Kawhi Leonard is targeting the Los Angeles Clippers’ game against the Atlanta Hawks on Jan. 4 for his season debut, according to The Athletic’s Law Murray. Leonard has been playing full-contact 5-on-5 in practice since Dec. 18, but the Clippers want to see him get more scrimmages in before bringing him back, coach Tyronn Lue told reporters Friday.
The Clippers will visit the New Orleans Pelicans on Monday, the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday and the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday. That road trip does not afford them practice time, so Leonard will not travel with the team. He will instead practice with Los Angeles’ G League affiliate, the San Diego Clippers.
“It’s not really worth going ’cause we won’t have any practice days,” Lue told reporters.
If Leonard indeed comes back next Saturday against the Hawks, he will have missed the Clippers’ first 34 games of the season because of inflammation in his right knee. Asked what box Leonard still needs to check before returning to the court, Lue said, “Play some more 5-on-5.”
According to Lue, the Clippers want to “keep stacking the days, and see he fares after that.” Three months ago, team president Lawrence Frank said that, while the swelling in Leonard’s knee was almost gone, they wanted to be cautious. Last season, Leonard played in 68 of their first 74 games, then missed their last eight because of inflammation in his knee. He tried to come back during their first-round series against the Dallas Mavericks, but his knee didn’t respond as well as they’d hoped it would. This time, they want to make sure that he doesn’t wind up in a similar situation.
“I know he doesn’t like to play 5-on-5 a lot outside of the games, but this is very important to the medical staff, to Lawrence, to our group as well,” Lue said. “Just making sure he’s getting the right amount of reps, making sure he’s doing everything so this doesn’t occur again. so we can kind of monitor the fluid and see how it’s working. So far, it’s been really good, and we just want to continue to keep progressing.”
Without Leonard, the Clippers are 18-13 and fifth in the West, with the No. 4 defense in the NBA. Their offense, however, ranks 23rd. James Harden’s usage rate is the highest it has been since 2019-20, but Harden told reporters Friday that he’s not worried about his role changing when Leonard comes back.
“It’s funny, me and Kawhi talked about that a little bit on the bench today,” Harden said after the Clippers’ 102-92 win against the Golden State Warriors, via ClutchPoints’ Tomer Azarly. “Whenever his return is, we just talked about [it], and I just said, ‘Just work your way in,’ you know what I mean? Cause he feels like he doesn’t want to just come over and just mess up the flow and the chemistry that we have been building up, but I don’t think it’s going to be a problem. Like, I’ve been in every situation in a sense of like being the main guy, having to take [a step back]. So I think, for our aggressiveness and our team, we’re going to still play the same way. It’s just we got another unique weapon on both ends of the floor, so it’s definitely a bonus for us.”
In 2023-24, Leonard made the All-NBA Second Team and averaged 23.7 points on 62.6% true shooting, plus 6.1 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 1.6 steals and 0.9 blocks in 34.3 minutes.
