Lakers: Jordan Clarkson Deserves a Spot In the Starting Lineup

Jordan Clarkson is arguably the best player on the Lakers roster, so why is he coming off of the bench?

The Los Angeles Lakers have not made the playoffs since the 2012-13 season, not that fans need to be reminded of that. However, each season sans postseason basketball brings another promising young prospect to Los Angeles.

In 2014, LA only had rights to their top ten protected pick — the Philadelphia 76ers would have taken it if it fell out of that range.

Fortunately, the Lakers ended up with the No. 7 pick and drafted Julius Randle. Randle showed a ton of potential in Summer League, but just 13 minutes and 34 seconds into his NBA debut against the Houston Rockets, he suffered a season-ending injury.

That was only the beginning of what would be a miserable 21-win season. Just a few months later, Kobe Bryant tore his rotator cuff and would be sidelined for nine months. Bryant’s injury forced former head coach Byron Scott to look elsewhere for help in the back court.

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Even if Bryant were available at the time, the Lakers were still very thin at both guard positions. Scott decided to give the Lakers No. 46 pick in the 2014 NBA Draft a shot.
“Wait, I thought you said the Lakers only had rights to their own first round pick?”

Initially yes, but Lakers’ general manager Mitch Kupchak worked the phones on draft night and purchased the Washington Wizards’ second round pick.

With that pick, the Lakers drafted Jordan Clarkson out of Missouri State. Clarkson was not a highly touted prospect going into the draft. In fact, our friends at Sports Illustrated didn’t even have him in their Top 50 Big Board. But to be fair, no one could have predicted the year Clarkson would have. In 59 games, he averaged 11.9 points, 3.5 assists and 3.2 rebounds in only 25 minutes per game.

Are those All-Star numbers? No, but he did benefit from the All-Star break. Prior to the festivities, Clarkson was only averaging 7.6 points per game in 18.1 minutes – numbers you’d expect from someone taken with the No. 46 pick.

Following the All-Star break, however, Clarkson averaged 16.7 points per game in 32.6 minutes. His play in the month of March – the same month Kobe went down with his rotator cuff injury – even earned Western Conference Rookie of the Month honors. Since its commencement in 1981-1982, no one to wear the Purple and Gold had ever won it.

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Clarkson finished the remainder of the season in similar fashion and was named to the 2014 NBA All-Rookie first team, beating out 16 of the 17 guards drafted before him.

Clarkson followed his breakout rookie season with a productive sophomore season, despite having to share the back court with the No. 2 pick in the 2015 NBA Draft, D’Angelo Russell.

This summer, the front office rewarded Clarkson with a four-year, $50 million contract to keep the young back court duo together for the foreseeable future.

“Our vision would be for both of those players to play in the backcourt for the next 10-12 years,” Kupchak said in an interview on SiriusXM NBA Radio last summer. Sadly, that vision has come to a standstill since, so it seems.

New head coach Luke Walton is still trying to figure out the rotation for the upcoming season, but the one thing that has been consistent in his first five preseason games is his starting lineup, a lineup that has opted to bench Jordan Clarkson for former Sixth Man of the Year Lou Williams.

If you look at their numbers from the 2015-16 season, they’re nearly identical in every statistical category, except for games started.

Player	Season	G	GS	MP	FGA	FG%	3PA	3P%	2PA	2P%	FTA	FT%	TRB	AST	STL	TOV	PF	PTS
Jordan Clarkson	2015-16	79	79	32.3	13.9	.433	4.1	.347	9.8	.468	2.6	.804	4.0	2.4	1.1	1.7	2.1	15.5
Lou Williams	2015-16	67	35	28.5	10.3	.408	4.8	.344	5.6	.464	6.3	.830	2.5	2.5	0.9	1.6	1.6	15.3

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 10/8/2016.

Clarkson started all 79 games he was available for, while William’s 39 starts can only be explained with two words: Byron Scott.

So what’s different this year? Walton stressed that nothing is set and stone yet, but likened Jordan Clarkson’s bench role to Lamar Odom‘s role with the Lakers when they won back-to-back championships.

“I don’t look at it as really coming off the bench as much as the way Lamar came off our bench but he was really a starter,” Walton told Joey Ramirez of Lakers.com. “He played big minutes, played the end of ball games. Ginobili did it for years in San Antonio… It’s really a way of getting a starter in with the second unit so you don’t have a lot of drop-off. But he’s very good at that role so far.”

That sounds great and all, but there is something to be said about those comments.

Lamar Odom’s bench role was a direct result of the team acquiring talent in the front court. He was battling for minutes with an All-Star player in Pau Gasol and a future All-Star in Andrew Bynum.

Clarkson lost his starting spot to a career rotation player. That’s like Kobe Bryant losing his starting spot to Sasha Vujacic, no disrespect to “The Machine.”

The main reason Clarkson isn’t starting has nothing to do with him, but everything to do with Williams.

Williams can score in bunches when he’s hot, which is something the Lakers are going to need if they want to win games this season, but he is a liability on defense.

If Williams were to come off the bench with Jose Calderon or Marcelo Huertas, it would be the equivalent of playing with three men on the court defensively.

Clarkson is no candidate for Defensive Player of the Year either, but he has made huge strides this summer. Walton even went as far to say that Clarkson has been the Lakers best perimeter defender this summer.

Luke Walton called Jordan Clarkson's the teams "most consistent perimeter defender" during training camp
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) October 8, 2016

Why is Clarkson the one being punished for Williams’ inability on the defensive end? Shouldn’t Williams be the one sitting if he can’t play defense? It’s not like Walton doesn’t have other options.

In their limited playing time, both Nick Young and Anthony Brown have shown they are capable of running both ends of the floor. Yes, I did say Nick Young.

Uncle P, formerly known as Swaggy P, has made the most of his opportunities on the court through the team’s first five preseason games. He even started a game in Luol Deng‘s absence. While he is best suited at the 3, Young could always slide over to play the 2. The same could be said of Brown.

After a solid game in the Lakers preseason opener, Brown has not seen the floor much. But his ability as a defender and his 3-point shooting arguably makes him more valuable than Williams. Whatever the case may be, Walton needs to find a way to get Clarkson back in the starting lineup.

Even coming off the bench, Jordan Clarkson is the team’s second leading scorer with 14.4 points per game, only trailing D’Angelo Russell (20.2 points per game).

The second unit has been a key talking point in preseason, and it’s probably because one of the guys on the bench should be starting. Unless the Lakers are showcasing Williams in hopes of finding a suitor for his services, this doesn’t make any sense.

At just 24-years-old, Clarkson is a crucial piece to the Lakers rebuild. They wouldn’t have committed to him if they thought otherwise.

Next: 3 Takeaways from the Lakers Preseason vs Warriors

If the team is serious about making noise in the Western Conference this year, Clarkson needs to start.