Chauncey Billups Aiming to Return in the First Week of December

The Clippers backcourt—with Chris Paul, Jamal Crawford, Willie Green and Eric Bledsoe (to say nothing of L.A.’s abundance of small forwards who could slide over to shooting guard)—is truly stacked, about as stacked as any backcourt in the NBA. And it’s about to become a little more stacked. CBS reports Chauncey Billups is set to return to the floor in the coming two weeks: “Chauncey Billups is shooting to return from Achilles surgery the first week of December, a move that will exponentially increase the Clippers’ championship experience and make one of the deepest backcourts in the league even more crowded. If you’re a team with title aspirations that’s currently suffering through the late November doldrums with two straight road losses, as is true of the Clippers on both counts, this is a good problem to have. Look no further than the Knicks with Jason Kidd or the Clippers last season with Billups before he got hurt to understand what a title-tested point guard can do for a team. But Billups’ imminent return raises the question of how he will affect the Clippers’ backcourt rotation, which already includes Chris Paul, Willie Green, Eric Bledsoe and Jamal Crawford. Once 40-year-old swingman Grant Hill returns from a bone bruise in his knee, the distribution of minutes and roles will become even more dicey. ‘It seems like we’ll have an issue, but hopefully not,’ Paul said after the Clippers fell apart down the stretch and lost to the Nets 86-76 Friday night. ‘I think that’s the reason why we brought these great guys in our locker room so we won’t have an issue. Hopefully guys — which I believe — are all about winning. If you’re all about winning, then you play the minutes when you’ve got them.'”