are, we should still have hope that the postseason rotation will look different and the LA Clippers will be set up to compete and win.