LA Clippers: Lou Williams is the ultimate sixth man
The LA Clippers are one of the bench teams and Lou Williams is a big part of that. He has supercharged benches his whole career.
Great players are what makes great teams championship teams. For the LA Clippers they have two superstars in Paul George and Kawhi Leonard, but a player who is just as important is Lou Williams.
Williams is the ultimate sixth man. He is a player that you can insert in the clutch and he’ll provide offense for you. He can come off the bench and provide scoring in bunches for you also. He has done that for so long for many teams.
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He has led the Clippers in bench scoring and the team as a whole is the number one team in bench scoring. While most players drop off in their career Williams has gotten better. The last two years were his best years as a pro.
In 2017-18 he averaged 22.6 points per game. The next year he averaged 20.0 points per game. Both are his best averages in his career. Williams is currently in his 14th year. He has found new life during his tenure with the LA Clippers.
He loves to play for this team which is probably the reason for his heightened play. When you do what you want to do and what you love the best comes out in you.
Williams was a second-round pick by the Philadelphia 76ers coming straight out of high school. Usually, when a player comes out of high school it is because they are going to be one of the top picks in the draft, but Williams was an exception.
While many first overall picks and talented players have been busts Williams has been able to find his niche and do it so well that he has been able to have a long career.
Williams spent seven seasons with the Sixers. He experienced highs and lows during his time with the team. He was able to play with Allen Iverson which was a big help to his career because he learned from the best small scorer ever, as Williams is one inch taller than Iverson at 6’1″.
Later in his tenure with the Sixers he was an integral part of the team as they were a playoff team. They were never able to sniff the Eastern Conference Finals. After he played in Philadelphia he had stints with the Atlanta Hawks, Toronto Raptors, Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets.
While he was with those teams they were some of the best bench teams in the league. From 2008-2012 while Williams was with the Sixers the team was in the top 10 in terms of bench scoring per game.
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When Williams was with the Hawks in 2012-13 they were only 20th in bench scoring. Williams only played 39 games. The next year when Williams played 60 games the team became the 11th team in bench scoring per game.
In Toronto, Williams led the team to the fifth spot in bench scoring during his single year with the team. For the three years, he has been with the LA Clippers the team has been in the top three in bench scoring for all those years. Wherever Williams goes the team becomes a good bench.
With those teams though the farthest he got was to the Semi-Finals when he was with the Houston Rockets in 2016-17. Williams with this LA Clippers team will have his best shot at making it to a Conference Finals and probably the Finals.
Williams is a pro who has known his role ever since coming into the league and has won Sixth Man three times in his career. A chance to finally be a champion is within his grasp, and Williams has said he doesn’t want to go anywhere else so this stint with the Clippers is it.
We will see if he is able to finally win a championship in his tenure with the LA Clippers.