Los Angeles Clippers: Lance Stephenson 2015-16 Predictions
- Updated: October 13, 2015
Lance Stephenson is a big risk for the Los Angeles Clippers. Doc Rivers brought on the former Charlotte Hornet following his worst season while playing consistent minutes in the league. Stephenson was asked last season to become the superstar and leader the Charlotte Hornets so desperately needed and with such expectations, he signed a 3 year deal worth $27 million dollars. One disappointing season later that saw Stephenson starting just 25 of 61 games played, Lance is a Clipper.
However the risk of Lance Stephenson is a short-term risk, which definitely is the way to go when dealing with a player like Stephenson whom you want to see his reaction to his poor previous season. It’s a short-term risk because the last season of Stephenson’s three year deal is a team option. What this means is, Los Angeles does have to pay Stephenson $9 million this year to see what he’s got, but if Stephenson does not play to the Clippers liking the team has the option to release the player from his contract after this season with no penalty. This is very much so a season where Lance will have to earn his future contract, because he certainly will not be getting anywhere near $9 million a year if he under-performs again this season.
Let’s talk about why this season might be different for Lance Stephenson and what he can do to be Indiana Pacer Lance and not Charlotte Lance. Just to get it out-of-the-way, Stephenson likely won’t be shooting too many threes this season. In 2013-14 with Indiana he shot a career best 35% from three-point range, last season was a career low at an awful 17%. Doc Rivers has stated that Stephenson will take on more of a distributor role with the second unit for Los Angeles, this would allow Lance the ability to use his fantastic handles and court vision to pass the ball around to all of the great scorers in that bench group rather than hoist up unwarranted shots like he was forced to do last season.
Undoubtedly Lance Stephenson’s three-point percentage will raise this season. How much it improves will depend on how well he is able to mesh with a Clippers second unit that hasn’t had much time to play together. I’m willing to predict that the Clippers second unit will be able to play better together than we have seen in the preseason and Stephenson will raise his three point percentage to around 28-31%. Sure it won’t be a career high for the combo-guard but it will be enough to get his confidence back up as a shooter and create more chances for his teammates.
Stephenson is surely one of the more well-rounded players the Clippers will have on this team. Even in what was his most underwhelming season as a pro last year, he was able to haul in 8.2 points, 3.3 assists and 4.5 rebounds per game while getting an average of 25.8 minutes per game. While I understand that was plenty of numbers I just threw at you there, with that balance, he has to understand that he can help his team in other ways if he can’t score is a tremendous sign for a Clipper bench that depended mostly on the production of Jamal Crawford last season.
Stephenson is a very exciting player to watch and I think we all remember his antics against LeBron James in the 2013-14 playoffs when he was with Indiana. Whether he’s getting under his opponents skin or thrashing through the lane for a smooth lay up, Lance Stephenson certainly has the potential to bring a nice punch off of the Clippers bench this season. In this writer’s opinion, he will likely revert to stats similar to what he had in Indiana where he faced a similar role.
Lance Stephenson 2015-16 Predictions
PPG: 10.2
APG: 4.3
RPG: 4.7
FG%: 42%
3P%: 29%
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