Clippers star Kawhi Leonard hasn’t played a game since March 31 with knee soreness, and his status for the 2024 NBA Playoffs remains in doubt.
According to Chris Broussard of FS1, there is legitimate concern within the Clippers camp about Leonard missing the first-round playoff series against the Dallas Mavericks which gets underway on Sunday, April 21.
“I was just in contact with somebody in the know, and they said the Clippers are concerned,” Broussard said on FS1’s “First Things First” on April 15. “They said there’s a lot of swelling in the knee, and that he hasn’t practiced.”
Conflicting Reports on Injury
Broussard admitted that his reporting contradicts the Clippers’ insistence that Leonard will be ready for the playoffs.
“They don’t always tell the truth,” Broussard said of the Clippers, citing the 2021 playoffs when Leonard’s knee injury remained a mystery. “Remember 2021? They said it was a minor thing, and he ended up having a torn ACL.”
Besides Clippers coach Tyronn Lue, several NBA insiders such as Adrian Wojnarowski and Shams Charania have also maintained that the Clippers are not worried about Leonard’s status.
On the April 14 episode of “NBA Countdown” on ESPN, Wojnarowski said there’s no real mystery behind Leonard’s injury.
“In the past, there has been some mystery around Kawhi Leonard injuries,” Wojnarowski said. “Sometimes, they turn out to be worse than first described. I’m told that’s not the case here. This is a right knee inflammation.”
Even Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank brushed aside the fears of Leonard missing the playoffs during the final day of the regular season.
“Kawhi is dealing with inflammation,” Frank said on April 14. “It’s no secret he’s had a couple of surgeries to that knee. It’s not uncommon over the course of it [the surgeries] where you deal with inflammation. The number one thing is, with inflammation, it limits your ability to make some natural basketball moves, so he’s working his tail off, the staff is working their tail off to try and help with the inflammation.”
Clippers Need Kawhi Leonard
Leonard played a critical role in the Clippers winning their previous two playoff series against the Mavericks in 2020 and 2021. In the 2020 series, Leonard averaged 32.8 points, 10.2 rebounds, 5.2 assists and 2.3 steals, and was by far the best player on the court as the Clippers won the series 4-2.
The following year, in 2021, Leonard again stood out as the best performer in the series, averaging 32.1 points, 7.9 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 2.3 steals as the Clippers won 4-3.
It is due to Leonard’s past exploits against the Mavs that the Clippers start the series as odds-on favorites. However, if Leonard isn’t healthy, the odds shift drastically in favor of Luka Doncic’s team, which has been rolling since the All-Star break.
From March 1 until the end of the NBA regular season, the Mavericks went 16-7 for the third-best record in the league behind only the Celtics (18-6) and Nuggets (16-6). The momentum is clearly with the Mavericks, who’ve hit their stride since the trade deadline acquisitions of Daniel Gafford and P.J. Washington.
On the flipside, the Clippers went 18-8 from March 1 until the end of the regular season. If Leonard isn’t healthy, the Mavericks could upset the apple cart.
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