Los Angeles Clippers: Montrezl Harrell is the third-most important player

The hierarchy of the Los Angeles Clippers seems simple: Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and Lou Williams. However, that third spot belongs to someone else.

The Los Angeles Clippers appear to be in the best position to win the NBA Championship this season. With the addition of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George to a team that already exceeded expectations last season, the Clippers are understandably the most anticipated team to watch in the NBA.

There are two things that make the Clippers standout above other contending teams in the league. It is not the fact that they have a superstar duo, as plenty of teams have superstar duos and the Los Angeles Lakers arguably have the better duo.

The first component has to do with the superstar duo and it is the defensive lineup that the team can throw out there. The team has three All-Defensive-caliber players in Leonard, George and Patrick Beverley while also having a comfortably above-average defender in Montrezl Harrell.

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The other component is the bench pieces that the team can run out. Lou Williams is quite literally the best sixth man in the league and the Clippers have a nice eight-man rotation that will be perfect in the playoffs, although they could use more depth for the regular season in a perfect world.

In fact, Williams is so important to this team that most people would regard him as the third-most important player on the team because of what he brings off the bench. While he is important, he is not the third-most important player on the team, although he is third-best.

It isn’t Patrick Beverley, either, who gives the team a defensive outlook at the point guard position that is virtually unmatched.

It is the fourth defender that we mentioned earlier that will prove to be the third-most important player on the team: Montrezl Harrell.

In all reality, Harrell is probably the fifth-best player on the Los Angeles Clippers. However, talent does not necessarily translate into importance.

If you were to create a list of injured players that would hurt the Clippers the most it would go Leonard, George and then Harrell. Not Williams, not Beverley, and that is what makes Harrell the third-most important.

Sure, it would hurt the team if Williams got hurt, but the Clippers could reasonably still win games without having Lou Williams come off the bench. They would still have their two superstars in the starting lineup and instead could just focus more on the defensive side of the ball, a recipe that would still win a lot of games.

The focus would shift slightly if Beverley were to get hurt. The team would still be fine defensively with Leonard, George and Harrell and it would just open the door for Williams to get more minutes as well as Landry Shamet.

However, if Harrell got hurt, the team would desperately be lacking that energy and tenacity in the frontcourt and it would be hard to overcome.

Harrell is likely going to split time between the power forward and center position, with the center position being the more important. Right now, the Clippers really only have one traditional center on the roster in Ivica Zubac. Not only that, but Zubac is only one of three players that is 6’10” or taller.

The other two? Jonathan Motley, who has 332 career minutes in two seasons (which is 0.84% of the team’s total minutes) and rookie Mfioundu Kabengele, who didn’t even play center in college.

So it is safe to say that the Los Angeles Clippers lack size. And while Harrell is 6’9″, he possesses the physical style of play to succeed at the center position. Realistically speaking, it is hard to see the Clippers’ frontcourt succeeding without Harrell in it.

Suddenly, the Clippers would be drastically stretching out the center position while also relying more heavily on guys such as Jamychal Green and Maurice Harkless. While those two are fine as depth pieces, combined they cannot match what Harrell does for the Clippers.

Harrell has more win shares (8.7) than the two had combined (6.3) last season. In fact, out of any player that split time at both power forward and center last season, Harrell ranked 11th in the league in win shares, posting the exact same amount as notable name, Joel Embiid.

Is Harrell as good as Embiid? No, he played 18 more games and does not have the same skill set as Embiid.

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However, it is obvious that he has a massive impact on the Los Angeles Clippers, one that is not as easily replaceable as some of the other guys on the roster.

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