It is often said that a collective is a reflection of leadership. The LA Clippers have usually been their best when Kawhi Leonard is on the floor. But that has not been the case this season. LA has been more like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, with Leonard caught up in an identity crisis. Halloween was quite the embodiment of that perspective.
Leonard was having a spectacular game against the New Orleans Pelicans, the only winless team in the Western Conference, as he scored more than 30 points for the first time this season. But a 17-point third-quarter lead evaporated. With the Clippers leading 124-122 and the shot clock dead, coach Tyronn Lue used his final timeout. The ball found Leonard, twice. The second time, Leonard tried to square up near the sideline when Pelicans rookie Jeremiah Fears dislodged the ball, forcing a turnover. On the next play, Zion Williamson tied the game at the free-throw line, scoring his 25th point of the second half.
By then, the Clippers had been outscored by a team-worst 41 points with Leonard on the floor. Fortunately for them, Leonard’s mistake was redeemed by his third career buzzer-beating, game-winning field goal.
Leonard and the Clippers had to temper their celebration of a thrilling win with the sobering reality that they’re not close to the team they hope to be.
“That’s one of the things we got to get better at,” Leonard said after compiling season-highs in points (34, on 11-of-16 shooting from the field), field-goal percentage (68.8 percent), assists (five), steals (six), 3s (5-of-8), and free throws (7-of-7) against the Pelicans.
“We were up 10 in that fourth. We got to be able to hold those leads. It shouldn’t come down to the last shot. My mistake by turning over the ball at the end. We got to get better at that. Obviously, trying to hone in on one of their best players in Zion, and try to make it, I guess, a little bit more difficult for him.”
Leonard’s numbers are still those of a star player. He is averaging 23.8 points, more than the 23.7 points he averaged in 2023-24, when he was an All-NBA Second Team selection. Leonard is converting 51.2 percent from the field. He is at 6.0 rebounds per game. He has more steals (11) than personal fouls (six). He averages 3.4 assists and only 1.8 turnovers. Leonard is nails from the free-throw line, hitting 21-of-22 attempts. His 3-pointer has been pure, as he has made 12-of-27 attempts, a 44.4 percent clip. The Clippers have used him in a variety of ways: in ball screens, spaced out for catch-and-shoot opportunities and in the post. He has been effective in his defensive assignments overall.
But the Clippers have already played some games that were worse performances than they put up any time last season. In the season opener at Utah, they gave up 129 points, including a mind-boggling 78 points by halftime. The Jazz began that game feeding 7-foot-1 small forward Lauri Markkanen, who had no problem running by or around Leonard to receive the ball for buckets inside and outside of the paint. All the Clippers were bad in that game, but they were at their worst in Leonard’s minutes, getting outscored by 25 points with him on the floor.
A week later, the Clippers visited another team they swept last year in the regular season, the Golden State Warriors. Leonard’s individual numbers weren’t too notable: 18 points on 7-of-17 shooting from the field and six rebounds, with only one turnover. But he only had one assist, and the Clippers had only 79 points, the fewest by a team with Leonard playing since the San Antonio Spurs lost 93-79 to the Detroit Pistons in December 2017. Once again, the Clippers were at their worst in Leonard’s minutes, getting outscored by 29 points with the two-time NBA Finals MVP on the floor.
Even in the Clippers’ three wins, the performances have only been occasionally dominating, rather than a full four quarters of impressive execution. LA beat the Phoenix Suns, Portland Trail Blazers and Pelicans at home. But the blowout win over the Suns came after the Clippers found themselves trailing by nine points in the first quarter. They saw an 11-point lead against the Blazers turn into a 12-point deficit before halftime, requiring a 23-point turnaround in the second half. And then the Clippers didn’t close well against the Pelicans, becoming the last team in the league to play a clutch-time game on a night it should not have been necessary.
Leonard notices the ups and downs but has taken it all in stride. After all, it’s only been five games.
“We’re not assessing it,” Leonard said following the win over the Trail Blazers. “It’s still early.”
One thing that helps Leonard is the support he has from Lue, who has been his head coach in LA for six seasons and who was a Clippers assistant the first year after Leonard signed with the team. Lue tends to use the first 10 games of a season to assess the starters and rotation. This season, Lue has hinted that he is open to extending that window to about 15 games. And as of now, Lue says he is satisfied with how Leonard is looking.
“I think it definitely will be another level,” Lue said ahead of a back-to-back against the Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder. “But I think just getting our rotations right, getting who fits well with who on the floor, our substitution pattern, things like that. Just got to understand how we’re trying to play. So he’s not really forcing anything, and I’m just trying to figure out our team and how we need to play and who we need to play off of outside of Kawhi and James (Harden).
“So it’s just a process. He’s just really doing everything the coaches are asking him to do. And then we know when we need him to be super, super aggressive, we know we can get him in those positions.”
There’s aggressive, and then there’s involved. Leonard was quiet in Utah, and not in demeanor. When the Clippers trailed by 31 points at halftime, Leonard had a mere two points. He bounced back with scoring totals of 27 and 30 points in the next two games. And while he emphasized the importance of everyone feeling involved, he noted how he felt about getting more opportunities early in games.
“It’s great for any of us to get going early, you know what I mean?” Leonard said after the win against the Trail Blazers. “If any of us sees me, Zu (Ivica Zubac), James, (Bradley) Beal, Bogie (Bogdan Bogdanovic) get going, it excites everybody. I mean, I made shots. Our defensive play always gets the team motivated. But I thank them for putting me in positions to try and do something for the team, and just got to keep getting better.”
What does it look like to Lue for Leonard to be more aggressive?
“I think staying on the ball more,” Lue said. “The game dictates who gets the shots. They’re going to double-team him, just making the right play. They’re going to guard him one-on-one. Him being aggressive scoring the basketball. So kind of how the defense is playing dictates who gets a shot.”
The most important thing right now? Leonard is healthy, a chronic concern given the fact that he has played more than 60 games in a season once since 2017. When Leonard played 68 games in 2023-24, his season was ruined in the end by right knee inflammation that cost him playoff games, the Summer Olympics and the first 34 games of the 2024-25 season.
Leonard finally went through a fully healthy offseason for the first time since 2020, training through the end of the NBA Finals after the Clippers were eliminated in the Western Conference quarterfinals by the Denver Nuggets. He is also ready to play in back-to-backs, something he did only once last season.
“There’s no restrictions on me,” Leonard said Friday night. “I feel good. We’ve been playing, hard training. Training camp days, two or three hours. I think everybody’s comfortable with where I’m at today.”
How many back-to-backs Leonard actually plays is to be determined. Lue already pushed back on Leonard’s declaration, after he previously noted during the preseason that he did not want to discuss the specifics of Leonard or Beal’s potential injury management plans.
“It’s very positive,” Lue said of Leonard’s desire to play on zero days’ rest. “He feels good, he wants to take that next step. We got to be smart about it.”
Leonard knows it is a long season, and that there is a lot for the Clippers to figure out around him: how they score, how they stop teams from scoring, when his minutes with the bench will be and with whom. But Leonard has the perspective of knowing how much time is needed to figure things out. And he used new teammate Beal, who has been trying to adjust as the team’s lone new starter, as a way of preaching patience — perhaps for himself as well.
“It’s always difficult when you’re in those situations, especially coming back from injury or dealing with your very end of it, that last little 20 to 10 percent,” Leonard said. “Just got to stay locked in.
“It’s only game five. We’ll see how it looks in January. It’s a marathon. It’s not about today.”
