NBA
Why isn’t Kawhi Leonard playing for the Clippers against the Suns on opening night?
The LA Clippers get the new season up and running with a home game at their new 18,000 Intuit Dome in Inglewood.
The new NBA season is underway as all participating 30 teams embark on their marathon 82 regular season games with the one objective being to dethrone Boston Celtics as reigning champions.
The ‘other’ Los Angeles team begin their new season at a new venue as the Clippers move from sharing with the Lakers at the Crypto.com Arena into a new arena in Inglewood as the Intuit Dome opens its doors to top class basketball for the first time as the Suns visit the City of Angels for the season opener.
One player who sadly, won’t be involved in the action is Kawhi Leonard, with Clippers fans still reeling from the news that Leonard continues to be troubled by inflammation in his right knee and will be sidelined indefinitely by the LA team.
The 33-year-old missed the 2024 Paris Olympics and then preseason because of the lingering knee issue with the problem relating to the same knee that sidelined him during last season’s playoffs and has plagued him since surgeries on his ACL and damaged meniscus.
The news is a massive blow for the Clippers who are set to open the new season next week at home against the Phoenix Suns with the game set to take place at their new $2 billion arena in Inglewood but must start the new campaign without the two-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year and two-time Finals MVP (with the Spurs in 2014 and the Toronto Raptors in 2019).
Leonard and new acquisition James Harden are the big marquee Clippers players and the absence of the small forward puts an immediate dent in any pre-season big aspirations the franchise and its fans would have harboured for the season ahead.