Lou Williams doesn’t need to be an NBA All-Star to be a star

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Plus, are the Wizards misplaying their poker hand?

Lou Williams is 31 years old. This is his 13th season in the NBA. The zenith of his career was supposed to be three years ago, presumably his prime, when he won Sixth Man of the Year as a spark plug for the Toronto Raptors and was named in the opening line of a certified Drake banger.

As of this moment, Williams is averaging 23.6 points and 5.2 assists per game while shooting 40 percent from beyond the arc, all career highs. He’s notched double-digit 30-point games. He dropped 50 in a win over the Warriors.

The Clippers are currently ninth in the West, hanging on to middling playoff hopes, and in the recurring, sometimes overlapping absences of Blake Griffin, Milos Teodosic, Patrick Beverley, Danilo Gallinari, and DeAndre Jordan, Williams has been the Clippers’ flagship player.

Williams has been flanked by Austin Rivers, as well as by guys you didn’t know existed until Rockets vs. Clippers last week, like Jawun Evans, Tyrone Wallace, Jamil Wilson, C.J. Williams, and former Rockets Sam Dekker and Montrezl Harrell. Credit to head coach Doc Rivers as well for consistently organizing this interchanging rag-tag bunch into a reasonably well-prepared team.

Despite all this, Williams didn’t have an All-Star spot when the 2018 teams were announced. I get that. While it might feel like overkill that the Warriors will field four All-Stars, it’s not as though Klay Thompson isn’t deserving. And while it is incredibly impressive that a career spark plug is powering a team’s pursuit toward playing .500 basketball, it is not the stuff of legends.

A season as fun, interesting, and illuminating as the Clippers’ 2017-2018 campaign might be completely forgotten to history, and there might not be a next year — or even a next month — for this group. With the trade deadline nearing, Williams is one of the market’s most intriguing pieces, and Jordan, who can opt out of his contract at the end of the season, is right behind him. The Clippers, dealing with a middling present and a murky future, are incentivized to shop both pieces hard.

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Clik here to view.Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

More than anything, Williams being snubbed is the first repudiation of the Clippers’ season-long quest to be taken seriously. It’s not even about being seen as contenders — or as an All-Star in Williams’ case — but as more than a gimmick. It’ll be hard to achieve, given how unconventional Williams’ trajectory towards improvement has been. On a podcast with USA Today’s Sam Amick, Williams said he hopes what the Clippers have done is recognized. He also offered his own explanation for his rise. As a career backup, he had a lot more in the tank at 31 than most players do, and with the decimated Clippers, he was given an opportunity to let it all hang out.

On Amick’s podcast, Williams went on to say he doesn’t want to be traded because he believes what the Clippers are doing is real, and that it matters. The question: Does anyone outside the organization feel the same way?

In an age where the story of a team is tethered closely to either progress, faux-progress or a teardown, there is a disorienting quality to witnessing resiliency for its own sake, with little upside outside of personal growth.

Williams is exemplary of what is happening. A guy you’d never imagine getting All-Star votes, operating at his logical extreme, punking opponents. Griffin, when healthy, has been the guy we were promised after his rookie year — an all-seeing offensive nucleus with a versatile arsenal that he sometimes eschews just to try to get a putback dunk over two defenders. Even Rivers has emerged into a formidable combo-guard scorer and is demanding his critics acknowledge it.

The Clippers, in a twisted way, are being taken more seriously than ever, now that they’re no longer floundering and talking shit en route to a doomed playoff showdown. There is value, it turns out, in knowing what you are and doing what you’re supposed to do.

SIDELINE STORY

This week, I was inspired by The Ringer’s Chris Ryan using a poker metaphor to tweet out Jonathan Tjarks’ article about Markieff Morris playing the five in a small-ball lineup for the Wizards, a topic I’ve also written about in a previous Tip-Off. You should check both out.

Here’s Morris’ full quote from Tjarks:

“I’m a strong guy, so playing the 5 doesn’t bother me. I just got to turn my grimey up. [Going small] is a great look for us. We don’t want to expose our hand too early [in the regular season]. We know when the playoffs come we have to play small ball. Not too many teams at that level will allow you to play a traditional center all game. You almost got to be like the best to beat the best.”

I have to admit, this tickled me. This tickled me to the point that I imagined a scenario wherein the Wizards slow-play pocket queens on the NBA’s Eastern Conference poker table, because that’s essentially the level of confidence they have in what is not the greatest hand in a multi-way pot in later rounds. Here it is:

The Cavaliers, under the gun, open pocket eights (88) with a raise that’s 2.5x the size of the big blind.

The Wizards, with the dealer button, smooth call pocket queens (QQ) instead of raising, which is the standard play in this situation.

The Celtics, as the big blind, figure they have the pot odds to call 10-9, suited hearts, and see a flop. Who can resist that pretty little hand, anyways?

THE FLOP: 8 of spades, 9 of diamonds, 3 of clubs.

The Celtics check. Sure, they’ve got top-pair on the board, but there’s easily an over-pair here, betting out of position looks fishy, and you don’t want to play a big pot with a pair of nines.

The Cavs smooth-check their three-of-a-kind eights. They know the Wizards will always bet here, bluff or not, unless they have something like a pair of fives, or somehow, a three in their hand.

The Wizards, with the over-card, bet 1.25x the pot.

The Celtics call.

The Cavs call behind. SOO sMOOooTH baby.

THE TURN: 8 of spades, 9 of diamonds, 3 of clubs, 4 of spades.

The Celtics check.

The Cavs check AGAIN. Let ‘em barrel.

The Wizards bet 0.8x the pot.

The Celtics, feeling queasy as all hell, call.

The Cavs, now thinking that with two bets and another caller behind, somebody definitely has value on this table. Time to drive up the size of the pot. They raise 2.3x the pot.

The Wizards call. Another team would reflect on the possibility that they are beat here. But the Wizards, man, they got QUEENS! And no overcards on the board. The Cavs probably just have a combo draw of some sort. Which one? Who knows. They just know they’re not beat here.

The Celtics, with their suspicions confirmed, fold.

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THE RIVER: 8 of spades, 9 of diamonds, 3 of clubs, 4 of spades, 5 of spades.

The Cavs, hating that river, check.

The Wizards bet 1.5x pot.

The Cavs go in the tank for a few minutes, kicking themselves for slow-playing their set of eights. “It feels like 10-J of spades, or even 67 of spades, given how loose the Wizards can play, and they’re on the button after all. Plus, look at the size of the bet. They want me to call,” the Cavs think. After a while, the Cavs admit they’re not good enough to fold here, make a crying call, and win the pot.