Scalabrine wrote:OkcSinceSGA wrote:Scalabrine wrote:He's not wrong. Last year in LA he took 11.4 fga per game and that was the fewest he'd taken since his 3rd year when he was coming off the bench in OKC. It was also his second lowest usg% of his career (also when he was in OKC coming off the bench). Career low free throw rate too and career high 3pt rate.
His TS% was just the same as it's always been, so it's reasonable to imagine that with a different shot diet, where he's getting into the paint and drawing more fouls, with a higher usage%, that he should be putting up much better numbers than he was last year. Weather that means more wins for the Clippers is a different thing, I think the West is much stronger, and the Clippers just lack some of the talent that the rest of the team has.
The RealGM Survivor Poll has them as the consensus 13th seed, and thats where I view them. Harden may put up some great numbers doing it, but I don't see it leading to success unless Kawhi plays 65+ games.
13th is insane. Even if Kawhi misses 50+ games they are a 35 win team. I don’t think people quite realize how good this depth and defense can be. I have the Clippers between 42-48 wins and 6-8 seed. Bookmark this now. Remember when people called OKC at 45 wins I said 55+. The prior year most had OKC at bottom of conference and I rightly predicted .500 or better.
My mistake, they were 12th
Zubac/Tucker/Bamba
Jones Jr./Batum/Brown
Mann/Coffey
Powell/Porter/Hyland
Harden/Dunn
IF Kawhi is there, then sure, it's got the talent, but if he's missing 50 games??? They are a tier below in my opinion.
Without Kawhi thats a pretty **** looking team. Losing PG for nothing was a huge blow