Do the Clippers have the most stacked roster in the NBA right now?

[tamaraw08]

Do the clippers even have a top 20 player on their roster? No, I don't think they are the most stacked team in the league. They'll probably make the playoffs.

They ranked 3rd best in DRTG last season even with Harden.
Kawhi averaged 25/8/5 while Harden had 19/5/9 to force game 7 vs Denver in the last playoffs.
Now you add 3 legit scorers and a hardworking stretch 5 to the roster.
I understand Beal underperformed last year and CP3 is 40 years old but these guys can give them 15-20 quality minutes esp if they slow the pace down and dare the opposing team to execute better than them in the playoffs.

You're mixing some things up here to get your conclusion.

If you play slower, the opposition doesn't have to play slower, this is where you're mixing it up. You can certainly try and make them play slower through things like pressuring ball handlers, being efficient on offense and forcing them to play more from dead ball, limiting your live ball turnovers, etc

While the whole games possessions/game will decrease if you play slow, the opposition is not forced to play slower when they have the ball, just because you are. They will just have fewer possessions with the ball if you are walking it up all the time, but their possessions can still be quicker, and while you'll slow them down, the will speed you up every time they score fast.

Part of why Denver beat LAC last season was transition, the Clippers coaches had their t-shirts in training camp addressing it. If the Clippers want to slow down an opponent, they themselves have to be able to hustle and get back on defense to MAKE them play in half court.

....but trying to battle an oppositions transition and easy baskets without getting many yourself with half court offense is not a good idea.

We can agree to disagree here.
IMO, teams who play a faster tempo tend to commit more turnovers as compared to a more deliberate half court set where players are more patient to get into their respective positions to execute properly.
CP3 is great surveying the defense and is adept in entry passes. Kawhi has a very good 15 footer, shooting over defenders, Zubac is also a good low post scorer.
Less mistakes = less quick transition chances for easy baskets from opposing teams.
It's a lot more difficult for opposing teams to run and go for quicker offense after made baskets esp if the Clippers score from the FT line.
Less touches also tend to break shooting rhythms.

[JohnnyKILLroy]

I really hope so. Would be **** rad if they got one.

[JujitsuFlip]

2013-14 Nets all over again lol

Not saying they could have won it all, but the 13/14 nets season was doomed once brook lopez broke his leg and was lost for the season 17 games in. It would be like if the clips lost zubac this season.

And now BroLo is on this squad! Coincidence? I think not.

[og15]

They ranked 3rd best in DRTG last season even with Harden.
Kawhi averaged 25/8/5 while Harden had 19/5/9 to force game 7 vs Denver in the last playoffs.
Now you add 3 legit scorers and a hardworking stretch 5 to the roster.
I understand Beal underperformed last year and CP3 is 40 years old but these guys can give them 15-20 quality minutes esp if they slow the pace down and dare the opposing team to execute better than them in the playoffs.

You're mixing some things up here to get your conclusion.

If you play slower, the opposition doesn't have to play slower, this is where you're mixing it up. You can certainly try and make them play slower through things like pressuring ball handlers, being efficient on offense and forcing them to play more from dead ball, limiting your live ball turnovers, etc

While the whole games possessions/game will decrease if you play slow, the opposition is not forced to play slower when they have the ball, just because you are. They will just have fewer possessions with the ball if you are walking it up all the time, but their possessions can still be quicker, and while you'll slow them down, the will speed you up every time they score fast.

Part of why Denver beat LAC last season was transition, the Clippers coaches had their t-shirts in training camp addressing it. If the Clippers want to slow down an opponent, they themselves have to be able to hustle and get back on defense to MAKE them play in half court.

....but trying to battle an oppositions transition and easy baskets without getting many yourself with half court offense is not a good idea.

We can agree to disagree here.
IMO, teams who play a faster tempo tend to commit more turnovers as compared to a more deliberate half court set where players are more patient to get into their respective positions to execute properly.
CP3 is great surveying the defense and is adept in entry passes. Kawhi has a very good 15 footer, shooting over defenders, Zubac is also a good low post scorer.
Less mistakes = less quick transition chances for easy baskets from opposing teams.
It's a lot more difficult for opposing teams to run and go for quicker offense after made baskets esp if the Clippers score from the FT line.
Less touches also tend to break shooting rhythms.

