The Los Angeles Lakers aren’t the only team with Los Angeles activated alarms at this start of the season. The LA Clipperswho many viewed as one of the Western Conference favorites in the preseason, Nor do they start as expected and this Sunday they added another defeat at home: convincing 112-91 over the New Orleans Pelicans.
The story of the fight? The return from Zion, after missing two games due to a hip injury, me 21 points, 12 rebounds and 7 assists in just over 30 minutes on the pitch. Dominant as ever and responsible for delivering another blow to de Lue, to let them go note 2-4.
Zion Williamson. Double-Double 💪
21 PTS | 12 SBR | 7AST | 1 STL | 47.9 FPTSpic.twitter.com/yAu0HsnDs4
— NBA Fantasy (@NBAFantasy) October 30, 2022
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What exactly is going on with the Clippers? There are two points that stand out above the rest.
The second worst offense in the NBA
The Clippers started the day as the second least effective offense of the match (only their neighbors the Lakers are below) and against the Pelicans they had another afternoon to forget, which will continue to sink them in the standings: barely 91 points, 41% from the field, 28% on 3-pointers, 61% on 3-pointers and 15 turnovers.
The bad timing of the Clippers offense is explained by individual and collective failures. For starters, they have fourth-worst three-point percentage in the league (31%) with two very clear culprits for them: the player with the most tries in the team (7 per game), Paul George, is only at 25.7%. The second with more launches of the three, Norman Powell (4.3 per game) is at 23.1%.
If the two highest intensity shooters are at or below 25% shooting, that obviously has a noticeable impact on the overall percentage. Especially when the third of most attempts, Reggie Jacksonit is not a guarantee either (32%).
The other major problem with the Clippers’ offense is turnovers: they are by far the team with the highest average per game at 17.5. And there you can not directly point to certain players (although George and Powell are also very bad in this regard), but in a collective mode that finds too many mistakes.
Which is quite impressive when you consider that among the 10 players with the most minutes on the roster, John Wall is hardly a new face.
In that sense, there should be two points of some illusion: last year these same players (and coaching staff) ended up mid-table in terms of ball deliveries, so logic suggests that they should improve this deficit. On the other side, and George and Powell should go up back to NORMAL and greatly improve his 3-point percentages.
What about Kawhi Leonard’s injury?
Where the story gets a little murkier for the Clippers is with Kawhi.
Leonard missed the entirety of 2021-2022 with a major right knee injury suffered in the 2021 playoffs and after about a year and a half of recovery, the expectation was that he would be ready and healthy for the start of 2022-2023. But the reality so far has been very different.
Kawhi barely played two of the Clippers’ first six games and will also sit out the seventh (Monday vs. Rockets) with complications in the same injured knee. And when he played, he did it inside limited minutes and as a substitute.
On the one hand, it makes sense that the Clippers have it be as careful as possible with Leonard. On the other hand, it is one disturbing news that there is already talk of pain in an injured area a year and a half ago, with barely 41 minutes on the pitch this 2022-2023. Even more so considering Kawhi’s history with injuries and long recoveries.
This lack of running because you don’t have all the healthy parts during the Tactical Phase already hurt the team in the playoffs in previous seasons. And while some of his problems from this start can be improved, if the underlying problem (Leonard’s health) doesn’t have a strong solution these months, history could repeat itself in the next postseason.
