OCEANSIDE — Fans at sold-out Frontwave Arena got to see Kawhi Leonard on Tuesday night at the Los Angeles Clippers’ preseason game against the Brooklyn Nets.
See him walk in just before tip-off in shorts, a hoodie and a Padres cap. See him sit imively on the bench, squeezed between coaches in red quarter-zips and uniformed players. See him stand up during timeouts.
Didn’t see him play, though.
And fans might not when the Clippers christen another new arena, the $2 billion Intuit Dome in Inglewood, with a pair of exhibition games next week and the Oct. 23 season opener against the Phoenix Suns.
“You know, I never plan on missing games,” Leonard said at media day before the start of training camp. “It’s just about my body. I’m a human being, and we’re playing basketball.”
Some might dispute the former assertion, given the San Diego State alum’s supernatural abilities in the latter. But comments from Leonard and the Clippers in recent weeks have had a decidedly mortal, sober tone, with words like “cautious” and “slow” and “limited” and “progression” liberally sprinkled into conversations.
Listen to what head coach Tyronn Lue said before Tuesday’s game:
“The biggest thing for us is making sure we do right by Kawhi, not letting him hurt himself trying to get back early. We can’t skip steps. We have to follow the process. Our medical staff is one of the best in the league. We have to make sure we’re checking every box, we’re doing everything the right way, before we get him on the floor. If that’s him being pissed off at us because we’re protecting him, so be it.”
Asked to elaborate on not skipping steps, Lue said:
“When he’s feeling good but he hasn’t done the necessary lifting or necessary strengthening exercises, things he needs to build up to get to that point to play, we just can’t do that. He can’t rush back. He can’t feel like he has to come back and save the day.”
There are two components to that. One is Leonard’s inimitable work ethic, which most offseasons has meant three-a-days at SDSU’s JAM Center and various local high school gyms. The other is the Clippers’ diluted roster, which no longer includes veterans Paul George and Russell Westbrook.
They’ve had a compound effect. Leonard’s tires are going bald from all the mileage on them. And now, at age 33, he may be required to accept an even larger role for a franchise whose championship window is rapidly closing.
Leonard seemed to have recovered from meniscus and ACL surgeries on his uncooperative right knee, playing 68 regular-season games last season, his most since 2016-17, and averaging 23.7 points, 3.6 assists, 6.1 rebounds and 1.6 steals.
But then inflammation returned to the knee late in the season and he was shut down after a couple aborted attempts in a first-round playoff exit against Dallas. He rested and reported to training camp for the U.S. Olympic team in early July only to be cut the morning of the first exhibition game despite, practice observers noted, looking fine for a backup role in Paris.
The decision, several sources have said, was not Leonard’s. Lawrence Frank, the Clippers’ president of basketball operations, insisted it wasn’t theirs, either, saying he was “very disappointed” in USA Basketball.
A few days later, Leonard was spotted at the JAM Center working out as robustly as ever.
“Things came out of nowhere,” is all Leonard will say.
But as the summer wore on, the inflammation returned and there were reports of an undisclosed “procedure” on the knee. He has been limited in training camp, held out of drills while he continues rehab on the side.
“It’s just strictly when he’s healthy,” Lue said before his Leonard-less team treated a full house of 7,500 to an 115-106 win against Brooklyn in the future home of the Clippers’ G League . “We don’t have a crystal ball to say when he’s going to be back. The biggest thing for him is making sure he’s 100 percent healthy before we get him on the floor.”
Leonard put it like this:
“We’ve just been taking it slow, day by day, just trying to get me back on the floor. It’s not based on how I’m feeling. It’s more just listening to the doctors and seeing what I can do to prevent what I have been doing, because I’ve been doing a lot of stuff that probably has me where I am now.”
All parties sound confident they have a better handle on what triggers the inflammation and how to prevent it. The overarching goal seems to be preserving his knees for the postseason after repeatedly breaking down in April and May.
Earlier this year, Leonard signed a three-year, $152.4 million contract extension that keeps him with the Clippers through the 2026-27 season.
“I mean, we’ll be here for a long time if I start describing stuff and people start not knowing different (medical ),” Leonard said of his knee. “Just learning how it came and how to keep it down, and make sure we don’t fall in that time frame of those important moments (in the playoffs) and make sure I’m healthy. There’s some stuff that we can do, or try to do, to make me last. We’ll see what happens.
“It’s a progression for me. I went from zero games to 52 to 68. Let’s see if I can keep it going from there.”
