What can Milos Teodosic bring to the Los Angeles Clippers?

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the Los Angeles Clippers have signed Euroleague star point guard Milos Teodosic. The Teodosic-to-NBA talk has been swirling around for about a year plus so in that time plenty of people have written about his game, including myself. Teodosic can absolutely help the Clippers and may begin the season as their starting point guard. His game also provides an interesting fit with the rest of the roster.

The Serbian guard is 6-foot-5 and weighs 196-pounds. He played for CSKA Moscow last season and averaged 16.1 points and 6.8 assists per game in Euroleague play. He also shot 38 percent from 3-point range and 90 percent from the charity stripe.

The first thing to point out is that there is a former teammate of Teodosic on the Clippers roster in Patrick Beverley. The two played together with Olympiacos for the 2009-10 Euroleague season and made it to the championship game, before losing to Ricky Rubio’s Barcelona side.

The Clippers could definitely play these two together to provide cover for Teodosic’s defensive shortcomings. DeAndre Jordan will also be there to protect the rim whenever Teodosic gets burned defensively, which will probably happen a fair number of times throughout the course of the season.

In the above clip, we see Teodosic show no effort at all against Fenerbahce. Fener clearly picked him out, bringing Pero Antic over to act like he’s setting a screen and have Bogdan Bogdanovic come over and shadow a dribble hand-off. Teodosic was overwhelmed and just let his man get to the rim with ease.

While this isn’t a good look for Teodosic, keep in mind that he now has arguably the best shot-blocker in the game behind him to bail him out a few times per game.

I could find more clips of Teodosic’s issues on the defensive end but it’d be redundant. As pointed out, the Clippers have the pieces necessary to hide him to some degree which is one of many reasons why this signing makes sense for them.

It also makes sense because as stated earlier, Teodosic and Beverley can play in the backcourt together since they are both able to play off the ball due to their catch-and-shoot abilities. In fact, we’ve seen Teodosic showcase this skill against some of the best NBA players when Serbia faced off against the United States at the 2016 Olympics.

Here, we see Teodosic use a pass fake after the catch to get himself open and then knock down the 3-pointer.

This clip shows Teodosic work a defender on a screen to get himself open for the catch-and-shoot 3-pointer, which he knocks down.

Catch-and-shoot isn’t Teodosic’s best skill, his best skill is his court vision and his ability to find open teammates, no matter what obstacles are in his way.

The Clippers lost their best shooter in J.J. Redick but they still have other shooters on their roster who will benefit from Teodosic’s incredible passing gift. Sam Dekker, Lou Williams, and Danilo Gallinari will certainly love when Teodosic makes plays like this to set them up with open looks.

Teodosic isn’t just good at finding shooters, he’s got great vision in the open court as well.

That’s him passing to Euroleague teammates and Serbian National Team teammates. Imagine how lethal he’ll be now that he’s got Blake Griffin and Jordan as his rim-runners in the open court.

Where Teodosic’s partnership with his new big men teammates will really shine is in the pick-and-roll.

There’s a pick-and-roll where he finds his partner, Kyle Hines, by throwing the ball through the legs of an opponent. And here’s a clip where he finds Hines in the pick-and-roll by throwing the ball through his own legs.

The Clippers lost Chris Paul this offseason, and he can’t be replaced without acquiring another top-five point guard in the NBA. The Clippers weren’t able to do that, so they went out and did the next best thing. They got Beverley — who will help replace Paul’s defensive skill and competitive drive — and they got Teodosic — who will help replace Paul’s offensive game. He’ll set-up the Clippers shooters, throw lobs in transition, and destroy opponents in the pick-and-roll.

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