Well we don't have to go by our opinions. A fast team that isn't very good, or is inexperienced, they will do that, some teams play fast because at least it gives them a chance as a poor team, but we're talking about the playoffs where it's selected for the better teams, which means you're not likely to be playing some team that's just wildly trying to push the pace lol

You can only be so efficient in half court basketball, especially on a consistent game to game basis, and half court will still be less efficient than transition basketball, it's not about what we feel, just reality and numbers. This is why teams always have the goal of getting back to stop transition.

There isn't an exact correlation between pace and turnover rate. OKC (100 pace) and Memphis (103.3 pace) were the fastest good offensive teams in the league, they had 13.1 and 10.3 TOV% (league average 12.6), one over, one way under.

OKC was the best team in the league at not turning the ball over and were 5th in pace. The Cavs (99.8) and Pacers (99.9) were also top turnover rate teams with high pace and good offense. Boston the slowest paced team in the league was the next best in TOV%, it's all about personnel.

The bottom 5 in turnover percentage in the league were represented by 3 teams with average (1) or below average pace (2), and 2 teams with above average. Clippers were 22nd in pace and 25th in TOV% because Harden is a higher turnover guy.

The Clippers already showed that last playoffs that a weakness of theirs was preventing transition baskets, they were maybe too slow to consistently get back, hence their coaches training camp shirts. Harden is also a guy that will get live ball turnovers, he's not CP, he's not Haliburton, and the team will need to consistently get back quicker than opponents can push.

The best antidote to transition is scoring, but you're not going to score everytime down, the next best is getting back on defense, and that's always a bigger struggle for older teams.

Clippers were a solid draw team in the regular season, but roster wise, with this version of Kawhi, Harden is the only true foul pressure guy, some other guys are decent, but he's not as reliable as getting there in the post season, and it won't make up for live ball turns. Clippers did 19.6 FGA vs Denver last playoffs, nothing particularly interesting, so I personally am not going to be relying on getting to the line as any primary means of slowing the opposition.

[OkcSinceSGA]

Along with OKC easily. As I said earlier we are looking at 2012-2013 Clips. Where 15-20 games or so the bench will probably straight up outplay the starters.

CP3/Dunn/Batum/Collins/Lopez/Bogdanovic is just ridiculous for a bench. This is their best shot ever. Outside of OKC this year is wide open. Boston likely drops off with Tatum out and diminishing returns of sorts on some guys that took a leap in recent years.

Then you just don’t have any clear cut title favorite after OKC. Houston got hit by the injury bug already. Denver, NY and Cleveland maybe?

[OkcSinceSGA]

Read on Twitter

Let me say this. 18 minutes.

[tamaraw08]

You're mixing some things up here to get your conclusion.

If you play slower, the opposition doesn't have to play slower, this is where you're mixing it up. You can certainly try and make them play slower through things like pressuring ball handlers, being efficient on offense and forcing them to play more from dead ball, limiting your live ball turnovers, etc

While the whole games possessions/game will decrease if you play slow, the opposition is not forced to play slower when they have the ball, just because you are. They will just have fewer possessions with the ball if you are walking it up all the time, but their possessions can still be quicker, and while you'll slow them down, the will speed you up every time they score fast.

Part of why Denver beat LAC last season was transition, the Clippers coaches had their t-shirts in training camp addressing it. If the Clippers want to slow down an opponent, they themselves have to be able to hustle and get back on defense to MAKE them play in half court.

....but trying to battle an oppositions transition and easy baskets without getting many yourself with half court offense is not a good idea.

We can agree to disagree here.
IMO, teams who play a faster tempo tend to commit more turnovers as compared to a more deliberate half court set where players are more patient to get into their respective positions to execute properly.
CP3 is great surveying the defense and is adept in entry passes. Kawhi has a very good 15 footer, shooting over defenders, Zubac is also a good low post scorer.
Less mistakes = less quick transition chances for easy baskets from opposing teams.
It's a lot more difficult for opposing teams to run and go for quicker offense after made baskets esp if the Clippers score from the FT line.
Less touches also tend to break shooting rhythms.

