LA Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank didn’t even need to accept a question from the press Tuesday before addressing Kawhi Leonard’s status going into training camp.
Leonard, the two-time Finals MVP and a member of the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team, has had each of the previous four seasons ruined by injuries to his right knee. Inflammation in the knee prematurely ended Leonard’s 2024 regular season, limited him to only two playoff games and kept him from staying on the United States Olympic men’s basketball team that won a gold medal.
A week before the Clippers begin training camp in Hawaii, Frank declared the swelling in Leonard’s right knee “has significantly gone down” and that the team would hold Leonard out of drills to “really focus on strengthening” the joint to “get him at 100 percent so he can have a great season — not just this year, but for many years.”
Lawrence Frank on Kawhi Leonard pic.twitter.com/MZvQ3g5FWf
— Law Murray 💡 (@LawMurrayTheNU) September 24, 2024
The Athletic reported Tuesday that Leonard underwent a procedure on his knee in May. That made it three right knee operations in four years for Leonard. In 2021, the 33-year-old underwent surgery to repair a partially torn ACL suffered in the West semifinals against the Utah Jazz. That injury cost Leonard the chance to play in the franchise’s only Western Conference Finals appearance, and the surgery cost him the entire 2021-22 season, which ended with the Clippers losing two Play-In Tournament games.
When Leonard returned from the ACL tear to begin the 2022-23 season, knee stiffness cost him 25 days (12 games) after the season’s first week. He eventually got strong enough to return to form, only to tear his meniscus in the 2023 West quarterfinals against the Phoenix Suns and miss the final three games of the five-game series.
The latest knee issue that first popped up for Leonard in early April is still a factor almost six months later. Do some basic math: Six months from now, the regular season will be winding down. Will this be a factor all year? Frank is optimistic it won’t be but would not commit to Leonard being ready for the team’s regular-season opener at Intuit Dome against the Suns on Oct. 23.
“I think the timing is all going to depend on how his knee responds to each phase,” Frank said. “No one has a crystal ball. We’re trending in a really, really good direction. I know he’s super determined to have a great year, but the timing when it comes to your body and your health, I don’t think you put time frames on it. I think you just have to respond to how he responds.”
Well, pardon fans and followers of this franchise for feeling like they have been here before, especially with Leonard. The season hasn’t even started yet, and believing in this team requires a prescription.
To know the Clippers is to never be comfortable with them for an extended period. It’s actually nice to know moving to a new arena in a new city with a new logo won’t change the inevitable anxiousness of investing attention into this team. No, the Clippers aren’t the franchise that moved to Southern California in 1979 and from San Diego in 1984, which lost more than 60 percent of its games in 23 seasons between 1981 and 2011.
Over the last 13 seasons, the Clippers have had a winning record each year, the NBA’s longest such active streak. Frank made a point to mention the pride of that streak at the beginning and end of Tuesday’s media availability. Nine of those seasons saw the Clippers win at least 60 percent of their games, including last year’s 51-31 finish that included a Pacific Division title. The goalposts have moved, and so the mark of disappointment isn’t failing to win regular-season games but whether the Clippers fail to make a postseason run.
In many ways, last year was the end of an era. By November, the Clippers had four future Hall of Famers on their roster who all could have been 2024 free agents: Leonard, Paul George, Russell Westbrook and James Harden. When Leonard signed a three-year, $152.4 million extension in January, he became the first player to establish himself as the face of Intuit Dome.
That team, unfortunately, peaked shortly after the ink dried on Leonard’s extension. George tabled his extension talks a month later. By March, head coach Tyronn Lue had to respond to George calling the team soft.
“Yeah, we are going to find an identity this year,” Lue deadpanned Tuesday.
Harden’s performance declined after Westbrook went out with a broken hand. Even though the Clippers toughened up to finish the regular season, appropriately after Lue called them out, Leonard was never at full strength again.
That team doesn’t exist anymore. George will begin his 15th NBA season with the Philadelphia 76ers on the largest and longest contract he could have signed. Westbrook picked up his player option, but the Clippers were determined to move on from him with George out of the picture, and he was traded in a deal that allowed the Clippers to acquire former lottery pick Kris Dunn.
The Clippers pivoted when George left, signing Derrick Jones Jr. from the defending Western Conference champion Dallas Mavericks and bringing back Nicolas Batum, who was traded last November to Philadelphia so the 76ers could acquire Harden. Before free agency, Harden signed a two-year deal that includes a 2025 player option. Lue also signed a long-awaited long-term extension.
There is an outline of a winning team with the personnel Frank has put together, especially with Lue coaching. When Leonard missed the entire season in 2021-22, George only played 31 games. That Clippers team still finished 42-40. The Clippers expect Leonard and Harden, by comparison, to play more games than the prior example, and the team will lean on Harden offensively. The 2017-18 MVP knows that the Clippers need more than just his talent, and Frank praised Harden for leading a players-only retreat at Arizona State and being “fully immersed” entering his first training camp with the Clippers.
“It’s awesome just to watch James and how he works. I know he’s determined to have a great year,” Frank said Tuesday. “We do hear what people have to say about our team, and our guys are extremely motivated to have a season that hopefully surprises a lot of people.”
Both Frank and Lue acknowledged the team’s need to play harder defensively, which means getting back in transition and rebounding. Lue said that the team needs to play faster, hit the paint and actually shoot available 3s.
Per @SecondSpectrum
Clippers averaged 5 passes per game fewer than the 29th-ranked Mavericks and 2.1 fewer catch 3 attempts than the 29th-ranked 76ers last season
It’s been on Tyronn Lue and his staff’s mind all summer. Here’s more on Lue’s response to that pic.twitter.com/xU9bgYPGGb
— Law Murray 💡 (@LawMurrayTheNU) September 25, 2024
Lue likes to say that “hope is stronger than fear.” The organization, coaching staff and players have to prepare to wait on Leonard. But the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. I mentioned earlier this month Leonard is as safe a bet to miss 20 games as almost any player in the league.
Sure, Leonard could get himself ready to play in a preseason game or two, stay on the floor in October and have the kind of season he had last year, when he played enough games to return to All-Star and All-NBA status for the first time in three seasons. It’s just as easy to see a scenario where Leonard doesn’t get right, and his day-to-day turns into week-to-week for an injury he has been dealing with for months.
After the year it has already been for the Clippers and Leonard, you can understand both waiting to see Leonard be healthy to believe in his progression, as well as simply never reaching a state of assurance he will actually stay on the floor long enough. Any level of stability the Clippers and Leonard experience going forward should be considered a bonus.
(Top photo: Tim Nwachukwu / Getty Images)
