5 Mysteries for the Los Angeles Clippers Heading into the 2013-14 NBA Season

A new regime means the Los Angeles Clippers have plenty of unknowns heading into the 2013-14 NBA season.

As Doc Rivers comes in to replace Vinny Del Negro as head coach, the roster also shakes up. The Clippers have loaded up with shooters, bringing in Jared Dudley, J.J. Redick, Byron Mullens, and Antawn Jamison to contribute to what may end up being the best offense in the NBA.

But as good as the Clippers might be this season, there are still questions. Here are five of their biggest mysteries heading into training camp:

1. Can this defense be good enough to win a championship?

Don’t let the numbers fool you.

Those numbers say the Clippers were one of the best defensive teams in the NBA last season.

The Clippers finished last year ranked eighth in the NBA in defensive efficiency and hovered around the top five in that stat throughout most of the season. The defense fell off toward the end of the year, but statistically, the Clips were still one of the better defensive teams in the league on the whole.

But those stats are relatively superficial. You can't always trust the raw numbers. In reality, the 2012-13 Clippers' defense was prone to over-trapping and poor anchoring.

Last year's Clippers had a distinct defensive strategy: Let the bigs hedge as far up as possible on pick-and-rolls so that the athletic Clipper defenders could trap the ball handler and force a turnover. That strategy often worked, especially considering how good the Clips were in transition.

It was that sort of basketball that allowed the Clippers to beat down on inferior teams with simplistic offenses. Those sorts of squads—especially ones without decent point-guard play—turned the ball over too much and let the Clippers get out running all too often. 

But disciplined offenses could tear the Clippers' defense apart. And they could do it relatively easily. 

DeAndre Jordan, Ryan Hollins, Blake Griffin, Ronny Turiaf or anyone else acting as the backbone of the defense were often out of position on the defensive end. Over-hedging was the enemy, and there was often no one to recover for a big man that finished a defensive possession out by the three-point line because of his overzealous, turnover-chasing hubris. That left no one to protect the rim, and good offenses took advantage of that.

Watch the Nets find Brook Lopez for an easy dunk after DeAndre Jordan lingered 30 feet from the basket to double team Deron Williams:

Jordan was way too far from the hoop. He couldn't recover. The Nets immediately recognized that and found themselves with a wide-open shot. Those sorts of plays were an all-too-common theme in the Staples Center last year.

So this year, the Clippers decided to go with a completely different defensive philosophy.

First off, they brought in Doc Rivers, one of the best defensive masterminds in the league. Secondly, they went out and got system defenders.

Players like the newly acquired J.J. Redick and Jared Dudley aren't going to guard premier offensive players in one-on-one situations, but they are going to rotate properly and play respectable help defense.

But the Clips don’t have the athletes did they did last season. Eric Bledsoe is gone. Matt Barnes is a year older. Even someone like Lamar Odom, who is hardly an athlete, was the Clippers’ best pick-and-roll defender last season. Now he’s gone. That leaves a major shift in the team’s defensive identity.

So the question remains, can the Clippers stop good offenses without many individual, on-ball defenders?

Defenses can succeed with that philosophy—as long as they have a consistent anchor.

The Magic didn’t have athletic defenders back in the Dwight Howard days. What they had were smart defenders—and it worked, especially when that defense took them all the way to the NBA Finals in 2009. 

If DeAndre Jordan makes the leap that we’ve been hearing about all summer, the Clippers’ defense could be one of the best in the league. But if he doesn’t improve and remains someone who is simply a good defender and not a dominant one, the Clippers’ defense might not have enough one-on-one defenders to succeed against elite offenses.

2. Are the Clippers planning on getting any rebounds?

It’s hard to dominate a game defensively if you don’t get any rebounds. Unfortunately for the Clippers, that’s something they might have to learn the hard way in the upcoming season. 

The Clippers were merely an average defensive rebounding team last season, finishing the year 15th in the NBA in defensive rebounding rate. Again, part of that had to do with the fact that Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan were often left at the top of the key while an opposing player took a shot. Often, Jordan and Griffin couldn’t recover from the over-hedging in time to protect the rim or even grab a rebound.

It’s that defensive philosophy that helped Griffin’s rebounding plummet last season.

Realistically, Griffin’s rebounding will get better this year. He’s better than the 9.2 rebounds per 36 minutes that he averaged in 2012-13. (He averaged 11.2 rebounds per 36 in his first two NBA seasons.) 

But even if Griffin does revert to his 2011 rebounding self, the Clippers still have problems on the boards.

Byron Mullens, Ryan Hollins and Antawn Jamison are all average defensive rebounders at best. Meanwhile, DeAndre Jordan is significantly better on the offensive boards than he is on the defensive ones and puts himself in bad position to grab boards when he bites on the slightest pump fakes and flies 15 feet away from the hoop. 

