On The Clippers’ Bench (And Lack Thereof)

May 12, 2015; Houston, TX, USA; Los Angeles Clippers head coach Doc Rivers watches play against the Houston Rockets in game five of the second round of the NBA Playoffs at Toyota Center. Rockets won 124 to 103. Mandatory Credit: Thomas B. Shea-USA TODAY Sports

As many NBA journalists and twitter-folk have been opining recently, GM Doc Rivers is but a shadow of the purported excellence of Coach Doc Rivers. Unfortunately it has become ever-increasingly difficult to attribute the Clippers’ successes and failures to either as they become more intertwined.

For example, GM Doc blindly picked up Austin Rivers. Coach Doc played him these playoffs—maybe more than he should have. Either way, the Clippers’ minutes distributions have been especially poor these playoffs, as we can see by how often he subbed in below-replacement players. A replacement player is defined (roughly) as one who can be picked up at the minimum salary, and who contributes to his team roughly -2 points per 100 possessions relative to an average player.

My weapon of choice for this analysis is Multi-year RPM, also known as “The Best Publicly Available All-In-One Player Metric For Predicting NBA Possessions.” :

The Clippers were fifth in the percentage of minutes given to below-replacement player these playoffs. Not very lovely company here—Nets, Pelicans, Bucks, Celtics round out the top four. The Clippers were supposed to be contenders…. but their companions in that category (Warriors, Cavs, and Spurs) are near the bottom of this list.

BONUS: For some added context, here’s the grouping of all playoff teams’ minutes distributions, split by below -2, between -2 and +2, and above +2 RPM. They are ranked by their predicted Net Rating from RPM.