Doc Rivers envisioned rookie Terance Mann as an NBA point guard, even though he hadn’t played the position in his four years at Florida State, where he was a shooting guard or small forward.

Three NBA seasons later, Clippers coach Tyronn Lue’s staff has Mann filling a whole new role: “We say he plays the six.”

Wait, what? If a point guard is the one and a center is the five, what’s the six?

Lue explained: “He plays the one, the two, the three, the four, the five – the six.”

“I guess,” Mann said, “that just means that I play every position the best I can. That I’m good at playing multiple positions and I don’t really have one, so I’m the six.”

His mom, Daynia La-Force, a longtime college coach who also coached in the WNBA, said “the six” fits her 6-foot-5 son to a tee.

“It really does make sense,” La-Force said by phone. “It captured what exactly Terance means to the team in his versatility and how important that versatility is.”

In an era of positionless play, Mann is, well, the man to turn to when the Clippers need someone to defend the other team’s top scorer or someone besides Reggie Jackson to set up an offense – and probably if they needed to gut a fish or open a letter or cut some string.

“We don’t have him do too much,” Lue said of their resident Swiss Army Knife. “Just guard the best player, defend and rebound … handle the ball and make plays and attack the basket.”

Those varied skills were ingrained in Mann from an early age, his mom believes, chalking it up to osmosis.

“For sure,” said La-Force, whose first question after games was typically “How many points did your man score?” and not “How many points did you score?”

“Not only did he witness how important those skills are, he heard me complaining about my players not valuing taking care of the basketball, not valuing boxing out and giving up a lot of offensive rebounds, not hitting the offensive boards,” La-Force said. “All the little things that he heard me complain about over the years – he doesn’t want to be in a situation to be the player the coach is complaining about for those reasons.”

Entering Friday’s game against Utah – against which he erupted for a career-high 39 points, proving capable, in a big way, of the most obvious basketball skill: putting the ball through the hoop – Mann was averaging career-highs across the board.

He was scoring 10.6 points, 2.5 assists and 5.5 rebounds, including 1.3 offensive rebounds – his rebounding numbers the third-best on the team behind centers Ivica Zubac and Isaiah Hartenstein.

Every bit as key: The 25-year-old was logging 29 minutes per game – about 10 more than last season, having split his 2,062 total minutes (second-most among the Clippers) mostly between shooting guard (75%), point guard (16%) and small forward (8%), according to Cleaning the Glass.

And for as much ball-handling as Mann is doing, he’s averaging just 1.2 turnovers per 36 minutes – fewer than every Clipper but Amir Coffey and Nicolas Batum. On Monday, Mann played a career-high 45 minutes in an overtime loss in Cleveland and finished with 18 points, 10 rebounds, four assists – and no turnovers.

“He’s taken that challenge for us all year,” said Lue, assuredly not complaining. “And he’s been good for us, a big-time utility guy.”

For his part, Mann said – with both his big grin and in so many words – that he’s relishing all the roles that make up his role.

“I love it,” he said. “Keeps me on the floor.”