LA Clippers: Ranking all five projected starters for 2020-21

With most of the major transactions of the 2020 NBA offseason likely in the rearview mirror, let’s rank the starters for the LA Clippers.

After a disappointing showing in the playoffs, the LA Clippers were expected to retool in preparation for being a championship contender again in 2020-21. The changes they made may have been slighter than many anticipated, though.

The Clippers made their first big change on the bench, letting Doc Rivers go after a largely successful coaching tenure. Tyronn Lue will be manning the bench for the first time since his championship days with the Cleveland Cavaliers next season.

As for on-court personnel, the Clippers first shook things up on draft night, when they sent Landry Shamet away in a deal that netted the team 3-point ace Luke Kennard. They couldn’t retain Sixth Man of the Year Montrezl Harrell in free agency, but they replaced him with Serge Ibaka. The Clippers also brought back Marcus Morris on a four-year, $64 million deal.

By and large, the Clippers will return a similar crop of starters from the 2019-20 campaign. In fact, they have the opportunity to run it back with one of their more common starting lineups from a year ago following the acquisition of Morris at the trade deadline, which featured the Morris, Patrick Beverley, Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, and Ivica Zubac.

Lue is likely to tinker with that lineup at least a little bit, though. The most likely starting lineup at the start of the season will see Zubac swapped out as a starter for Ibaka.

Not all starters are created equal. Here’s how the individual starters rank for the LA Clippers.

5. PF Marcus Morris

Marcus Morris himself might take this as a slight, but he shouldn’t. Having Morris as the worst starter on a team is a good sign that the team is putting a championship-caliber lineup on the court each night.

Morris started every game after he joined the Clippers, but it was always going to be a challenge for him to match the numbers he was putting up with the New York Knicks, which included a career-best 19.6 points per game. The forward averaged 10.1 points and 4.1 rebounds during his 19 regular season starts in Los Angeles.

He saw those numbers tick up slightly during the postseason, to 11.8 points and 4.8 rebounds per game. Still, he’ll be more than a quarter of a way to his 32nd birthday by the time the season begins for a Clippers starting unit that could be one of the oldest in the league.

The Clippers should be one of the better defensive teams in the league and this is where Morris falls short. He’s by no means a bad defender, but he’s simply not in the same tier as Beverley, Ibaka, Leonard, or George. Offenses will likely try to attack him early and often in games.

Again, there are worse people to have as a team’s fifth starter than Morris. He might even be the best fifth-ranked starter in the entire NBA. But he’s also the starter Clippers fans are most likely to get frustrated with when he isn’t performing up to his potential.