Stacked Roster Presents Questions for Los Angeles Clippers' Second Unit

The Los Angeles Clippers may not be done adding pieces.

There's no debating the Clippers roster is deeper and objectively better now than it was a few months ago when the team was in the midst of giving away a 3-1 Western Conference Semifinals lead to the Houston Rockets. During that series, given the way Jamal Crawford and Matt Barnes (at the end) were performing, there were four consistent contributors on the roster. Four.

Had Wesley Johnson been on the team, he probably would've been the best player off the bench. Now, it's a wonder how he'll find playing time on a reserve unit that includes Austin Rivers, Crawford, Lance Stephenson, Cole Aldrich, Josh Smith and the Clippers' newest signee, Pablo Prigioni, as first reported by RealGM's Shams Charania on Wednesday. 

That's where fit comes into play, though. Johnson may not be the caliber of the other wings on the second unit, but is his style more conducive to playing alongside the rest of them?

There's a chance, and it's more than just an abject one, that a Rivers-Stephenson-Crawford lineup could crash and burn, even on the offensive side of the ball—maybe especially. And where does Prigs fit into this?

All three of those non-point guards (Rivers may play the 1, but he's not a natural floor general) demand the ball, and when Crawford is the one dribbling, as he's prone to do, the spacing could scrunch like a middle-school girl's hair. 

Jae C. Hong/Associated Press

Even when Rivers is hot, he doesn't command closeouts on the three-point line. Stephenson, meanwhile, was historically ineffective from beyond the arc last season. Even the rest of the bench unit, which includes the notoriously rim-oriented Smith, fails to provide the spacing essential for NBA offense in 2015 when Prigioni is off the floor.

There are ways to solve these issues. Coach Doc Rivers could, of course, stagger lineups, but he hasn't been prone to doing that throughout his career, including during his two years with the Clippers.

The Clips used loads of all-bench or four-man-bench lineups last season, and that was when the second unit was treacherous, one of the shallowest reserve units in the NBA and arguably the most depleted of any of the 16 playoff teams.

It's hard to imagine a major influx in talent would send Doc's philosophy in the opposite direction.

So, if the team stays as constituted, don't be surprised to see the five-man units of Rivers, Stephenson, Crawford, Smith and Aldrich with Johnson or Prigs left watching on the sidelines. But this is exactly why the front office may not be done roster maneuvering. And it's why Jamal Crawford is playing a continual game of whack-a-mole against the trade rumors surrounding him.

Crawford is one of the league's good guys—there's no question about that—but even he hasn't been subtle about the uncertainty of his standing within the organization. He was pretty blunt when he fired off this tweet recently:

And if we want to be conspiratorial, we could go further to point out that Jamal was the sole big name from the 2014-15 roster missing at the DeAndre Jordan non-hostage situation in Houston.

Crawford is coming off of his worst year as a Clipper, though he did have a better season than the one Stephenson put up in Charlotte. His numbers actually resembled the ones he put up during his sole campaign with the Portland Trail Blazers, before coming to L.A. on a four-year deal. But, obviously, he bounced back, putting up a solid run under Rivers and Vinny Del Negro.

Even if he's three years older now and has one more season of $5.7 million remaining on his deal, there are more parallels than just the percentages to the Portland year.

Brandon Dill/Associated Press

The Blazers' 2011-12 bench, like the Clippers' previous one, fell apart in the middle of the year. The team's point guard play suffered with it, and Crawford was forced to run the reserve offense more than he appeared comfortable doing. One of the best bench scorers of his generation is at his highest level when he can concern himself with going for 30 at any given moment without having to worry about much else. But when you throw him at the 1 and turn him into your playmaker, things get a little more dicey, especially when there aren't other threats around him.

Sound familiar?

The Clippers tossed him into almost the same bench construction last year, and Crawford's numbers fell off as he started to take on a greater burden. By the postseason, he was playing some of his worst basketball in a blue, white and red uniform. Maybe he bounces back with stronger players around him. Heck, maybe that's the argument the Clippers can use (have used?) while trying to shop him.

That's the optimist's take, though, and from the way other teams value players of Crawford's type (bench scorers who can get hot but who are also inconsistent on a night-to-night basis), it could be hard to unload him.

Look at the market for those types: Lou Williams, the reigning Sixth Man of the Year, got only $21 million over three years from the Los Angeles Lakers after the Toronto Raptors didn't even make him an offer. Gerald Green got stuck with a minimum contract. And J.R. Smith is biting his fingernails and hoping he can sell those shavings on eBay to make up the money he's possibly lost from opting out of a $6.4 million salary for next season. (Hey, if Jeff Nelson can sell bone chips, anything is possible.)

Chuck Burton/Associated Press

Because the market value is so off-kilter with the Clippers' personal ones, J could stay crossing over guys in L.A. But the bench construction and depth does imply that someone could be on the outs at some point in the future, even if the Clips head into the first game of next season with this exact roster.

(There's another option, of course. You argue Crawford's year-to-year consistency would give the team far more stability than Stephenson, who could put up a doppelganger season on the court while acting as the antithesis to Crawford in the locker room. The worst-case scenario for the Stephenson experiment is a mid-year release since his 2015-16 salary is just a team option. And wouldn't the Clips feel far more at ease watching Lance walk if they knew Crawford was with them? But even in that scenario you have to ask, are there too many mouths to feed in the meantime for this to work in the short term?)

As much as Smith and Aldrich can help, L.A. could still use another guy in the frontcourt. If Rivers were able to find someone for Crawford, it could end up being a win-win for both the organization and the player who has become a fan favorite during his time out west.

A team can be far better but still have issues—however nitpicky they may seem. There's something funky going on with the way the Clips are built, and the implication isn't that they're going to be worse off for it. It's that they may not be done assembling all the pieces.

Follow Fred Katz on Twitter at @FredKatz.

All statistics courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com unless noted otherwise.