Well we don't have to go by our opinions. A fast team that isn't very good, or is inexperienced, they will do that, some teams play fast because at least it gives them a chance as a poor team, but we're talking about the playoffs where it's selected for the better teams, which means you're not likely to be playing some team that's just wildly trying to push the pace lol

You can only be so efficient in half court basketball, especially on a consistent game to game basis, and half court will still be less efficient than transition basketball, it's not about what we feel, just reality and numbers. This is why teams always have the goal of getting back to stop transition.

There isn't an exact correlation between pace and turnover rate. OKC (100 pace) and Memphis (103.3 pace) were the fastest good offensive teams in the league, they had 13.1 and 10.3 TOV% (league average 12.6), one over, one way under.

OKC was the best team in the league at not turning the ball over and were 5th in pace. The Cavs (99.8) and Pacers (99.9) were also top turnover rate teams with high pace and good offense. Boston the slowest paced team in the league was the next best in TOV%, it's all about personnel.

The bottom 5 in turnover percentage in the league were represented by 3 teams with average (1) or below average pace (2), and 2 teams with above average. Clippers were 22nd in pace and 25th in TOV% because Harden is a higher turnover guy.

The Clippers already showed that last playoffs that a weakness of theirs was preventing transition baskets, they were maybe too slow to consistently get back, hence their coaches training camp shirts. Harden is also a guy that will get live ball turnovers, he's not CP, he's not Haliburton, and the team will need to consistently get back quicker than opponents can push.

The best antidote to transition is scoring, but you're not going to score everytime down, the next best is getting back on defense, and that's always a bigger struggle for older teams.

Clippers were a solid draw team in the regular season, but roster wise, with this version of Kawhi, Harden is the only true foul pressure guy, some other guys are decent, but he's not as reliable as getting there in the post season, and it won't make up for live ball turns. Clippers did 19.6 FGA vs Denver last playoffs, nothing particularly interesting, so I personally am not going to be relying on getting to the line as any primary means of slowing the opposition.

I don't know where you get your numbers from, probably a better one
but the basic ones I checked.
They ranked 22nd at 97.5 in pace, 15 turnovers per game in the Reg season but still with 3rd best in DRTG.
So still slowed down the pace vs Denver at 92.3 and their turnovers were down to 12 turnovers/game (2nd lowest in the league per nba.com) with Harden decreasing his TO/100 from 6.0 to 4.0 pef bbref while his team placing 2nd BEST in ORTG in the league at 115.9 behind Cleveland.
Clippers ranked 3rd best in TO% at 12.8 behind just OKC and Cleveland.
Again, you probably have a better more accurate site but again it's not like Denver swept this team, Denver needed to win the final 7th game series at home to advance....

[og15]

We can agree to disagree here.
IMO, teams who play a faster tempo tend to commit more turnovers as compared to a more deliberate half court set where players are more patient to get into their respective positions to execute properly.
CP3 is great surveying the defense and is adept in entry passes. Kawhi has a very good 15 footer, shooting over defenders, Zubac is also a good low post scorer.
Less mistakes = less quick transition chances for easy baskets from opposing teams.
It's a lot more difficult for opposing teams to run and go for quicker offense after made baskets esp if the Clippers score from the FT line.
Less touches also tend to break shooting rhythms.

Well we don't have to go by our opinions. A fast team that isn't very good, or is inexperienced, they will do that, some teams play fast because at least it gives them a chance as a poor team, but we're talking about the playoffs where it's selected for the better teams, which means you're not likely to be playing some team that's just wildly trying to push the pace lol

You can only be so efficient in half court basketball, especially on a consistent game to game basis, and half court will still be less efficient than transition basketball, it's not about what we feel, just reality and numbers. This is why teams always have the goal of getting back to stop transition.

There isn't an exact correlation between pace and turnover rate. OKC (100 pace) and Memphis (103.3 pace) were the fastest good offensive teams in the league, they had 13.1 and 10.3 TOV% (league average 12.6), one over, one way under.

OKC was the best team in the league at not turning the ball over and were 5th in pace. The Cavs (99.8) and Pacers (99.9) were also top turnover rate teams with high pace and good offense. Boston the slowest paced team in the league was the next best in TOV%, it's all about personnel.

