You could say the Los Angeles Clippers had a successful offseason. Kawhi Leonard plays for them now, and so does Paul George. They are from the area, and they decided they would like to try to bring the Clippers their first championship. Very nice, positive stuff.
In addition to signing Leonard and trading for George, the Clippers retained Patrick Beverley and JaMychal Green on fair contracts and somehow acquired a first-round pick by being willing to add Moe Harkless to the team. That is some sort of wizardry.
The Clippers are surely championship contenders, and they probably deserve to be seen as the favorites. Every team, however, faces some degree of uncertainty. Here is an attempt to predict what will happen:
1. Health will be a constant and somewhat annoying storyline
George had two shoulder surgeries on his shoulders in the offseason, and he'll miss at least the first 10 games, per coach Doc Rivers. Leonard missed 22 games last year and I could barely believe he was able to walk by the end of the Finals. These are two of the league's best players, in their respective primes, but it's not necessarily concern-trolling to frame health as a potential problem. They have both dealt with serious injuries before.
As far as the regular season goes, I'm optimistic. Harkless, a starter for most of his Portland tenure, is fully qualified to play 30-plus minutes if one of the two superstars is out of the lineup, with Lou Williams and Montrezl Harrell pick-and-rolling opponents to death on the second unit. In the postseason, though, the Clippers will need their Large Wing Combo* to be at full strength.
It's unfair to call Leonard and George injury-prone, and I assume that the Clippers will do everything they can to help them peak at the right time. It is no fun to talk about the downside of pairing them, but it exists, and until they prove that there's nothing to worry about, the discussion will not go away.
2. The offense will be great, but it won't always be beautiful
Leonard didn't have a teammate as good as George in Toronto, and even in San Antonio he never had this type of player -- i.e. a player like himself -- at his side. Those teams, however, were full of basketball geniuses, and they were able to blend Leonard's one-on-one game with a system that emphasized ball movement and empowered players to make reads. If the Clippers have a flaw on offense, it is that nobody passes like Boris Diaw, Marc Gasol or Manu Ginobili.
Maybe they don't need anyone like that. Leonard and George aren't known as point-forward types, but they're ideal partners because they are deadly shooters, dangerous with and without the ball. The Raptors wouldn't have made it out of the East, let alone won a title, if Leonard hadn't evolved as a passer last season. (He had nine assists in Game 5 of the conference finals in Milwaukee!) One philosophy here is that, as long as Los Angeles has proper spacing, it can essentially just let Leonard, George and Williams cook. This is what Houston would do with this personnel.
Another philosophy is to mix it up and spend the regular season trying to find basketball nirvana. With opponents loathe to help off the stars, Rivers could give Beverley and Landry Shamet more playmaking responsibility. He could also make Ivica Zubac watch Gasol film. "I've always been a ball-movement coach," Rivers said two years ago, and, he has seemed to relish the Clippers' more free-flowing style since the end of the Chris Paul era. However they choose to approach it, I would be surprised if they didn't have an extremely efficient offense by midseason, but having a beautiful one will be a challenge.
3. The (perimeter) defense will live up to the hype
Rivers can play Beverley, George, Leonard and Harkless together, and I feel bad for anyone who tries to run offense against that group. Aggressive, trapping defense is no longer in style the way it was when the Heat were doing it, but Los Angeles has perimeter players who can cause chaos by trapping selectively. The Clippers can also switch liberally 1 through 4 and throw multiple looks at most stars. Bonkers.
The issue is the center position. Zubac is huge and knows how to use his size to protect the rim, but he's not all that mobile and is vulnerable against stretch bigs. In the Clippers' playoff series versus the Warriors, he went from starting to being removed from the rotation entirely in three games. Harrell's motor is legendary and his enormous wingspan makes him a good shot-blocker for a 6-foot-7 guy, but he can't be counted on to defend big bullies or wings one-on-one. Green became their best option against Golden State, and he is by far the best of the bunch in terms of switching onto smaller players. Asking him to defend the likes of Anthony Davis or Joel Embiid without help, though, is a bit much.
4. The bench will get even better
By net rating, the Clippers had the fifth-best bench in the league last season, mostly because nobody could stop Williams and Harrell, who were both legitimate Sixth Man of the Year candidates. (Williams won it for the third time, and could very well do it again.) This season, they should be aiming higher -- they found something special with that duo, but if they surround them with better defenders, perhaps they can dominate opposing second units more often.
This is where the growth of Rodney McGruder, Jerome Robinson and rookies Terance Mann and Mfiondu Kabengele becomes important. It is also where the Clippers can improve the most if Patrick Patterson can find the fountain of youth. His shooting wasn't consistent in OKC, but I bet he would've had a bigger role if he had been able to move the way he did before his knee trouble. Even if none of those guys are in the rotation, though, merely being able to put Leonard and/or George next to Williams and Harrell should help.
5. If they don't get Iguodala, this is basically it
Just think about Andre Iguodala on this team. Defensively, it would be almost unfair to play him next to Beverley, George and Leonard. Offensively, he would address, if not fix, the previously discussed passing issue. I don't know if they'll get him or anyone else who might be looking to chase a ring, but I do know that Los Angeles will be an attractive destination for buyout guys.
Unfortunately, though, the Clippers will likely be limited to those buyout guys. Even though they'd obviously be buyers rather than sellers at the deadline, they don't have much left to trade after sending a million picks to the Thunder.
(I still think they should sign Joakim Noah, but I'm guessing that, if it was going to happen, it would have already.)
*On the topic of wings, I wonder if Kawhi's obsession with Wingstop, which operates zero franchises in Toronto or the rest of Canada, factored in when it was decision time. Something to think about.
