HONOLULU, Hawaii — Kawhi Leonard says what he means, and means what he says. He has rarely, if ever, misspoken since joining the LA Clippers in 2019.
I asked Leonard which Clippers stood out to him in this first week of training camp practices in Hawaii. For fans and media used to standard platitudes and fluff from players in scrums, it can be eye-opening to hear Leonard say that “nobody stood out to me so far.”
Kawhi Leonard says that he has been watching the new guys in camp such as Kris Dunn and Derrick Jones Jr., as well as observing everyone’s progression, but adds “nobody stood out to me so far” pic.twitter.com/X6tMzFEqLS
— Law Murray 🏟️ (@LawMurrayTheNU) October 6, 2024
Leonard is figuring this team out, just like anyone else observing these Clippers. That includes the team’s new acquisitions and young players.
If nothing else, the two-time Finals MVP and two-time defensive player of the year is literal and direct. He’s also not the type to gas anyone up, the opposite of a love bomber. There is a purpose to Leonard’s words, a perspective that comes with the raw blend of success and disappointment. He hasn’t changed. Kawhi Leonard has always been like this.
Of course, the team that Leonard is the face of has changed. And unfortunately, his goals now include the modest aspiration of simply playing in a complete playoff series.
While Leonard hopes to play in the Oct. 23 regular-season opener against the Phoenix Suns at the new Intuit Dome, he and the team are not committing to that date. That effectively makes Leonard more week-to-week rather than day-to-day. That is the injury management plan this season; Leonard isn’t going hard in training camp as a means to getting him on the floor at 100 percent, staying on the floor for as many games as possible, and then finally finishing a postseason run for what would be the first time in five years if the Clippers qualify this year. When asked if he would prefer to play in a preseason game, Leonard said, “There’s always a buildup to playing in a game, especially in the position I’m in.”
There are two ways to look at Leonard’s position. One way is that of a main guy and a leader. We are not talking about a traditional position or role here. We’re talking about a star, one of them ones. Leonard is the rare player who is both a ceiling-raiser as well as a floor-raiser. That is, he can do things few others can on both ends of the floor, but he is also a uniquely solid player who keeps his mistakes to a minimum. Leonard is the one who can make things easier on Clippers coach Tyronn Lue — and, by extension, this revamped roster in need of some stability.
Leonard’s leadership style is not that of a north star who is loud and demonstrative at all times. Leading by example is where Leonard has settled in. When he speaks about what he needs from teammates, the term details commonly comes up. I asked Leonard at media day what the Clippers need to do to be successful, “What any other team needs to do,” he said. “It always breaks down to details of the game.
“Playing hard, being smart, executing, and building that team chemistry. This team now, obviously, we don’t know. It’s a lot of new faces. That’s when we’re going to start training camp and mesh guys’ talents together. Talk to T. Lue and see what our details are going to be this year. They’re different than last year just from the style of play of certain players.”
As great as Leonard is, he has always been the type of star who allows his teammates to leave a significant imprint on offenses. The only head coach that Leonard played for who put the ball in Leonard’s hands more than any other player was Doc Rivers. Since Lue replaced Rivers in 2020, players such as Paul George, Russell Westbrook and Harden have averaged more touches per game than Leonard has.
The style of play on this team has been strongly debated since questions about the team’s identity persisted at the end of the winter. Leonard came here with a co-star in Paul George, and point guard Russell Westbrook arrived at the 2023 All-Star break. Both are gone, with their unique brand of basketball going as well.
George was a co-star who deferred to Leonard willingly. In turn, Leonard was blunt about not needing to be George’s hype man while George was in the midst of a bounce-back season following the bubble.
“We both know what we need to do and what’s going to help the team,” Leonard said of George after a January 2021 win against the Sacramento Kings. “I don’t have to put a battery in his back and encourage him to play the way he’s playing.”
Even though Leonard and George supported each other, Leonard pushed back on the notion that his approach would change with George not there.
“He obviously made things easier on the court for players,” Leonard said. “But as far as my mental focus going into a game, I don’t feel like it’s going to be harder for me, personally. For anybody I’m on the court with, I don’t look at him to be my savior. I take in my own role and challenges I have to face each and every game and go in there and try and dominate the game. So I don’t think, with that being said, my mindset is going to change in that way.”
That also applies to Harden. No, Leonard is not looking at Harden as his savior. But that doesn’t mean that Leonard doesn’t need Harden or doesn’t value him. The two will have their lockers next to each other at Intuit Dome this season. Leonard knows that Harden is a different kind of player and facilitator than George or Westbrook. But Leonard is in a position to embrace Harden’s style.
