LA Clippers: 3 players that will benefit from Kawhi Leonard and Paul George’s absence

2. Luke Kennard

The second biggest beneficiary of PG and Kawhi’s absence has to be Luke Kennard.

When Kennard was brought to the team, many thought “Hey, he’s another shooter who can put the ball on the floor and attack better than Landry Shamet could.”

That was arguably the right assessment. When he was given his new contract by the team shortly after, fans began to have much higher expectations.

That’s just it though. Kennard has been great in his role. He’s shooting 45% from deep and has honestly impressed me with the number of good backside cuts he has made towards the basket.

With Kawhi and PG out, he gets to show us more of that.

Kennard can flat out score and I expect him to get the nod at the starting shooting guard position. He will likely have the ball in his hands a lot more often with the tweaked starting lineup and it will be up to him to not only score in bunches but also to playmake.

We have seen that Ty Lue’s offense sets up everyone as a playmaker but Kennard is averaging just 1.9 assists in his nearly 23 minutes a game. Last season for Detroit, Kennard was a much better passer to the tune of 4.1 assists in just 10 more minutes per game. That was nearly a 20% assist percentage.

With a higher usage rate coming his way for the next couple of games, we should see more of his passing ability. He looks to be the favorite to eventually take the sixth man role away from Lou Williams, so perhaps he can put together a string of games similar to what we have seen from Lou in the past when stars are out.