The bottom 5 in turnover percentage in the league were represented by 3 teams with average (1) or below average pace (2), and 2 teams with above average. Clippers were 22nd in pace and 25th in TOV% because Harden is a higher turnover guy.

The Clippers already showed that last playoffs that a weakness of theirs was preventing transition baskets, they were maybe too slow to consistently get back, hence their coaches training camp shirts. Harden is also a guy that will get live ball turnovers, he's not CP, he's not Haliburton, and the team will need to consistently get back quicker than opponents can push.

The best antidote to transition is scoring, but you're not going to score everytime down, the next best is getting back on defense, and that's always a bigger struggle for older teams.

Clippers were a solid draw team in the regular season, but roster wise, with this version of Kawhi, Harden is the only true foul pressure guy, some other guys are decent, but he's not as reliable as getting there in the post season, and it won't make up for live ball turns. Clippers did 19.6 FGA vs Denver last playoffs, nothing particularly interesting, so I personally am not going to be relying on getting to the line as any primary means of slowing the opposition.

I don't know where you get your numbers from, probably a better one
but the basic ones I checked.
They ranked 22nd at 97.5 in pace, 15 turnovers per game in the Reg season but still with 3rd best in DRTG.
So still slowed down the pace vs Denver at 92.3 and their turnovers were down to 12 turnovers/game (2nd lowest in the league per nba.com) with Harden decreasing his TO/100 from 6.0 to 4.0 pef bbref while his team placing 2nd BEST in ORTG in the league at 115.9 behind Cleveland.
Clippers ranked 3rd best in TO% at 12.8 behind just OKC and Cleveland.
Again, you probably have a better more accurate site but again it's not like Denver swept this team, Denver needed to win the final 7th game series at home to advance....

Clippers have a good team. It seems like you think we're discussing whether the Clippers can slow down the pace or not. I don't disagree they can, I disagree that it will happen just by playing slower themselves.

Looks like the same numbers, 22nd in pace, 25th in TOV%, despite being a slower team, they were not low turnover, but this was a product of personnel (Harden can be turnover prone).

Clippers half court defense and rebounding was excellent, they were the league best defensive rebounding team.

What I'm explaining is that they can't truly force a team to play slower just by playing slower themselves, they will also need to do other things, and if they don't want to get hurt by the transition opportunities that DO happen, they will need to get back on defense better than they did last year in the playoffs, which is still harder for an older, less athletic team, especially at the end of the season.

The Clippers didn't slow Denver down simply because they played slower themselves, they slowed them down with a combination of ball pressure, yes, not commiting a lot of turnovers that series helped, and of course Denver was also content to slow it down at times since their main guys were playing more minutes. Denver was also putting ball pressure the other way themselves

The team has good coaches, but there will be some personnel limitations they will have to figure out, and those concerns are real.

[Up-And-Coming]

They can certainly rise against the best but I simply can't bet on them being a high home-court playoff seed contrary to many of the early predictions. They are the oldest roster in the history of the NBA and 8 out of their top 11 rotation players are above 30 with several of their best over 35 with extensive injury history.

Their accumulation of talent can make them a tough opponent against anyone in the playoffs if fully healthy but over a large +82 game timeframe I just can't see them reaching their win predictions and that's not even taking into consideration the pending Kawhi/Ballmer investigation.

[tamaraw08]

Well we don't have to go by our opinions. A fast team that isn't very good, or is inexperienced, they will do that, some teams play fast because at least it gives them a chance as a poor team, but we're talking about the playoffs where it's selected for the better teams, which means you're not likely to be playing some team that's just wildly trying to push the pace lol

You can only be so efficient in half court basketball, especially on a consistent game to game basis, and half court will still be less efficient than transition basketball, it's not about what we feel, just reality and numbers. This is why teams always have the goal of getting back to stop transition.

There isn't an exact correlation between pace and turnover rate. OKC (100 pace) and Memphis (103.3 pace) were the fastest good offensive teams in the league, they had 13.1 and 10.3 TOV% (league average 12.6), one over, one way under.

