Los Angeles Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard will definitely be out to start the season with right knee inflammation, reports ESPN.
Leonard has not practiced with or played in any games for the Clippers during the preseason. He reportedly underwent surgery on his right knee in the offseason after he was limited to playing in only two of Los Angeles’s final 14 games last season, including their first-round playoff loss to the Dallas Mavericks.
In July, Leonard was pulled from Team USA ahead of the Paris Olympics in order to continue rehabbing his knee.
“He has not been a part of what we’ve been doing on a daily basis,” Clippers assistant coach Brian Shaw said Wednesday. “I know the company line has been that we’re going to be patient with him, so he’s doing everything that he can to rehab it and strengthen that knee on his own with our medical staff.”
Leonard played in 68 games for the Clippers in 2023-24, his most regular season appearance since 2017. He averaged 23.7 points, 6.1 rebounds and 3.1 assists in 34.3 minutes per game — the highest minutes per game average of his career.
Leonard is one of the NBA’s premier players, but his career has been marred by injuries.
He was unable to finish the 2017 postseason after spraining his ankle in the Western Conference Finals, and then played in only nine games the following regular season.
Since joining Los Angeles in 2019, Leonard has only played in every playoff game for the team only once, in the 2020 season. Since then, his right knee has been a recurring issue.
In the 2021 playoffs, Leonard tore the ACL in his right knee, missing the rest of that season as well as the entirety of the next one.
In 2023, Leonard missed the final three games of the Clippers’ first-round loss to the Phoenix Suns after tearing the meniscus in his right knee.
Los Angeles signed Leonard to a three-year, $153 million extension in January. For the first time since he joined the team five years ago, Leonard will no longer have All-Star forward Paul George as a teammate, as George signed with the Philadelphia 76ers as a free agent in July.
The Clippers will tip off their regular season on Oct. 23 against the Suns.
