The Los Angeles Clippers will be without their best player when they break ground at their new arena next week and could be without him for the foreseeable future.
Kawhi Leonard will be sidelined indefinitely to start the 2024-25 season as he continues to rehabilitate from inflammation in his right knee, ESPN's Shams Charania and Ohm Youngmisuk reported on Thursday.
The two-time NBA Finals MVP has a long injury history, including a torn ACL that sidelined him for the entire 2021-22 season and a torn meniscus suffered during the 2023 first round.
Leonard is coming off an All-Star season in which he played 68 regular season games, his most since the 2016-17 campaign. Still, the injury bug was back by the most important part of the Clippers' season last spring.
He first dealt with the knee inflammation in a March 31 win over the Charlotte Hornets, and the ailment lingered into the playoffs. He missed the final eight games of the regular season and four games of the Clippers' first-round series against the Dallas Mavericks, which the Mavericks went on to win in six games.
Leonard was also named to Team USA this summer but was replaced by Boston Celtics guard Derrick White on the Olympic roster that went on to win gold in Paris. USA Basketball said at the time that Leonard "respects that USA Basketball and the Clippers determined it's in his best interest to spend the remainder of the summer preparing for the upcoming season rather than participating in the Olympic Games in Paris."
The 33-year-old forward has not played for the Clippers this preseason and did not participate in any on-court, contact activities during training camp.
NBA
The Clippers will open the season by hosting the Phoenix Suns in the first regular season game at their new home, the Intuit Dome, on Wednesday. From there, they will visit the Denver Nuggets on Oct. 26 and face the Golden State Warriors in their home opener on Oct. 27.
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news. Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter.
