Saying Los Angeles Clippers star Kawhi Leonard had a strange year doesn’t separate it from other years. Since he joined the NBA in 2011, he has had a series of odd, injury-filled but productive seasons.
But even by Leonard’s baseline, the past 12 months have been stranger than usual.
Last season, he missed the final eight games of the regular season and four of the Clippers’ six first-round playoff games, including the last three of the series loss to Dallas, with inflammation in his troublesome right knee.
USA Basketball named him to its 12-man team for the 2024 Paris Olympics only to replace him with Derrick White just before leaving the U.S., saying, “USA Basketball and the L.A. Clippers determined it’s in Leonard’s best interest to spend the remainder of the summer preparing for the upcoming NBA season.”
But Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank told reporters, “It was USAB’s call, and I was quite frankly very disappointed with the decision. Kawhi wanted to play. We wanted him to play.”
Yet, in September, Frank said swelling in Leonard’s knee “has significantly gone down,” but Leonard wasn’t ready for the start of the 2024-25 season. He missed the Clippers’ first 34 games, played in just 37, but closed the season strong.
On Monday, Leonard scored 39 points on 15-for-19 shooting in the Clippers’ 105-102 victory over Denver in Game 2 of their Western Conference first-round series. He added five assists, three rebounds, two steals and one block and assisted on the shot that put Los Angeles ahead 103-100 and made the shot that gave the Clippers a 105-102 lead. He had 12 points, three assists and one steal in the fourth quarter and became just the fifth player in league history to record four or more playoff games of at least 30 points on at least 75% shooting.
“His shot-making ability is elite,” said Clippers guard James Harden, who knows something about elite shot-making. “That’s the aggressiveness we need from him no matter what’s going on, no matter who’s guarding him.”
There are few players, especially in the playoffs in the past decade, better than Leonard, who was the NBA Finals MVP in 2014 with San Antonio and in 2019 with Toronto. He remains – when available to play – one of the best players in the league at 33 years old.
“Over contested hands. He made some incredible shots,” Nuggets interim coach David Adelman said. “He is an all-time player. We need to watch film and go, ‘Hey how can we do better?’ We can do better than that, but to his credit he was awesome.’
If the Clippers beat the Nuggets in this series, it will be because of what Leonard does – in addition to Harden, Norman Powell and Ivica Zubac. This series is the best first-round series. Tied at 1-1, the two games have been decided by five points – Denver’s 112-110 overtime victory in Game 1 and the Clippers’ 105-102 victory in Game 2. Game 3 is Thursday (10 p.m. ET, NBA TV).
(An aside: this game should be available to a wider audience. It should be the TNT game instead of the OKC-Memphis game. “If you’re a basketball fan I think this is probably the best basketball you can watch on both ends,” Denver’s Nikola Jokic said.)
Leonard is tremendously consistent, and that consistency breeds an underappreciation of what he does. Of course, we would like to see Leonard on the court for more games, but as he has noted, that’s just his body. His knees aren’t perfect. He lives with that.
“It’s always negative. It’s always what he’s been through and what he’s not able to do just because of something he can’t control,” Harden said. “But we don’t appreciate how great he is when he’s actually out there and putting up performances like (Game 2). … It’s something we’ve got to live with I guess in this world. For me being closer to him, and every single day seeing the work he puts in, you appreciate him.”
There is appreciation for Leonard’s game, at least among players and media. He was an All-NBA selection last season, appearing in 68 games, the most he had played since 74 games in 2016-17. He was limited to nine games in 2017-18 and missed the entire 2021-22 season.
“This is just my journey, so whatever. I can’t lay out the perfect script for me,” he said in Las Vegas.
Leonard’s quiet and sometimes awkward demeanor prevents the spotlight from shining on him all the time. He also doesn’t seek attention. At all. His teammates enjoy his personality, and at the beginning of USA Basketball’s pre-Olympic training camp in Las Vegas in July, several teammates called him the funniest guy on the team.
“I’m just being myself really,” he said in July. “That’s all I can do. That’s what I do every day. That’s how I get peace of mind, just being myself. So, if I’m funny, if I’m not funny, if I’m talkative or not talkative, it is what it is, but I’m not trying to be nobody’s best friend.”
He just needs to be on the court.
In the final five weeks of the regular season, the Clippers were 18-3, sharing the best record with Oklahoma City and Boston during that stretch. In those 21 games, the Clippers had the No. 1 offense, No. 4 defense and No. 1 net rating – scoring 122.2 points and allowing 108.9 points per 100 possessions. Leonard played in 17 of those games and averaged 25.5 points, 7.1 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 2.1 steals and shot 52.8% from the field, 44.6% on 3-pointers and 83.1% on free throws.
“Trying to get to this point where he is healthy for the playoffs, and we know if we have a healthy Kawhi we can win any series,” Clippers coach Ty Lue said. “And that just shows what he is capable of doing.”
Follow NBA reporter Jeff Zillgitt on social media @JeffZillgitt