Basic Information
Height: 6’1″
Weight: 185 pounds
Age: 31
Position: Point Guard
NBA Experience: Eighth season overall, third with Clippers
Key Stats: Averaging 7.9 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 3.7 assists per game while shooting a shade south of 38% from the 3-point line. His numbers across the board are almost identical to his production from 2018-19.
Contract Status: Beverley is in the first season of a 3-year deal he signed last summer. He’s on the books for $12,345,680 this season, and his salary will increase by about $1 million per season until the end of the 2021-22 campaign.
Expectations
The Clippers had a glut of viable guard options in each of Beverley’s first two years with the team, but the makeup of the roster changed dramatically last summer with the additions of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. After re-signing in July, Beverley entered the season as one of two NBA-proven guards in the mix. The other, of course, being Lou Williams.
Beverley fought his way into a real NBA role with the Rockets several years back by bringing energy to the defensive side of the game while helping space the floor offensively. His job with the Clippers is to do the exact same thing.
LAC is unique in that they don’t need to rely too heavily on their point guards to generate offense, which frees Beverley to spend more of his seemingly limitless energy on defense. The Clippers were bottom-10 in the league in defensive rating last season, but they were expected to improve vastly in that regard after adding Kawhi and PG-13.
Reality
And improve they have. LA allowed 109 points per 100 possessions last season. So far in 2019-20, they’ve allowed 104.9. That’s the fifth-best mark in the league, trailing only the Bucks, Raptors, Lakers, and Celtics. Pretty good company.
Beverley probably won’t make an All-Defense team this season with so much competition at the guard spots, but his work on that end has been as solid as ever. Between Bev, George, and Leonard, the Clippers have all sorts of length and switchability on defense. That’s going to come in handy come playoff time, especially against teams like the Rockets and Lakers among Western Conference foes.
The Clips added Reggie Jackson in February thanks to the sketchy buyout market, and that move has led to less playing time for Beverley and Landry Shamet. Bev is averaging 27.1 minutes per game on the year, but his average playing time has declined with each passing month since the beginning of November. He averaged 23.5 minutes per game in February, and it was down to 22.8 per game through five March contests before the hiatus.
The dip in playing time isn’t really an indictment against Beverley’s productivity. As mentioned, his per-game numbers and shooting stats are about the same as they were last season. Doc Rivers just has all sorts of options at his disposal. With so many mouths to feed, he doesn’t have to run anyone into the ground. Kawhi is the only guy on the team averaging at least 30 minutes per game.
Strengths
The Clippers don’t need Beverley to do too much offensively, but he’s capable of doing what they do need him to do. Move the ball, space the floor, and knock down open looks. He’s a 38% career shooter from deep. He’s at 37.9% this season.
Beverley has emerged as one of the team’s vocal leaders ever since arriving a few years ago. There’s nobody better at feeding off the energy of the crowd and getting the team fired up. So, it’ll be interesting to see how he gets himself going without fans in the building when the games restart.
You also can’t rattle off Patrick Beverley’s list of strengths without mentioning his legendary shit-talking. Beverley is the epitome of a pest to his opponents, which is the ultimate compliment for a player with his job description. This man managed to drag Steph Curry’s defense despite not having played a real basketball game in over two months. Good to see the competitive fire is still there. We stan a king.
Getting into the heads of NBA-caliber players isn’t easy. Beverley is one of the few that seems to know how it’s done.
Weaknesses
Beverley may be one of the most offensively-limited starting point guards in the NBA, but on this team that isn’t much of an issue. He doesn’t have the ball in his hands all that often, and he averages fewer than seven shots a game.
The most glaring weakness of the player has been his ability to stay on the court. Bev played a career-high 78 regular season games last year, but so far this season he’s played in just 48 of the Clippers’ 64 games. Beverley suited up just 11 times in his first season with the team. He has missed time with groin, wrist, and hip injuries so far this year. He also suffered a concussion back in December.
If the season does start, the league is planning on having teams holding several weeks’ worth of training camp so that the players can (hopefully) get back into game shape before tipping off. It will have been over four months without games if the league hits its reported July 31 target date. Here’s hoping the long layoff won’t have an adverse effect on Beverley’s ability to stay healthy come playoff time.
The Clips are better equipped to deal with a potential Beverley injury now that Jackson is in the picture, but they’ll struggle to hit their full potential as a team if their starting point guard comes down with an ill-timed injury.
