Kawhi Leonard is concentrating on the LA Clippers’ Jan. 4 dwelling recreation towards the Atlanta Hawks for his 2024-25 regular-season debut after lacking the start of the marketing campaign because of damage administration on his surgically repaired proper knee, sources briefed on his plans advised The Athletic.
Leonard posted a video on X on Friday that appeared to tease his return.
“There’s been good days. There’s been unhealthy days. However I preserve coming again,” he mentioned within the video, which confirmed him fishing. “It’s the character of the sport.”
Kawhi would come again to Twitter within the final week of 2024 lol pic.twitter.com/dTxQs9wxfG
— Regulation Murray ⚛️ (@LawMurrayTheNU) December 27, 2024
The Clippers have been reluctant to supply a timetable for Leonard since holding him out of coaching camp drills in September, and proceed to take care of his standing is being thought-about on a week-by-week foundation.
Leonard traveled on the crew’s current highway journey to Dallas and took part in a team-sanctioned exercise between the Clippers’ two video games towards the Mavericks. Whereas Leonard will miss the crew’s upcoming four-day highway journey in New Orleans, San Antonio and Oklahoma Metropolis, he’ll observe with the G-League affiliate San Diego Clippers.
The six-time All-NBA ahead first returned to observe in a restricted capability on Dec. 10. Eight days later, he participated in a full observe with a 5-on-5 scrimmage and speak to for the primary time. The Jan. 4 goal date for Leonard’s return could be 25 days after he was first re-introduced to observe.
Whereas the Clippers might resolve to carry Leonard out longer till they’re glad with the amount of 5-on-5 scrimmages during which he participates, a few of Leonard’s relations are planning to attend the Jan. 4 recreation, sources briefed on his plans mentioned.
Leonard has not performed in an NBA recreation since Recreation 3 of the Clippers’ first-round playoff sequence towards the Dallas Mavericks in April. Irritation in Leonard’s proper knee prompted him to overlook the ultimate eight video games of the 2023-24 common season and Recreation 1 of the Mavericks sequence. After Recreation 3 of the sequence, Leonard was once more dominated out indefinitely. In Might, after the Clippers have been eradicated, Leonard underwent a process on his proper knee.
Leonard was chosen to characterize the US within the 2024 Olympics and was in a position to get on the ground in entrance of Crew USA officers by the tip of June. Nonetheless, Crew USA eliminated Leonard from the roster earlier than its Las Vegas exhibition recreation in July towards Canada, changing him with Boston Celtics guard Derrick White.
In September, president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank mentioned Leonard wouldn’t play till the swelling in his knee was utterly gone. Frank didn’t present a timeline for Leonard’s return apart from to say that the Clippers anticipated to take a “month-by-month” strategy.
“When Kawhi is wholesome, he needs to play,” Frank mentioned in September. “What we additionally need to handle to ensure is that he’s taking part in at his greatest each within the common season and have a chance to complete the postseason and past. So we don’t have the reply but, but it surely’s form of an ongoing dialogue. First, we wish to get him one hundred pc. Then, we’ll sit down and map it out, form of take it a month at a time.”
The Clippers held Leonard out of coaching camp drills in Hawaii with the aim of strengthening his knee so he might keep on the ground for good as soon as he returned. The false begins of Leonard’s Olympic expertise, the 2024 postseason and Leonard’s return from proper knee ACL surgical procedure in October 2022 have contributed to the Clippers taking a extra conservative strategy.
The Clippers entered Friday’s recreation towards the Golden State Warriors with a 17-13 file, good for seventh within the Western Convention.
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(Picture: Tim Nwachukwu / Getty Photos)
