Kawhi Leonard is targeting the LA Clippers’ Jan. 4 home game against the Atlanta Hawks for his 2024-25 regular-season debut after missing the beginning of the campaign due to injury management on his surgically repaired right knee, sources briefed on his plans told The Athletic.
Leonard posted a video on X on Friday that appeared to tease his return.
“There’s been good days. There’s been bad days. But I keep coming back,” he said in the video, which showed him fishing. “It’s the nature of the game.”
Kawhi would come back to Twitter in the last week of 2024 lol pic.twitter.com/dTxQs9wxfG
— Law Murray ⚛️ (@LawMurrayTheNU) December 27, 2024
The Clippers have been reluctant to provide a timetable for Leonard since holding him out of training camp drills in September, and continue to maintain his status is being considered on a week-by-week basis.
Leonard traveled on the team’s recent road trip to Dallas and participated in a team-sanctioned workout between the Clippers’ two games against the Mavericks. While Leonard will miss the team’s upcoming four-day road trip in New Orleans, San Antonio and Oklahoma City, he will practice with the G-League affiliate San Diego Clippers.
The six-time All-NBA forward first returned to practice in a limited capacity on Dec. 10. Eight days later, he participated in a full practice with a 5-on-5 scrimmage and contact for the first time. The Jan. 4 target date for Leonard’s return would be 25 days after he was first re-introduced to practice.
While the Clippers could decide to hold Leonard out longer until they are satisfied with the quantity of 5-on-5 scrimmages in which he participates, some of Leonard’s family members are planning to attend the Jan. 4 game, sources briefed on his plans said.
Leonard has not played in an NBA game since Game 3 of the Clippers’ first-round playoff series against the Dallas Mavericks in April. Inflammation in Leonard’s right knee caused him to miss the final eight games of the 2023-24 regular season and Game 1 of the Mavericks series. After Game 3 of the series, Leonard was again ruled out indefinitely. In May, after the Clippers were eliminated, Leonard underwent a procedure on his right knee.
Leonard was selected to represent the United States in the 2024 Olympics and was able to get on the floor in front of Team USA officials by the end of June. However, Team USA removed Leonard from the roster before its Las Vegas exhibition game in July against Canada, replacing him with Boston Celtics guard Derrick White.
In September, president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank said Leonard would not play until the swelling in his knee was completely gone. Frank did not provide a timeline for Leonard’s return other than to say that the Clippers expected to take a “month-by-month” approach.
“When Kawhi is healthy, he wants to play,” Frank said in September. “What we also have to manage to make sure is that he’s playing at his best both in the regular season and have an opportunity to finish the postseason and beyond. So we don’t have the answer yet, but it’s kind of an ongoing dialogue. First, we want to get him 100 percent. Then, we’ll sit down and map it out, kind of take it a month at a time.”
The Clippers held Leonard out of training camp drills in Hawaii with the goal of strengthening his knee so he could stay on the floor for good once he returned. The false starts of Leonard’s Olympic experience, the 2024 postseason and Leonard’s return from right knee ACL surgery in October 2022 have contributed to the Clippers taking a more conservative approach.
The Clippers entered Friday’s game against the Golden State Warriors with a 17-13 record, good for seventh in the Western Conference.
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(Photo: Tim Nwachukwu / Getty Images)
