As the LA Clippers walked off the floor after their 25th game, a 117-106 loss to the visiting Houston Rockets at Intuit Dome, Kawhi Leonard was joined by a growing number of teammates in street clothes. Leonard has been out all season as he strengthens his surgically repaired right knee that ruined both his final postseason with Paul George last spring as well as his spot on the U.S. Olympic team.
In the last week, nine of Leonard’s teammates either played through illness or injury or missed/left games because of injury. That included fellow star James Harden, who missed his first game of the season Sunday with groin soreness. Norman Powell just returned from missing seven of nine games to manage a hamstring strain. Former starter Terance Mann had surgery to repair a fractured left middle finger and does not expect to return until January. Backup point guard Kevin Porter Jr. started his first game since April 2023 on Sunday after missing three games with an ankle sprain. The team even lost key reserve Amir Coffey before Sunday’s opening tip because of a shoulder contusion, while starting power forward Derrick Jones Jr. was done for the night after playing the entire first quarter because of hamstring soreness.
The story of the greatest players in NBA history. In 100 riveting profiles, top basketball writers justify their selections and uncover the history of the NBA in the process.
The story of the greatest plays in NBA history.
Buy
But now is as good a time as any for a team to go through a serious rash of injury. The Clippers were the only team in the league to have zero games of more than one day of rest from Halloween through Wednesday night’s blowout loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Clippers have done well to survive the schedule, travel that had them playing road games in every time zone, and playing shorthanded (both planned and unplanned) to be 14-11 through the first seven weeks of the regular season. That record is good enough to be in sixth place in a deep, though unspectacular, Western Conference.
Relief has come in the form of the NBA Cup entering the knockout round. The Clippers don’t have back-to-back games until New Year’s Day, and Sunday’s loss to the Rockets came after three days off. They even practiced Saturday. And though Leonard is still not at practice, the smoke toward his imminent return continues to thicken. It’s to the point where Leonard has his hair in the tight straight-back cornrows that he always plays with instead of the box plaits that he has had for months.
Kawhi pic.twitter.com/aasDzT7z8o
— Law Murray ⚛️ (@LawMurrayTheNU) December 7, 2024
The Clippers are not committing to a return date for Leonard, which is in line with never releasing any kind of timeline for Leonard’s return-to-play protocol since president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank declared a week before training camp that Leonard would be held out of drills. The following week, Leonard stated that his goal was to be ready for the season opener; by the end of that week, Leonard was suggesting that he would need a runway of time before he could reasonably debut.
“It’s always a build-up to playing in a game,” Leonard said in October. “Especially in the position I’m in.”
Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue was left to constantly update Leonard’s status as he stayed behind the scenes or back in California while the club was on the road. Lue would say the same things every time he was asked:
“He’s progressing”
“Taking all the necessary steps to try to get back“
“Not skipping steps”
“Check all the boxes”
“Making sure he’s back to 100 percent before he’s on the floor“
“Doing some things on the court”
“He’s very excited“
“He’s getting better”
“He’s not ready to play“
Over the weekend, Leonard went from his session with trainers that included rope jumping barefoot to putting socks and sneakers on and getting some shots up on the practice court. That came days after Leonard went through drills on the Intuit Dome primary playing floor, getting a feel for an arena that he has yet to play in. And of course, the team finally announced Leonard’s bobblehead night: Dec. 16 against the Utah Jazz, conveniently taking place after the Clippers have two days off following a crucial visit to play against the Denver Nuggets, which is a game that comes after four days of rest.
Kawhi Leonard bobble head night official
And he is ramping up accordingly… pic.twitter.com/Y5HWnjO9vg
— Law Murray ⚛️ (@LawMurrayTheNU) December 5, 2024
“Everybody is excited for him to be back,” Coffey said after Saturday’s practice, as Leonard shot on the far court. “We see him getting on the court, going through drills, it’s a good sign. Y’all are excited, we’re excited. I feel like it’s the same energy.”
This week could be a critical one to get Leonard up to speed. A return to practice is the crucial first step for Leonard to lose the week-to-week designation. That’s also when Leonard would address the public next.
Leonard playing in a game is not the end of the process; it would be the beginning. Leonard has a precedent of starting a season in December after missing the first several weeks. In 2017, Leonard’s first game came on Dec. 12 at Dallas while playing what would be his last season with the San Antonio Spurs. Leonard missed the first 27 games of that season because of right quadriceps tendinopathy.
“When you have the depth and the skilled players that they have, just like we had, you’re just trying to stay afloat, really,” said Rockets head coach Ime Udoka, who was an assistant coach with the Spurs in 2017. “That’s the thing that sucks with injuries, is that you see the work that these guys are putting in behind the scenes to get back right. It’s a day-in, day-out process just to get your body healthy, with a lot of unknowns still being there. Not sure when they’re going to get back, not sure how fast they’re going to get integrated back into the system.”
The step after Leonard debuts is to actually be healthy enough to stay on the floor. In 2017-18, Leonard played only nine of 17 games before he missed every game after Jan. 13. In the 2024 postseason, Leonard played in Game 2 after missing the final eight games of the regular season and Game 1 of the postseason, but Leonard was done after Game 3 in Dallas.
Lue is looking forward to Leonard getting back on the floor soon. And he has very little concern about how Leonard will fit in with a team that has defended at a high level.
“He’s a defensive-minded guy who can guard the basketball, guard five different positions,” Lue said Saturday at practice. “For him coming into what we’re doing, it shouldn’t be hard for him to get involved.”
Can Leonard be the player that the Clippers extended him to be? Leonard is on his third contract with the Clippers. His first contract ended with a partially torn ACL that caused him to miss the end of the 2021 postseason. Leonard’s second contract saw him miss the first year of the pact after he underwent knee surgery to repair the ACL. He signed a three-year extension last January. When he gets back, he’s going to need time to excel after not playing in an NBA game for more than half a year.
But Leonard was one of the best players in the league last season, appearing in a seven-year-high 68 games while shooting a career-best 52.5 percent from the field en route to being named to his sixth All-Star game and making All-NBA Second Team. When Leonard returned from the ACL injury in 2022-23, he tried to come off the bench to begin the season until his knee flared up. In three games in between his knee flare and a serious ankle sprain, Leonard scored only 25 points combined. Leonard didn’t have a 20-point game until his ninth game of that season, didn’t have a 30-point game until his 11th game, and didn’t have consecutive 20-point games until his 16th game.
The final step of a successful return for Leonard is the reason why he has been out as long as he has, and that is to finish a playoff series. Each of the previous four seasons has ended with Leonard being unable to start, finish or participate at all in the postseason. On Media Day, it was something Leonard lamented.
“We just take it one day at a time, one step at a time,” Leonard said in September. “Hopefully, I can get through these playoffs this year.”
You have to start somewhere. And the Clippers have only eight games in 26 days to work on getting healthier and possibly integrating a star. Six of those games come with multiple days off before the contest. The time is coming soon for Leonard to finally help the Clippers on the floor, provided he is at the 100 percent the Clippers say he needs to be to take and stay on the floor.
Or, as Harden says: “Kawhi is going to be ready when Kawhi is ready.”
Sign up to get The Bounce, the essential NBA newsletter from Zach Harper and The Athletic staff, delivered free to your inbox.
(Photo: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)