OKC was the best team in the league at not turning the ball over and were 5th in pace. The Cavs (99.8) and Pacers (99.9) were also top turnover rate teams with high pace and good offense. Boston the slowest paced team in the league was the next best in TOV%, it's all about personnel.

The bottom 5 in turnover percentage in the league were represented by 3 teams with average (1) or below average pace (2), and 2 teams with above average. Clippers were 22nd in pace and 25th in TOV% because Harden is a higher turnover guy.

The Clippers already showed that last playoffs that a weakness of theirs was preventing transition baskets, they were maybe too slow to consistently get back, hence their coaches training camp shirts. Harden is also a guy that will get live ball turnovers, he's not CP, he's not Haliburton, and the team will need to consistently get back quicker than opponents can push.

The best antidote to transition is scoring, but you're not going to score everytime down, the next best is getting back on defense, and that's always a bigger struggle for older teams.

Clippers were a solid draw team in the regular season, but roster wise, with this version of Kawhi, Harden is the only true foul pressure guy, some other guys are decent, but he's not as reliable as getting there in the post season, and it won't make up for live ball turns. Clippers did 19.6 FGA vs Denver last playoffs, nothing particularly interesting, so I personally am not going to be relying on getting to the line as any primary means of slowing the opposition.

I don't know where you get your numbers from, probably a better one
but the basic ones I checked.
They ranked 22nd at 97.5 in pace, 15 turnovers per game in the Reg season but still with 3rd best in DRTG.
So still slowed down the pace vs Denver at 92.3 and their turnovers were down to 12 turnovers/game (2nd lowest in the league per nba.com) with Harden decreasing his TO/100 from 6.0 to 4.0 pef bbref while his team placing 2nd BEST in ORTG in the league at 115.9 behind Cleveland.
Clippers ranked 3rd best in TO% at 12.8 behind just OKC and Cleveland.
Again, you probably have a better more accurate site but again it's not like Denver swept this team, Denver needed to win the final 7th game series at home to advance....

Clippers have a good team. It seems like you think we're discussing whether the Clippers can slow down the pace or not. I don't disagree they can, I disagree that it will happen just by playing slower themselves.

Looks like the same numbers, 22nd in pace, 25th in TOV%, despite being a slower team, they were not low turnover, but this was a product of personnel (Harden can be turnover prone).

Clippers half court defense and rebounding was excellent, they were the league best defensive rebounding team.

What I'm explaining is that they can't [b]truly force a team to play slower just by playing slower themselves[/b], they will also need to do other things, and if they don't want to get hurt by the transition opportunities that DO happen, they will need to get back on defense better than they did last year in the playoffs, which is still harder for an older, less athletic team, especially at the end of the season.

The Clippers didn't slow Denver down simply because they played slower themselves, they slowed them down with a combination of ball pressure, yes, not commiting a lot of turnovers that series helped, and of course Denver was also content to slow it down at times since their main guys were playing more minutes. Denver was also putting ball pressure the other way themselves

The team has good coaches, but there will be some personnel limitations they will have to figure out, and those concerns are real.

Im probably misunderstanding the series stats.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/2025-nba-western-conference-first-round-clippers-vs-nuggets.html
Clippers ranked 22nd in the RS at 97.5 chose to slowed down their own pace vs Denver down to 92.3.
Denver ranked 8th in pace in the RS AT 99.8 for some reason also slowed down their pace to also 92.3
Again with the Clips slowing the pace, they decreased their turnovers to 12 from 15, (with Harden also decreasing his TO/100 from 6 to 4) consequently improving their ORTG to 115.6
Nuggets from having 4th best in ORTG at 119 in the RS went down to 115 vs the Clippers.
Denver then moves on and face OKC which ranked 6th in pace at 100 and then the Nuggets increased their pace at 99.2.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/2025-nba-western-conference-semifinals-nuggets-vs-thunder.html
But yes yes yes, Clippers of course do other things esp hustling back to play better transition defense etc.
It's just for me, older players have slower foot speed on defense and it just make sense to me for them to play a slower more deliberate pace to limit mistakes, less turnovers means less chances for the other team to run for easy transition baskets.

[bonita_the_frog]

At least if they get injured they'll keep winning half their games, whereas other teams get injured and go on losing streaks...
But i think they'll still need Kawhi fairly healthy if they want to win 60+ games...

