The good news about Los Angeles Clippers star Kawhi Leonard’s impending return: He participated in a 5-on-5 practice and made contact Wednesday, coach Tyronn Lue told reporters after practice. via Justin Russo of Russo Writes.
The bad news: Leonard will not play on the Clippers’ upcoming three-game road trip, which will visit the Dallas Mavericks (twice) and the Memphis Grizzlies.
“He’s going to travel, yes,” Lue said. “He won’t play on this trip.”
This means Leonard, who has missed the Clippers’ first 27 games to rehab his right knee, won’t make his season debut until after Christmas. The first game he could possibly play in is at home against the Golden State Warriors on December 27.
Last week, Leonardo returned to practicebut he didn’t make contact. While it was “good to see him out there” in this context on Wednesday, the Clippers are “making sure that when he’s done with the five-on-five contact, making sure he doesn’t have any swelling, making sure he doesn’t have any setbacks,” Lue said to journalists. “He can do a lot of rehab stuff and do a lot of things while traveling with our team. That’s why he’s making the trip.”
When asked if Leonard is 100% healthy, Lue said: via The Athletic’s Law Murray: “Yeah, he feels good. So we just have to make sure he continues to feel good. We don’t want him to go a day or two and then go back to where he was, that’s why we are.” Taking the process slow, that’s why we’re doing it the right way. And he feels good, so we just need to make sure he can do it long enough to check all these boxes, make sure the process is right before we throw him away. him there on the ground.”
Without Leonard, and without Paul George, who left for the Philadelphia 76ers in free agency last summer, the Clippers rank 20th in offense and 5th in defense this season, with a +2.4 net rating and a 15- . 12 records. James Harden has a 30% usage rate for the first time since 2019-20, and Norman Powell is averaging a career-high 23.5 points on 65% true shooting. However, despite their best efforts, the team clearly needs more firepower. Leonard, if he can stay on the court, will solve that problem and make it even harder to score against them.
