5 rebuttals to use on your friends with bad Chris Paul takes

3. Even the best need a bench?

Can you name the best Clippers bench player in the Chris Paul tenure? Of course. It is Jamal Crawford. He’s a sixth man who ends up playing starters minutes and atrocious defense. If you dig one person deeper, who’s next? Maybe your mind wanders to a young Eric Bledsoe. Or possibly you think about Darren Collison? Maybe you see the 2013-14 Clippers bench as viable. Any way you slice it, the Clippers have never had the real, quality depth required to make a Finals run.

The Spurs and Warriors and to a lesser extent the Cavs all rely on wily veterans on their respective benches to provide quality depth during the playoffs. The Clippers have tried every iteration of this formula for the last six years. The problem has simply been that the Clippers have failed. In the 2013-14 season, where their bench consisted of Crawford, Collison, Glen Davis, Danny Granger, Jared Dudley, and Hero Turkoglu, the Clippers relied on  guys who just were not at their peaks during the playoffs. Out of the six guys I just mentioned, only one of them shot over 50 percent from the field (Davis, on 3.2 FGA/game). Only one had over a 15 PER (Turkoglu in only 5 games played). Outside of that year, the Clippers run barely seven deep, usually playing guys who are very old (sorry, Paul Pierce) too many minutes.