The Clippers are indefinitely screwed

Kawhi Leonard is not cleared to play. The season starts next week.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

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Romantic Landscape With Ruined Tower; Thomas Cole; 1832-36

Kawhi Leonard is out indefinitely as he recovers from knee surgery, according to ESPN, who ominously quotes Clippers coach Ty Lue saying this:

"[There is] no timeline," Lue said of Leonard's timetable to return before the Clippers faced the Kings at Intuit Dome. "Like we said from day one, it is going take some time. He's going to progress, he's doing all the right things, he's working hard and he's looking good."

Remember: Kawhi played 68 of the Clippers’ first 72 games of the 2023-24 season. L.A. was 47-27 at that point, the four-seed in the West, Kawhi was averaging 24 points per game on the best efficiency of his career, the Clippers had given Kawhi a 3-year, $153 million extension and traded for James Harden.

Kawhi missed the final 10 games of the regular season with knee inflammation. He missed Game 1 of the Clippers’ series against the Mavericks (L.A. still won on an all-timer from Harden), came back for Game 2, looked awful as L.A. lost them both, didn’t play again in the series, watched the Clips got out sad in six …

… watched Paul George walk in free agency to the Sixers, had a procedure done on his troublesome knee, pulled out of Team USA at the last possible minute (possibly getting booted by USA Basketball, based on how the Clips have been telling it) and now is a non-participant in the Clippers’ training camp and preseason. That’s an eventful six months in which Kawhi has played all of two competitive basketball games.

“Indefinite” is an ominous word when it comes to Kawhi. In 2022-23, he played in just five of the team’s first 24 games. He ended up playing 52 regular season games, but missed the end of the Clippers’ playoff loss to Phoenix. He missed the entire 2021-22 season because of a catastrophic injury suffered in the playoffs the prior year.

So the Clippers, facing probably the deepest conference in the past 25 years, will start the season led by a 35-year-old James Harden, Ivica Zubac and Norm Powell.