Paul George to miss at least the first 10 games of the season

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

Swap Siakam for George, last year...we probably don't make it.

One of the guys at the top has to be durable.

[og15]

Exactly. They always had Harris or Gallo as their leading scorer giving them 20+ PPG.

Avery Bradley also played a ton of minutes.

I don't know if people are just ignorant of the roster changes (losing SGA, Harris, Gallo, Bradley, etc) or if their brain is doing some type of selective memory trick.

The current Clippers without Kawhi or PG13 would really struggle to score enough points. They'd get destroyed on most nights.

Bradley? He was not good as a Clipper, not worth mentioning, he played a lot because Doc liked him, but it wasn’t positive, just like how Gortat played a lot but was quickly discarded after Zubac came on board. Now, there was some thought that the team was also trying to boost some trade values. Either way, Shamet easily makes up for him AND more, just like he did after he joined the team.

So sure, unless one or George or Leonard are there, we can’t compare to last season’s team, but with one of the two, we can as it is the version of the team post All-Star, just with a player who is a better scorer and defender than Gallo taking his role. The only missing guy would be SGA, but then there are the additions of Harkless and Green, other guys more useful than the Clippers version of Bradley. Please never bring up Bradley as a “loss”, the Clippers offense was 4.7 pts/100 worse with him on the floor and the defense was similarly below average with or without him. We were happy to see him go. It’s like bringing up Gortat as a “loss”, it was a gain to have them gone.

The Clippers were 18-9 (66.7%) after trading Harris. This was the lineup doing the damage:
G - Patrick Beverley
G - Landry Shamet
G - Shai Gilgeous Alexander
F - Danilo Gallinari
C - Ivica Zubac
——
6th - Lou Williams
7th - Montrezl Harrell
8th - Jamychal Green
9th - Garrett Temple

So if one of George or Leonard is missing this is the lineup:
G - Patrick Beverley
G - Landry Shamet
F - George or Leonard
F - Mo Harkless or Jamychal Green
C - Ivica Zubac
——
6th - Lou Williams
7th - Montrezl Harrell
8th - Jamychal Green or Mo Harkless
9th - Rodney McGruder

Mann has been impressing and is an older rookie, so it is very possible, likely he contributes, but just for not distracting from the point I won’t project anything related to him being in the rotation. That second lineup is a better version of the one that went 18-9 to end the season, so with one playing, they should be fine. In the first 10 games, there’s a Jazz/Spurs back to back and then a Bucks/Blazers back to back. Going to game 15, there’s also a Rockets/Pelicans back to back in there.

Kawhi is not supposed to be getting load management, but if he’s rested in or around the back to backs, we’re looking at around 2 games missed from the first 10, and 3 games from the first 15. So he’s playing 8/10 or 12/15 in this scenario. I would say that in games without both, Harrell should starts for scoring, but last season, Doc plugged in Green as the starter when Gallo didn’t play post-Harris trade. If the team can win at a 65% pace with one out, 10 games would be reasonably 5-5 or 6-4 depending on how the games without goes, and 15 games would be reasonably 8-7 to 10-5 depending on other outcomes. Nothing worrying there.

You're just proving my point. It doesn't matter how good he was, Bradley played a lot of minutes.

And then you post the lineup "doing the damage"...that has SGA and Gallo.

Again, proving my point.

The poster we were responding to claimed that this current roster without Kawhi had carried itself already. Which it obviously hasn't.

Yes, lambchop was making an inaccurate claim, the team always had a forward taking up the scoring load with the starters and complimented by/complimenting Williams/Harrell.

Bradley playing a lot of minutes though is irrelevant to the actual strength of team. It’s only relevant to an argument of “well he was part of the roster that was winning games, so losing him must then hurt”, but that’s not a good argument. Mentioning him in the sense of a “loss” implies that he was good for the Clippers or that maybe the Clippers don’t have other players to just play wing minutes and therefore he has value for this current team in simply his presence vs his actual performance. Clippers have wings to fill in the minutes though, and his “replacement” who is still on the team was and should still be better for the Clippers.

So yes, lambchop was suggesting something that didn’t happen. Going to your initial thought that it would be interesting to see Kawhi with a team without another star, which it might, but I doubt it will show anything noteworthy, especially since it is the regular season. The main value people are thinking of with star teammates is offensive support, and Williams and Harrell are sufficient to provide more than adequate offensive support. The team without George, when compared to last years team post All-Star is that team minus SGA and Gallo, but plus Kawhi, bigger wings and hopefully another productive rookie, which is TBD.

