NBA Trade Deadline 2012: Nick Young and the Specter of Positional Need

The Los Angeles Clippers are a flawed basketball team, and as is usually the case with flawed basketball teams, their problems are mistakenly miscast in terms of positional need.

They have Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, Caron Butler and DeAndre Jordan; therefore, the common logic goes: The Clips must need a new shooting guard to both replace one lost and supplant one that's, well, Randy Foye.

From that perspective, L.A.'s deadline acquisition of Wizards shooting guard Nick Young—in exchange for Brian Cook and a second-round pick, no less—was just what the armchair GM ordered. Young slides comfortably into the positional slot vacated via Chauncey Billups' torn achilles, giving the Clippers the elusive and highly coveted "complete" starting five.

Of course, such a designation belies the real problems that truly ail the Clippers.

Although a look at the team in very superficial terms would show a hole where a starting shooting guard should be, a more detailed examination of the fiber of the Clippers' play would generate a very different diagnosis.

Los Angeles has the league's fifth-best offense, and ranks as an elite team against the most significant offensive categories (shooting, rebounding and turnovers, all as measured by the Four Factors). Those are areas which could surely be bolstered with by Young's infusion of offense, but nonetheless fail to stick out as areas of legitimate need. 

Instead, it's the Clippers' limitations on the other side of the ball—in their defensive shooting percentages, disappointing turnover rate and tendency to over-foul opponents—specifically that currently keep them back from contention for the Western Conference crown. Paul is able to fully exert his influence on offense as a means of offsetting the Clips' unfortunate lack of scheme, but he holds no such complete hold over the team's defense.

The Clippers are but five players left to their own devices, ill-equipped to halt the high-functioning offenses they see on a relatively frequent basis. 

Young, who has characteristically been an unfocused defender on his better days, would seem to do little to aid the Clipper defense on face. Though in fairness to Nick, few players could do all that much more. Even if Young were a truly exceptional perimeter defender, his efforts would still function independently of a team concept—the foundation of elite defense that has thus far seemed to elude the otherwise capable Clippers.

L.A. doesn't struggle defensively because they're unathletic, unskilled or lazy, and certainly not because they lacked a shooting guard. They struggle because they play like a team without guiding defensive principles, a fault that's hard to pin on the players themselves. 

This deal was an easy call for a Clippers team that surrendered so little in return (Young for Cook and a second-rounder registers as a steal, no matter the team composition), but it's hardly an impetus for legitimate change.

Los Angeles is a legitimately better team than they were yesterday, but their dispatching of a positional phantom—a straw man in a jersey and high tops, if you'll allow me to mix metaphysical metaphors—runs very much secondary to the creation of a coherent defensive concept.