How the LA Clippers can adjust to life without Montrezl Harrell

On Friday, LA Clippers center Montrezl Harrell departed the NBA’s Orlando bubble to tend to a family emergency. In the short term, at least, the Clippers will need to adjust.

The fluctuations of the LA Clippers roster continued on Friday with the news that center Montrezl Harrell had departed the NBA’s Orlando bubble to tend to a family emergency. This leaves the Clippers without Harrell, Marcus Morris Sr., Ivica Zubac and Landry Shamets as things stand currently.

This quartet represents a lot of minutes, scoring, contributions and overall value to be missing from your team at any stage.

As for Harrell’s situation specifically, head coach Doc Rivers was asked during Saturday’s Zoom press conference about the timeline for his return:

"We don’t know. It’s obviously a personal matter at home that he did need to go to. So we’re just going to wait for him. Like when he needs to get back, he’ll be back."

Harrell has been a dynamic small-ball center for the Clippers. He’s devastating as the roll man in the pick-and-roll, scoring 1.31 points per possession and effective in the post scoring .98 points per possession. He scored a career-best 18.6 points on 12.9 field goal attempts per game coming off the bench.

His production will be sorely missed, especially in combination with the absences of Zubac and Morris in the frontcourt.

Of course, nobody knows just how long Harrell will be gone, but you can tack another quarantine period on top of his absence when he returns, so it’s going to be awhile. The Clippers will need to plan and prepare as though they simply don’t have his services available for the foreseeable future as they look ahead to the NBA’s restart at the end of July.

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While the Clippers have two of the best players in the NBA in the forms of Paul George and Kawhi Leonard, these absences will test their depth as the league’s restart nears. Fortunately, JaMychal Green cleared his quarantine protocols earlier this week, and he stands to be the biggest beneficiary on this shorthanded squad.

On many teams, Green could be a starter or first big off the bench, but the Clippers aren’t one of those squads, and that demonstrates their frontcourt depth. He played in 55 games this season, averaging 20.5 minutes per appearance.

The LA Clippers squad is full of players who need the ball and can score, so when Green was on the floor, his usage dipped to a career-low 13.5 percent. Fortunately, his low-usage presence fits with plenty of the lineups his team rolls out, and he can plug in nicely with Leonard and George, as well as Patrick Beverley, Lou Williams and Reggie Jackson.

In fact, the pairing of Jackson and Green has been especially devastating in a small sample size. Since coming to Los Angeles from the Detroit Pistons after the trade deadline, the Clippers are outscoring their opponents by 15.8 points per 100 possessions. The sample is just 248 possessions, but make no mistake, dominance is dominance.

The Clippers may be shorthanded, but they’re talented and dangerous nonetheless with the crew they took to Orlando. If attrition continues, they may find themselves in a difficult spot, but at this point, it’s expected that eventually they’ll get all of Harrell, Morris and Zubac back in the fold. If not for the rest of camp or all of the eight seeding games they’ll play, playoff returns would be better than nothing.

In the meantime, the steady veteran presence of the 30-year-old JaMychal Green should be enough to help keep the ship afloat until they get back to Orlando.