Lou Williams has led the Los Angeles Clippers to their seventh postseason appearance in just eight years behind his 20.3 points per night
Lou Williams has always been known as one of the best bench scorers in the NBA, but this year, he is one of the sole reasons the Los Angeles Clippers will currently make the playoffs this season.
The 32-year-old leads the entire NBA in bench scoring and assists this year, dropping 20.3 points per night and also collecting 5.3 assists a game. He is also shooting a sharp 87.8 percent from the charity stripe, also first amongst bench scorers.
Since Tobias Harris was traded to Philly on February 6th, their leading scorer and arguably the best player at the time, Williams has scored 20 points or more in all but nine of the 20 games they have played since. That streak includes four games of 30 or more points as well. Along with Patrick Beverley, Williams has taken full charge of this team and led them to their seventh playoff appearance in just eight years after basically everyone counted them out of postseason contention when they traded Harris.
More from Sir Charles In Charge
- Dillon Brooks proved his value to Houston Rockets in the 2023 FIBA World Cup
- NBA Trade Rumors: 1 Player from each team most likely to be traded in-season
- Golden State Warriors: Buy or sell Chris Paul being a day 1 starter
- Does Christian Wood make the Los Angeles Lakers a legit contender?
- NBA Power Rankings: Tiering all 30 projected starting point guards for 2023-24
No doubt to win the sixth man of the year
Williams leads almost every category possible amongst bench scorers, but his importance to this Clippers team goes deeper than that. Aside from contributing immensely on the court, Williams is the ultimate leader of this team. He gets them rolling as soon as he comes off the bench in the first quarter of every game.
Along with trading Tobias Harris at the deadline, LA also shipped out defensive mainstay Avery Bradley to Memphis. They also put Marcin Gortat on waivers. Other guys have had to step up, such as Ivica Zubac, who the Clips acquired from the Lakers in a trade. He’s been impressive since switching jerseys.
Back to Williams. He’s third in the NBA in fourth quarter scoring with 7.7 points. That leaves him behind just LeBron James and James Harden who both average 8.5 in the last quarter. The reigning sixth man of the year looks like he is well on his way to another award and in the meantime, is as clutch as possible for his team this year.
In past years, Williams has been known as more of a three-point shooter. This year his three-point attempts are down, at just four per game compared to 6.6 last year. He’s still shooting 35 percent from downtown but the reason he is doing more of his scoring inside the paint is because Williams realizes that the weight of this team is heavily on his shoulders more than past years.
He is their primary scorer and converting with higher percentage looks is exactly what he needs to do this year in order to carry this team. His 43 percent clip from field goal range has been more than good enough to drop an average of close to 21 points per night this season.
Back on March 11th against the Celtics, Williams dropped 34 points which made him the leading bench scorer in NBA history, surpassing Dell Curry. Through 14 seasons, he’s just seemed to flourish from a role coming off the bench. The former second-round pick has started less than a quarter of the 930 games he’s played during his illustrious NBA career.
Everyone counted the Clippers out at the trade deadline, but Lou Williams wasn’t going to let that phase his team. Behind his stellar performances on a nightly basis, LA still has the chance to move up to a third or fourth seed for the playoffs.
They currently sit in fifth place with a 45-30 record heading into tonight’s matchup with the Milwaukee Bucks.