[zero rings]

They are being underrated because their star players are unlikeable. In terms of raw talent, they’re the second best team behind OKC.

A Kawhi injury could derail them, but they are so deep they might win 50+ anyways.

[Sixers in 4]

Not even close. They have a bunch of old guys who are names but they don't have a franchise cornerstone superstar. Kawhi is likely not going to be healthy and Harden is semi-washed. They are basically this eras 1998 Houston Rockets which is their ceiling if Kawhi is healthy and have a legit older superstar, their floor is the 2021-22 Lakers if Kawhi can't go or misses most of the year.

The NBA is no country for old men

[brackdan70]

Just looking at their roster and man they did some major off season work. James harden, Kawhi, Bradley Beal, Zubac, John Collin. They even have all stars coming off the bench like Brook Lopez and Chris Paul. They still have Bognadvic and Dunn.

This team is loaded and can’t wait to see how good they are this season.

If it was 5 years ago that would be a stacked roster.
Most of those dudes are in the downslope of their career and not all stars anymore.
Harden, Kawhi if healthy and eligible to play, along with Zubac make a nice big 3. Experienced and solid supporting role players as well. Good team potentially but far from stacked.

[og15]

I don't know where you get your numbers from, probably a better one
but the basic ones I checked.
They ranked 22nd at 97.5 in pace, 15 turnovers per game in the Reg season but still with 3rd best in DRTG.
So still slowed down the pace vs Denver at 92.3 and their turnovers were down to 12 turnovers/game (2nd lowest in the league per nba.com) with Harden decreasing his TO/100 from 6.0 to 4.0 pef bbref while his team placing 2nd BEST in ORTG in the league at 115.9 behind Cleveland.
Clippers ranked 3rd best in TO% at 12.8 behind just OKC and Cleveland.
Again, you probably have a better more accurate site but again it's not like Denver swept this team, Denver needed to win the final 7th game series at home to advance....

Clippers have a good team. It seems like you think we're discussing whether the Clippers can slow down the pace or not. I don't disagree they can, I disagree that it will happen just by playing slower themselves.

Looks like the same numbers, 22nd in pace, 25th in TOV%, despite being a slower team, they were not low turnover, but this was a product of personnel (Harden can be turnover prone).

Clippers half court defense and rebounding was excellent, they were the league best defensive rebounding team.

What I'm explaining is that they can't [b]truly force a team to play slower just by playing slower themselves[/b], they will also need to do other things, and if they don't want to get hurt by the transition opportunities that DO happen, they will need to get back on defense better than they did last year in the playoffs, which is still harder for an older, less athletic team, especially at the end of the season.

The Clippers didn't slow Denver down simply because they played slower themselves, they slowed them down with a combination of ball pressure, yes, not commiting a lot of turnovers that series helped, and of course Denver was also content to slow it down at times since their main guys were playing more minutes. Denver was also putting ball pressure the other way themselves

The team has good coaches, but there will be some personnel limitations they will have to figure out, and those concerns are real.

Im probably misunderstanding the series stats.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/2025-nba-western-conference-first-round-clippers-vs-nuggets.html
Clippers ranked 22nd in the RS at 97.5 chose to slowed down their own pace vs Denver down to 92.3.
Denver ranked 8th in pace in the RS AT 99.8 for some reason also slowed down their pace to also 92.3
Again with the Clips slowing the pace, they decreased their turnovers to 12 from 15, (with Harden also decreasing his TO/100 from 6 to 4) consequently improving their ORTG to 115.6
Nuggets from having 4th best in ORTG at 119 in the RS went down to 115 vs the Clippers.
Denver then moves on and face OKC which ranked 6th in pace at 100 and then the Nuggets increased their pace at 99.2.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/2025-nba-western-conference-semifinals-nuggets-vs-thunder.html
But yes yes yes, Clippers of course do other things esp hustling back to play better transition defense etc.
It's just for me, older players have slower foot speed on defense and it just make sense to me for them to play a slower more deliberate pace to limit mistakes, less turnovers means less chances for the other team to run for easy transition baskets.

