What’s changed for Lou Williams?

Lou Williams has been a revelation this season. Now 13 years removed from being selected directly out of high school with the 45th pick by the 76ers, the 6-foot-1 guard is having his most productive season yet. Williams has been particularly dominant since Dec. 20 with averages of 29.4 points and 5.3 assists in 34.3 minutes per game on 46.0 percent shooting from the field and 42.8 percent shooting from the perimeter. He has single handedly carried the Clippers back into the playoff race during that time by leading them to 12 wins over their last 16 games.

Williams has put up big numbers throughout his NBA career, but never to this degree. The closest he’s come is when he averaged 27.7 points and 4.7 assists per 36 minutes in 57 games off the bench for the Lakers last season. The Lakers, however, had the third-worst record in the league when they sent Williams to the Rockets before the trade deadline. What he is doing right now is far more meaningful considering he’s doing it on a team that would be the No. 8 seed if the playoffs began today, not one hoping to be bad enough at the season’s end to keep their draft pick.

Williams then went on to average 20.9 points and 3.4 assists per 36 minutes in 23 games off the bench for the Rockets, but he didn’t make as much of an individual impact as he did with the Lakers. It doesn’t help that he struggled in Houston’s second round matchup with the Spurs — a series the Rockets lost in six games — with an average of 7.3 points per game on 35.3 percent shooting from the field.

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The biggest difference between his time with the Lakers and Rockets is Williams went from handling the ball as much as someone like John Wall to being a secondary (and sometimes tertiary) option alongside James Harden and Eric Gordon. Due in large part to the injuries the Clippers have suffered this season, Williams is back to handling the ball as much as some of the biggest names in the league. His usage rate of 29.2 percent on the season puts him on the same page as Damian Lillard, DeMar DeRozan, Kevin Durant and LaMarcus Aldridge, and it’s jumped to a LeBron James-like 31.9 percent since the Clippers began their hot streak last month.

To no surprise, giving Williams more opportunities to run the show has impacted his shot selection. He’s scoring less frequently off of screens and spot-ups this season, relying more on creating for himself in pick-and-rolls instead. Of players who have appeared in at least 15 games, only Lillard, DeRozan, Harden, Kemba Walker and Dennis Schroder are creating more points per game than Williams as the ball handler in pick-and-rolls. Seeing as he currently ranks in the 85.6 percentile with 0.97 points per pick-and-roll possessions, those are a smart way for both him and the Clippers to generate high percentage looks in the halfcourt.

A big reason why Williams has been so successful as a pick-and-roll scorer with the Clippers is because he has been one of the best 3-point shooters off the dribble this season. Almost a quarter of his total shot attempts have been made up of pull-up 3-pointers, which he has made at a 42.4 percent clip. The only players who have converted those opportunities at a higher rate on at least 55 attempts are Denzel Valentine (35-for-82) and Klay Thompson (25-for-58).

Williams, for what it’s worth, has made 72 of his 170 pull-up 3-point attempts this season. And not all of his makes have come on easy looks. Williams has made a career out of being a tough shot taker, tough shot maker. There aren’t many shots he’ll turn down, especially when he’s feeling it.

While they aren’t as sexy as the pull-up 3-pointers, Williams has been equally as efficient pulling-up from mid-range. Those shots make up almost as much of his scoring as pull-up 3-pointers do, and he’s made 43.5 percent of those opportunities.

Mid-range pull-ups become important an important shot for Williams to take when defenders climb over the top of screens, as James Ennis tries to do on the following possession. If he wasn’t comfortable pulling-up from mid-range, defenses would have more success slowing him down by sending his defender over the pick and dropping the big man involved to the paint to prevent him from getting to the basket.

It gives Williams everything he needs to be the type of three-level scorer who can run circles around teams when involved in pick-and-rolls and handoffs, plays that have combined to make up over half of his scoring this season.

Williams has also been a reliable catch-and-shoot threat this season. He’s made 40.4 percent of those opportunities from the perimeter, which is comparable to Bradley Beal, Allen Crabbe, Marco Belinelli and Kevin Love. It’s a slight improvement from last season, too, when Williams made 38.0 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3-pointers.

Although Williams has taken over as the primary ball handler for the Clippers, he’s not the only playmaker on the roster. Blake Griffin, Milos Teodosic and Austin Rivers — a trio that has been involved in half of Williams’ assisted baskets this season — are more comfortable operating with the ball in their hands. As he has proven time and time again in his career, Williams has the skill set to function as a shooting guard when needed, whether it means running off of screens or spacing the floor for ball handlers by spotting-up on the weakside.

To top it all off, Williams is averaging a career-high 5.0 assists per game this season. He’s never been an elite passer, but he at least keeps defenses honest by feeding the roll man when teams swarm him coming off of screens. According to NBA.com, 61.1 percent of Williams’ assists this season have come directly at the rim. His four most assisted teammates: DeAndre Jordan (48), Montrezl Harrell (30), Blake Griffin (29) and Willie Reed (22) — four athletic big men who can take advantage of aggressive defensive schemes by rolling to the basket and finishing above the rim.

Being able to create 3-pointers for himself off the dribble and easy baskets for his teammates around the rim as the quarterback of the offense has the Clippers scoring at a rate of 109.0 points per 100 possessions with Williams on the floor. Their offensive rating falls to 102.8 points per 100 possessions when he takes a seat on the bench, giving him the highest differential (+6.2) on the team. Some of the players who have a similar impact on their team’s offense are James Harden (+5.3), Kevin Durant (+5.8), Victor Oladipo (+5.8) and John Wall (+6.0),

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Williams — a perennial Sixth Man of the Year candidate with career averages of 20.0 points and 4.5 assists per 36 minutes — do these sorts of things. He’s simply getting more minutes, taking more shots, scoring more points and dishing out more assists than he ever has before.

The kicker is he’s doing all of it more consistently and more efficiently than he ever has before as well. It’s not something you’d expect from someone his age at his size with his mileage, which is what makes his breakout so surprising. (That, and the fact he’s doing it on a team that seemed like it had hit the tank button and had nothing left to play for. Absolutely nobody saw this coming from the Clippers).

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The best part of it all? Williams will be a free agent in the offseason. He might miss out on being named an All-Star for the first time in his career and being crowned the Sixth Man of the Year for the second time in his career, but his performance over the last month sets him up nicely for the conversations he’s going to have with teams looking for an upgrade in the backcourt.

All statistics are up to date as of Jan. 22, 2018.