The lengthy wait is over for all Los Angeles Clippers followers as Kawhi Leonard is lastly set to return.
Leonard plans to make his 2024-25 debut with the Clippers on Saturday at Intuit Dome at dwelling towards the Atlanta Hawks, a supply informed ESPN’s Shams Charania. The workforce’s harm report revealed that Leonard is questionable to play, however all indicators level to his return to aggressive play.
Chris Haynes stated Leonard is feeling properly and able to go, however the Clippers will proceed to take precautions to make sure his profitable return.
Leonard’s return towards the Hawks was already recognized final week. Subsequently, the respective stories of Charania and Haynes additional validated this idea.
There was optimism that Leonard would return sooner quite than later, as he first participated within the workforce’s coaching and apply classes in December. Nonetheless, the Clippers famous person nonetheless underwent a lot of strengthening procedures to finish his full rehabilitation.
Leonard underwent surgical procedure within the offseason to right irritation in his proper knee, and had missed any Los Angeles video games up to now. This harm dates again to the 2023-24 season, by which he performed in 68 video games, his most because the 2016-17 season, and averaged 23.7 factors, 6.1 boards, and three.6 assists.
The knee harm stored Leonard and the Clippers out of the 2024 playoffs, the place they misplaced to the eventual Western Convention champion Dallas Mavericks in six video games within the first spherical of the sequence.
With Leonard again on his ft, the Clippers have performed an amazing job of holding down the road with out key gamers. Underneath the management of James Harden and Norman Powell, who might be having an All-Star yr, LA has defied expectations with a 19-15 report, sitting in seventh place within the West and the fourth seed. was solely 0.5 video games behind.
Including Leonard to this Clippers workforce solely brings extra optimism to the fan base. With Leonard’s manufacturing and star energy, LA is unquestionably a workforce to look at that may make some noise because the season approaches.
If Leonard will get wholesome and performs constantly this time round, the whole league needs to be cautious of the Clippers’ title potential.
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