Marreese Speights’ loss — of about 30 pounds from last season with the Golden State Warriors, that is — has been the Clippers’ gain.

The veteran power forward, listed at 6 feet 10 and 255 pounds, signed a one-year deal for a veteran’s minimum salary of $1.35 million in July, and is providing great value off the bench, averaging 10.8 points and 4.3 rebounds in 15.3 minutes in the team’s first six games.

“I don’t know if it’s noticeable in his game, but definitely in his jeans, for sure,” Coach Doc Rivers said before the Clippers’ Monday night game against the Detroit Pistons. “He’s lost weight, and let’s be honest; there’s no way Marreese should be playing for the minimum, and I think his weight was probably one of the reasons.

“He decided to take it to another level as far as his approach and being serious about the game, and we’re benefiting from it.”


Speights, an eight-year pro from Florida, made a few adjustments to his diet and started a new training regimen over the summer “that’s going to help my career and help me,” he said. “I feel so much better.”

Cut free by a Warriors team that couldn’t afford him after signing Kevin Durant, Speights has been a key member of a Clippers bench that had a net rating of plus-8.0 in the first six games, meaning reserves scored eight more points than their opponents per 100 possessions. The bench had a minus-0.5 rating last season.

According to ESPN, Speights entered Monday with the NBA’s 24th-best player efficiency rating, which measures a player’s per-minute statistical production. Speights had a rating of 24.62; the league average is 15.00.

Shooting 44.4% from the field (20 for 45) and 33.3% from three-point range (seven for 21), Speights had the highest scoring average of any player in the NBA that has averaged fewer than 20 minutes per game.


“You know what he does? He shoots … and he makes some of them, which is really nice,” Rivers said. “He’s done a great job defensively as far as taking charges. We saw that in Golden State, but we’ve seen it more.

“He’s one of those guys you want on your team, in your locker room. He’s just a fun guy to be around. You know he’s been in big games. He’s been better than advertised for me.”

Out of practice

The Clippers played five games last week, including wins at Memphis and San Antonio on Friday and Saturday. They play four games this week and four games next week, with back-to-back games on both weekends.


The grueling schedule leaves little time or energy for practice on days off, so the Clippers are trying to maximize their time during game-day shootaround sessions.

“Right now, there’s no practice time, so we either have to get better through film or get better in 20 minutes of shootaround,” Rivers said. “Today we picked one play and ran it over and over and over again. It’s not the way you like to do things, but it’s the best we can do.”

Big rig

Rivers interrupted the first question of his pregame news conference Monday night, saying, “Wait a minute, has everyone voted? I voted already. I voted in Florida. I’m voting in Los Angeles [on Tuesday].”


The room erupted in laughter.

mike.digiovanna@latimes.com

Twitter: @MikeDiGiovanna