The Clippers‘ season opener is only a week away, and there’s very little clarity regarding Kawhi Leonard, writes Broderick Turner of The Los Angeles Times. Leonard is still dealing with the right knee inflammation that knocked him out of the team’s first-round playoff series last spring and prevented him from playing in the Olympics. Coach Tyronn Lue has already confirmed that Leonard won’t be used during the preseason, but his status is murky beyond that.
“Continue to keep rehabbing, keep getting better and keep checking the boxes,” Lue responded when asked how the team is handling Leonard.
Beyond the Clippers’ need to get off to a good start in what figures to be an intense Western Conference playoff race, Leonard’s ongoing knee ailments raise concern about his future. This is the first season of his three-year, $152MM contract extension, and the team will need him on the court as much as possible to remain competitive after losing Paul George in free agency.
There’s more from Los Angeles:
- After playing primarily off the bench since he joined the Clippers, Norman Powell is hoping to earn a starting role this season, Turner adds in the same piece. Lue talked about what the veteran swingman needs to do to become a full-time starter. “Be able to score the basketball. When you don’t, just taking the defensive challenge every night,” Lue said. “So being able to guard his position, being able to match up with guys. We talked about two years ago, we saw in the playoffs in Phoenix, like, taking the challenge defensively. He’s gotten a lot better. So just being able to guard guys every night, being able to switch, sometimes guard point guards when we need him too. He’s been phenomenal so far in this training camp.”
- The team continues to hope that backup center Mohamed Bamba will be able to recover from his knee soreness in time to play next week, tweets Law Murray of The Athletic. Bamba said the pain is a result of the wear and tear from his six NBA seasons, and he doesn’t have an official timetable to return.
- Assistant coach Jeff Van Gundy, who joined the Clippers’ staff this summer, has raised the team’s level of aggression on defense, observes Janis Carr of The Orange County Register. L.A. had 20 steals and forced 29 turnovers in Monday’s win over Dallas.“The defensive coordinator usually has to kind of be the guy that’s the (bad guy) because you got to be tough, and you got to hold everybody accountable,” fellow assistant Brian Shaw said. “So sometimes when he’s being that we have to be the good cops to balance out, but it’s been good.”