“The relationship has been great,” Leonard said. “He came in last year wanting to win and saying that he wanted to sacrifice and do the things we needed to do to win games. So going into this year, he has the same mindset. You just want another guy on your team that is like-minded and is just willing to do anything that it takes for us to win. I think it’s a good relationship so far. We can be transparent to each other about how we’re playing, good or bad. So I think it will be good moving forward.”
The other way to look at Leonard’s position is on the floor with his teammates at a set spot.
It doesn’t seem like Leonard is convinced about a setup that leaves him primarily at power forward. When I asked him about the size on the roster and if he anticipates playing power forward again, he asked me who the power forward was last year.
“It’s going to be the same thing, pretty much, I feel like,” Leonard said at halftime of the Hawaii preseason game. “But you got to control what you can control. I probably ran the top five miles per game last year, top 10, coming off of a torn meniscus. So we’ll see if that is beneficial for me or not.”
The Clippers had a habit in previous years of punting on depth at the traditional point guard (2021-22 season) or center (2022-23 season) positions. The team also has had a surplus of power forwards in Nicolas Batum, Robert Covington and former starter Marcus Morris Sr. All three of those players were traded to Philadelphia in the deal that sent Harden to the Clippers. The power forward position went from having too many players to too few. Leonard, always more physical than George on both ends of the floor, was the new starter at that spot even if the team could say that George and Leonard were interchangeable wings. The Clippers tried P.J. Tucker and rookie Kobe Brown at the backup power forward spots but settled on mainstay Amir Coffey in December, mirroring the body types of George and Leonard.
The Clippers re-acquired Batum this offseason, while signing the Covington-sized Jones Jr. in free agency. President of basketball operations Lawrence Frank says he doesn’t use the number four while describing roster construction as “point, three wings, and a big.” Frank also described several players on the roster who could fill that spot.
“I think when you look at Kawhi, you look at Nico, look at Kobe,” Frank said last month. “Look at Derrick who can play the 4. PJ can play the 4. And heck, there are times where we play Terance (Mann) at the 4. Amir at the 4.”
At 6-foot-7, 225 pounds, Leonard is heavier than the average small forward but slightly undersized for the average power forward. On one hand, Leonard likes to be jocular about the position he plays. On the other hand, he remarked last year at camp how he was happy that the Clippers had two point guards in Westbrook and Bones Hyland and two centers in Ivica Zubac and Mason Plumlee, limiting how much Leonard would have to be a primary ballhandler or guard the biggest bodies in small lineups.
Leonard might be coy about the position he plays, but he clearly has preferences about who he plays with and what his teammates allow him to do on both ends of the floor. Sacrificing and playing against bigger players while leading the team in distance covered is one thing when you have multiple future Hall of Fame teammates. Is Leonard in position to do that again for a team in transition?
Asked Kawhi Leonard about the power forward position as it relates to him playing and as it relates to his knee injury
Kawhi made sure to mention that he covered a lot of mileage last season per game (@SecondSpectrum had him at 2.53 miles per game, leading Clippers) pic.twitter.com/ICgxO1KeQg
— Law Murray 🏟️ (@LawMurrayTheNU) October 6, 2024
The goal is always a ring for Leonard, and this is now the longest he has gone in his NBA career without one. He is in the first year of a three-year contract, but time will tell if Leonard will finish that deal in LA. He’s not trying to waste his time. It would help if the Clippers don’t look at Leonard as their savior either.
“This is what I work for,” Leonard says. “I strive to get a championship. I’m not out there to try to play 82 games. I’m trying to win. Even though that’s obligated from me, I’ve tried to. But it hasn’t worked out. So we’ll see.”
Leonard does not blame the position he has had to play for his knee inflammation. But the 33-year-old future Hall of Famer realizes that he is on borrowed time while at the top of his game, and he and the team need to figure out how best to manage him. That doesn’t just mean his troublesome right knee. It also goes for his usage and whom he shares the floor with.
“As I get older, guys aren’t doing what I’m doing, pretty much,” Leonard said pointedly. “You don’t see it around the league, even when I was young.”
This Clippers season will be a real test of Leonard’s patience. He needs to be patient with his knee, he needs to be patient with his teammates, and he needs to be patient with a roster that isn’t currently set up to win multiple playoff series.
(Top photo: Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Imagn Images)