As for the guards, Chris Paul is a fine rebounding point guard, but it’s hard for a point to make a major impact as a rebounder. J.J. Redick and Jared Dudley are poor rebounders, and Jamal Crawford is consistently at or near the bottom of the league in total rebounding rate. 

That means getting boards is up to Matt Barnes, Griffin and (shocker) DeAndre Jordan.

It’s odd how this keeps coming back to Jordan. The Clips have really put all their eggs in his basket. They just better hope that if those eggs fall out, DeAndre is there to rebound them.

3. Will J.J. Redick break the Clippers’ single-season record for most three-pointers made? 

Jamal Crawford must be mad. His record isn’t going to stand long.

Crawford made more threes than any Clipper ever when he sunk 149 long-range shots last season. Redick might break that in his first week in red, white and blue. 

Okay, maybe it won’t take only a week, but there is going to be a new three-point king in town, and it’s not going to be Crawford. 

Redick made 165 threes last season. He would hold the Clippers' single-season record if he simply replicated that number, but think about his teammates from last year. Think about that sad array of point guards he had feeding him the ball: Jameer Nelson, Brandon Jennings and Monta Ellis. 

That Milwaukee triumvirate is only worth something if your goal is the mediocre 8 seed in the East. Otherwise, a Jennings-Ellis backcourt gives you worse bang for your buck than that grimy Ramada on West Michigan Street. 

Now, Redick gets to experience the Chris Paul Bump, a jump in three-point shooting efficiency that every perimeter player seems to have upon coming to play with the best point guard in the NBA. He also gets to play in a Doc Rivers offense.

Rivers loves running shooters off screens. It’s what helps create space in his offense. And Redick is going to be perfect for that role. 

Ray Allen played that part for five years in Boston. In those five years, he averaged just under 183 three-pointers made per season.

Redick isn’t Ray Allen, the best three-point shooter of all time. But that’s not the point.

He doesn't have to be Ray Allen; all he has to do is play the role of Ray Allen. His job is simply to masquerade as Jesus Shuttlesworth, of which he is surely capable. 

So watch out, Jamal. J.J. is gunning for that record. And he’s going to get it. 

4. Who will be the third big man? 

The candidates are Ryan Hollins, Byron Mullens and Antawn Jamison.

There’s a good chance the third big is going to change throughout the season. It could just be a situational decision depending on who’s hot and who’s on the other side of the floor. 

Jamison is still a quality offensive player that scores efficiently and pulls down defensive rebounds at a decent rate. His issues come defensively, where he can’t guard anyone or anything.

Hollins gives some value defensively in that he’s a rim protector, but he still gets caught out of position too often, fouls more than a 12-year-old bully playing with a group of nine year olds and has a non-existent offensive game.

Mullens, meanwhile, deserves his own 1,000 words just to show the player he was last season. Needless to say, he’s inefficient offensively and has a defensive game reminiscent of Ivan Radovadovitch’s.

The Clippers aren’t in a position to pick the best big on their bench. They’re going to have to pick the one that’s the least bad. That could change from night to night, but for now, we’re left wondering who will end up as that third big man. 

5. How many wins above Del Negro is Doc Rivers?

It’s impossible to judge exactly how much tangible value a coach brings to a team, but it’s always fun to speculate on that inquiry anyway.

The Bulls went 41-41 in both of Vinny Del Negro’s seasons in Chicago. But after the team fired him and hired Tom Thibodeau for the 2010-11 season, Chicago's win total shot up to 62.

Vinny, that doesn’t speak well for you. 

There was plenty wrong with the Clippers last year. The defense was overzealous and often discombobulated. The substitution rotations were nonsensical. Effort was inconsistent. For a team that won 56 games and had a 17-game winning streak, it was an frustrating season at times. 

A Del Negro engine was more spastic than Steven Van Zandt. But a Doc Rivers machine is cooler and smoother than the late Clarence Clemons.

The Clips may not win many more games this year than they did last year. It’s hard to have a 10-win increase when you’re coming off a season in which you won 56 games.

58 or 59 wins is totally possible, but it will be a more comfortable 58 or 59 wins. It will be easier. It will make more sense. We won’t see as many games where Dion Waiters drains seven threes and the Clippers lose to an inferior opponent. The breakdowns just won’t happen as often.

It’s going to be a more homely season for Clippers fans. Doc Rivers is a 100-percent cotton blanket, a cozy one in which fans can snuggle for 82 games. Who knows exactly how much better he is than Del Negro, but there’s one thing we do know: That cotton blanket is always going to feel liberating when Clippers fans are used to a blanket made of mohair.

All statistics courtesy of basketball-reference.com.