Before Tobi was traded, the team was 7-4 in games that Gallo missed:
Wins: @ATL, @SAS, @MIA, @CHI, SAC, @DET, @CHA
Losses: @DAL, ATL, LAL, @TOR

The lineup we are looking at there was:
SGA / Beverley / Bradley / Harris / Gortat
Harrell and Williams off the bench and the 8th man was Mike Scott

It’s the same story, inferior versions of the team than the one they will have with even just George or Kawhi could beat the mediocre and poor teams fairly consistently, and that was even the versions with two players in Bradley and Gortat who were not the most helpful guys on the court and who are now replaced with better guys (Shamet and Zubac). It was also without any solid wing depth (it was Thornwell, Wallace, etc before the trades) at that time. Small sample size, but again, enough to tell us that they could beat the bottom teams, so subtract SGA, Bradley, Harris, Gortat, put in Shamet, Leonard, Zubac, Green and Harkless, three of those guys who we also already saw in the system post All-Star and saw they were able to contribute to winning with this team, and I think we can be fairly confident about their ability to win a lot of games.

If Kawhi misses 2-3 games out of the first 10-15 games, even going 0-2 or 0-3 in those games won’t be the end of the world. If they for example start off the season 8-7, they would need to finish off winning 70% of their games to get 55 wins, so 47-20, very doable as long as no significant injury to a key player is sustained.

[XxIronChainzxX]

Not this team. They had SGA + Gallo. And Harris for a team. Sure Kawhi makes up for it. But let's not act like this hollowed out supporting cast did anything.

Exactly. They always had Harris or Gallo as their leading scorer giving them 20+ PPG.

Avery Bradley also played a ton of minutes.

I don't know if people are just ignorant of the roster changes (losing SGA, Harris, Gallo, Bradley, etc) or if their brain is doing some type of selective memory trick.

The current Clippers without Kawhi or PG13 would really struggle to score enough points. They'd get destroyed on most nights.

SGA had a really good rookie season but was still a rookie. Bradley was bad on the Clippers, getting Temple and Green for him was a stroke of luck for us. Besides Harris and Bradley were gone at the break, and Clippers had a better record after the break.

So basically, we're replacing Gallo with Kawhi, most of the other moving pieces cancel out. Zubac and Shamet were impact players for us after the break, and we're hoping for more out of them this season. We lost Temple but got a couple of suitable new wings.

I like Gallo a lot and am rooting for him (and SGA) in OKC, I hope the trade works out for them. But the Clippers will be absolutely fine for 10-15 games without George. I'm not saying they'll be 13-2 or whatever, but I think they'll still challenge for a top seed by season's end.

We'll see how the season plays out, but I'm just very sceptical that playing Kawhi 70+ games is a great idea. He's only hit that mark a few times in his career, and he had nagging injury issues in 2016 even before he got Zaza'd. I just don't think it's worth it or worthwhile to ask him to play hard or absent load management even if that's what he wants to do.

The other element is effort. One thing I saw last year that was different about the Raptors vs. seasons past was the degree to which they half-assed the regular season. Before last year, this was a team that gave 100% even in a Wednesday back to back against a .200 win team. That changed with Kawhi and the expectation of being a title contender. That meant losing winnable games. There's a balance here, but I think it's important for contenders to pace themselves. The Clippers cast is mostly young so I don't see this being an issue for them injury wise but just bear in mind that the team may not play as hard as they did last year even with as good a supporting cast.

Anyways, I don't think there's a reason right now to question that they challenge for a top seed seeing as there's no reason to think they get less than 60ish games of PG / Kawhi both healthy and they're not going 0-22 with just one of them on the court. This is a 55+ win team with load management, injuries etc.

[macNcheese3]

He will also miss the last 10 games of the post season lol

[og15]

All the matters is that PG and Kawhi are healthy come playoff time.

True, but the Clippers could enter the playoffs as the 3rd, 4th or 5th seed and have a tougher draw as a result. Even one or two games during the regular season is likely to affect playoff positioning in the west.

Nothing wrong with 3rd, the advantage vs 2nd is that in the first round you play the 6th instead of the 7th seed, and you have HCA in the 2nd round, but I doubt the quality of opponent at 6th vs 7th will make much difference. HCA matters against a similar quality team, but it should not be an issue.

4th or 5th is tough for having a harder opponent early, for sure, but matchups will matter and we can’t know that now, but having a gruelling and long 1st round series is not the best. The other issue 4th or 5th brings is the “rounds passed” challenge in that the Clippers would play the 1st seed in the 2nd round instead of the conference finals (assuming the first seed gets there which they usually do), but if they can’t beat them in the 2nd round, then maybe they can’t beat them in the conference finals, and while people do like to talk about rounds passed as opposed to quality of opponents you beat or lose to, it won’t really matter if they lose in 2nd or 3rd round and aren’t in the finals either way.

Of course some of the Clippers competition for top spots also have players that can miss games here and there and change things too. Westbrook and Harden are the ones that don’t miss games, which is why that’s a team I give a solid chance for securing the top seed. If we’re talking about anything from 1-2 wins being the difference, that’s just a factor that can affect anyone and not something to get worried about.