Yes, in a game or series, the pace of both teams will be the same, so yes, the Clippers reduced the possessions, but their slowing down of Denver themselves was done in a combination of ways. They of course had to play slower themselves, but that alone doesn't inherently make the other team play slower, but if you play really slow, the pace (this is measuring how many possessions the game/series has, not how fast an individual team plays when they have the ball).

You're interpreting pace as how fast each individual team plays vs the amount of possessions. The pace of both teams is the total pace of the series and is affected by what both teams do (or don't do). The Clippers reduced the Nuggets pace by pressuring on defense, deliberately fouling (trying to do it in a non take foul way) to stop transition (they did get some take fouls while doing this). They reduced their own pace of course by just playing slower, but Denver also looked to take out Clippers transition, because if you play fast in your possessions and make the other team not get much in transition, that still benefits you.

So yes, they can of course always slow their own pace down, and they can slow the opposition pace with defense and other tactics, again, I never said that's not possible. Read back, I said simply playing slower yourself doesn't mean the opposition plays slower in their possessios, the whole game and series pace will be slower, but it doesn't automatically mean the opponent won't make you run when they have the ball.

Just for simple numbers, if you play at a speed that would lead to 80 possessions a game and your opponent plays at a speed that would lead to 100 possessions a game, the game pace would end up at 90. While the opposition would get fewer possessions, their speed when they have their possessions would be fast.

Think of the early to mid 00's Suns, they played fast, but since all their opponents played slower, they could only get so many possessions a game, so their average pace (possessions a game) looks slow compared to today, but their pace when they actually had the ball in their hands was not slow. If you wanted to slow them, you had to do more than just play slow yourself.

This of course is going to be the Clippers goal, a big goal for them in the season is getting back, but them playing slower alone won't make the oppositions possession slower, all that can do is reduce the total game possessions, and while that does decrease the pace of the game, it in itself does not decrease how much they might be forced to run on defense (maybe we should call this speed instead of pace to not confuse it) which is what they also mainly want to decrease as that's one that isn't primarily in their control.

[bushybrah_]

If this was 2018, yes.

[knicksfan974]

The Knicks are the most stacked team this year.

Because they swapped Payne for Clarkson and Achiuwa for Yabusele? Lmao

Yes, both were huge upgrades. And they were able to achieve this by keeping their core together, that already was only two games short of the NBA Finals.

[ryguy613]

Along with OKC easily. As I said earlier we are looking at 2012-2013 Clips. Where 15-20 games or so the bench will probably straight up outplay the starters.

CP3/Dunn/Batum/Collins/Lopez/Bogdanovic is just ridiculous for a bench. This is their best shot ever. Outside of OKC this year is wide open. Boston likely drops off with Tatum out and diminishing returns of sorts on some guys that took a leap in recent years.

Then you just don’t have any clear cut title favorite after OKC. Houston got hit by the injury bug already. Denver, NY and Cleveland maybe?

Do you normally have clear cut title favoriteS (plural)? OKC is THE title favorite. Outside of that there are several contenders. I think thats how it usually goes. I personally think Denver is the second best team in the west after OKC

[JujitsuFlip]

The Knicks are the most stacked team this year.

Because they swapped Payne for Clarkson and Achiuwa for Yabusele? Lmao

Yes, both were huge upgrades. And they were able to achieve this by keeping their core together, that already was only two games short of the NBA Finals.

Nah, i ventured into the Knicks team forum. Everyone over there talking about Yausele can't rebound and Clarkson is his typical Jekyll/Hyde self.

Knicks are still only 8 deep, far from stacked lol

[knicksfan974]

Because they swapped Payne for Clarkson and Achiuwa for Yabusele? Lmao

Yes, both were huge upgrades. And they were able to achieve this by keeping their core together, that already was only two games short of the NBA Finals.

Nah, i ventured into the Knicks team forum. Everyone over there talking about Yausele can't rebound and Clarkson is his typical Jekyll/Hyde self.

Knicks are still only 8 deep, far from stacked lol

Let's see:

Robinson
KAT
OG
Bridges
Brunson

Hart
McBride
Yabusele
Clarkson

That right there is a legit 9-man rotation, one that is as good as any 9-man rotation in the league.