What Jawun Evans’ Lack of Playing Time Means For His Future With the Clippers

In Tuesday night’s preseason matchup between the Denver Nuggets and the Los Angeles Clippers, former Oklahoma State guard Jawun Evans recorded 4 points on 2-of-2 shooting to go along with a pretty nifty assist.

Jawun Evans feeds Johnathan Motley underneath! #NBAPreseason pic.twitter.com/waVYLrbF4Y

— NBA (@NBA) October 10, 2018

Evans played very well in his time on the court. However, this has been the one key issue for Jawun through the Clippers’ preaseason: his lack of time on the court.

Through four preseason games, three against NBA opponents and one against the Sydney Kings, Evans is averaging only 5.2 minutes per game. This is currently the lowest average of any guard on the Clippers’ roster. In these limited minutes, Evans is averaging 1.5 points, 1.3 assists and 0.5 rebounds per game. In addition, he’s shooting 60 percent on 1.2 field goal attempts per contest.

This shortage of minutes for the former Cowboys standout aren’t a great sign, as the Clippers currently have a log jam on their roster at point guard. Patrick Beverly, Milos Teodosic, and the recently drafted Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, along with Evans, all play the point guard spot. Additionally, they have players such as Lou Williams and Tyrone Wallace who are talented ballhandlers and are capable of running the Clippers’ offense.

The Clippers roster contains 17 players at the moment, 15 fully guaranteed contracts and two non-guaranteed. They will need to cut two players to get down to the NBA maximum of 15 before the season. All NBA teams are allowed two additional two-way players, but they have already identified Angel Delgado and Johnathan Motley will hold those spots.

As the Clippers’ FanSide site Clipperholics points out, there is some good news for Evans as the Clippers are allowed to option four players to their G-League team  So, Evans will most likely remain in the Clippers’ organization, but would still be allowed to be picked up by another NBA team if they were interested. So if he gets cut, there’s a really strong chance he sticks around in the league for the time being if he clears waivers.

It’s a tough situation for the former Poke, but even if Evans is waived, he is still a very talented young guard who is continuing to develop and improve his game, and I think many NBA general managers realize this. I believe Evans will stick around in the NBA even if it’s not with the Clippers.

Los Angeles has one preseason game left for Evans to showcase his skills… well, if he gets the chance.