30 NBA Players in 30 Days: Kawhi Leonard
We are now 2 weeks down with Day 14 of our NBA season countdown, and it’s time to talk about the Los Angeles Clippers. The 5x All-Star, 2x NBA champion, Kawhi Leonard will be our focus for today. We have not seen Leonard on an NBA court since the 2nd Round of the 2021 Playoffs, where he tore his ACL against the Jazz. The Clippers led by Paul George still went on to win after an incredible Game 6 and an insane shooting performance from Terrance Mann. All eyes will be on the 2019 champ, as the Clippers are currently the betting favorites to win the 2023 NBA Finals, even with the team not being able to beat the Timberwolves in the Play-In Tournament last year. I am not going to rely on who Vegas thinks will win the Finals to determine how I feel about Leonard and the Clippers this year, but it’s interesting that a team that has struggled to stay fully healthy ever since they were put together are the betting favorites to win this year’s title. The chances of that happening starts and ends with Leonard.
Leonard’s career has been one of the greatest, if not the greatest development stories of any NBA star in league history. Coming into the league in 2011 as a raw prospect, to becoming one of the members of the NBA’s Top 75 Greatest Players list is an incredible feat just in itself. He is only 31 years old, but it seems like his body is closer to 37. Even as great of a player he has become, Leonard’s downside as a superstar has been his availability, as well as the mystery he causes in his relationships between him and his respective teams. His final year with the Spurs was filled with uncertainty and miscommunication, and his time with the Clippers has been rocky in terms of his injuries and commitment. There is no denying that Leonard at 100% is still one of the best players in the league, but how long can we wait and how many excuses can we give him before we realize his best days are actually behind him? He will for sure miss a good amount of games due to rest and load management, so the real test to Kawhi’s stardom will be in the playoffs, assuming the Clippers make it in pretty easily.
Steve Balmer has invested unthinkable amounts of money into the roster construction and the new arena that will be in Inglewood, with Leonard being the center of all the newly acquired talent the last several seasons. We learned in 2021 that Paul George is not good enough to lead this team to a Finals berth, and the depth of the Clippers is not enough. Leonard has a chance to win 3 titles with 3 Finals MVP awards while on 3 different teams. The only player to achieve that accomplishment is LeBron James. If the Clippers fall short again this season with Leonard healthy, I have no doubt that there will be a lot of internal turmoil and some disbelief that making all of these moves to surround their star duo was actually worth it. Leonard needs to be great, and he has to do it all season long.
