The Clippers have lost three games in a row after a mostly strong December – here’s a look at where things sit at around the halfway mark of the 2023 season.
The Good
Norman Powell: Awful performance against the Heat aside, Norm Powell has mostly been very solid since early November. Across 21 games in November and December, Norm averaged around 16.7 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 1.7 assists on over 64% True Shooting in about 24.5 minutes per game. I tend to think Norm is a bit overrated still – he offers very little on the glass, his assist to turnover ratio is an ugly 1 to 1, and he’s a below average defender – but scoring as efficiently as he has on his volume is still valuable. For the 2023 season, he’s getting to the line over four times a contest, which is helpful for a Clippers’ offense that can be jump-shot heavy. There are still some issues to be worked out, but this is more or less the Norm Powell the Clippers traded for.
Kawhi Leonard: The last time I wrote this column, I talked about Kawhi’s health. Since then, he’s not only remained healthy (illness recently aside), but he’s also stepped up his level of play. He still doesn’t resemble the 2021 playoff superstar Kawhi (or even 2020-2021 regular season Kawhi), but his play has been star-level. In 11 games in December, Kawhi averaged 20.6 points, 7.0 rebounds, and 4.2 assists per game on 57.5 True Shooting while playing good (albeit not amazing) defense. We started to see moments, even entire quarters, where Kawhi would take over on both ends. Also important – the minutes restriction is more or less done, as Kawhi averaged 31.9 minutes in December. It’s unclear if the consistency or ceiling will be there for the Clippers by the playoffs, but considering we aren’t even at the halfway point of the 2023 season, Kawhi looks great. If he keeps improving like this, he should be pretty close to 100% of peak capacity by the postseason.
The Bad
Paul George’s Hamstring: We don’t know the severity of Paul George’s hamstring injury that he suffered on Monday against the Heat. But hamstrings are always tricky, and this is on the same hamstring that caused him to miss a handful of games earlier in the season. It’s obviously preferable for the Clippers to sit out George until he’s feeling 100% to risk the possibility of aggravating it further, but it’s frustrating for another key player to miss time right when the Clippers were finally getting healthy. Hopefully this is only a minor tweak and PG will be back sooner than later, but it’s fine to feel some skepticism on the second reoccurrence of a hamstring issue within six weeks.
The Ugly
The Turnovers: The Clippers rank fifth-last in the NBA in turnover ratio, or the percentage of possessions that end in a turnover. The only teams below the Clippers are three tanking teams – the Magic, Rockets, and Spurs – and the carefree Warriors, whose turnovers are a byproduct of the amount of passing in their offense. The Warriors have an excuse, as they rank first in the NBA in assist percentage by a huge margin at 68.9%. The Clippers sit at 20th in assist percentage at 58.1%, which results in a third-worst assist to turnover ratio ahead of only the Magic and Pistons. In short, their turnovers are not from over passing and sharing too much, but sheer carelessness and sloppiness. Their offense has turned around a bit, but it’s still pretty damn bad (27th in the NBA) and the turnovers are a big reason why.
Three-Guard Lineups: The Clippers should be trying to play three-guard lineups as little as possible, yet Ty Lue has frequently gone to four-guard units this season (counting Paul George and Terance Mann as guards, since that’s their natural position, even if they’re bigger than a Luke Kennard or John Wall). These units have been bad. The foursome of Wall-Kennard-Powell-George is a -5.0 across five games, meaning they’ve been outscored by around 25 points. The Wall-Kennard-Mann-George unit, which is feasibly at least a bit bigger, has a -2.0 rating across six games. Looking at some key three-guard units, the Jackson-Norm-PG troika is a -3.4 across 19 games. Jackson-Norm-Mann is a -0.2 in 19 games, albeit across far fewer minutes. Wall-Norm-Mann is, shockingly, a slight positive at 0.4 in 17 games. On the other hand, Wall-Norm-PG is a -2.1 throughout 21 games. Not to go on and on, but compare those to the best units the Clippers have that have played real minutes together: Luke-PG-Kawhi, Luke-Kawhi-Nico, PG-Kawhi-Nico, Reggie-PG-Kawhi, Reggie-Kawhi-Zu, Luke-PG-Morris. Those units, outside of featuring a preponderance of Kawhi Leonard, also possess not a single three-guard pairing, and most have just a single small guard + George. Playing George at small forward with two of the smaller guards can work alongside Leonard and Nico, or one of the forwards and Zu – but doesn’t when there’s another guard out there. It’s time for the tiny lineups to end.
