How Clippers Sharpshooters Will Thrive With Darius Garland This Season

Only six teams in the league made a higher share of their threes than the Los Angeles Clippers last season, and only seven took fewer.

That gap is the story of the offense heading into camp, because the roster is full of players who can make the shot, and Darius Garland, the point guard who arrived in February, is built to create it.

Garland played 19 games for the Clippers after arriving from Cleveland in the James Harden trade, averaging 19.9 points and 6.4 assists while hitting 43.8 percent of his threes on 7.6 attempts a night, up from 36.0 percent in Cleveland earlier that season.

Kelly Iko of Yahoo Sports wrote last week that the Clippers' half-court offense was nearly eight points better with Garland on the floor and that the team outscored opponents by 11 points per 100 possessions in his minutes.

Max Strus knows what that looks like, because he spent two seasons in Cleveland with Garland setting him up.

The Clippers got him in August in the multi-team deal that sent Peyton Watson to the Cavaliers, giving up only a 2027 second-round pick.

A Jones fracture in his left foot held Strus to 12 games last season, but he hit 40.2 percent of his threes on 6.8 attempts in those games and 38.6 percent the year before, so Iko's point that Garland should juice the sharpshooters applies to him first, and it fits the case for leaning on Garland this season.

Kobe Sanders is the quieter part, a second-round rookie who shot 40.8 percent from three on 2.9 attempts across 68 games and earned a four-year, $11.2 million deal in July for it.

Keaton Wagler, the fifth pick out of Illinois, shot 39.7 percent from deep in college, though Iko tempers expectations for a rookie guard.

Rui Hachimura is one of the best pure shooters in the NBA right now, and he will likely have a prominent role in the minute distribution as well.

The player with the most to gain is not on the roster yet, because Gradey Dick would come to Los Angeles with Brandon Ingram in the Kawhi Leonard deal, and as of Monday neither team had announced that trade.

Dick fell to 30.1 percent from three on 2.4 attempts last season after hitting 35.0 percent on six attempts the year before, and a guard who draws two defenders every trip would help him most, so Tyronn Lue would have every reason to give him a chance while the rebuild plays out.

The league took five first-round picks, fined the team $30 million and suspended Steve Ballmer for a year last Wednesday, so no draft class is coming to raise the ceiling, and Iko projects between 35 and 39 wins for a team that finished ninth in the West and is about to lose its best player.

The Clippers control how they play, though, and a group that averaged 33.8 three-point attempts a game with a top-seven percentage left points on the table.

Garland running ball screens and spraying the ball to Strus, the pickup nobody talked about, and to Sanders and anyone else open is the only version of this roster worth watching.