Absent all last season after his knee injury during the 2021 NBA Playoffs, Kawhi Leonard, like us, looked at the Clippers with an outside eye. And like us, he was captivated by what he saw. Certainly the Los Angeles team fell during the play-in tournament, but they were a model of resilience from start to finish.
31. The number of games played by the All-Star duo Kawhi Leonard – Paul George last season. Yes, only 31, PG also missing his fifty games due in particular to an elbow injury. Usually, when a team is without its two leaders for a large part of the season, it doesn’t get far. Some franchises even take advantage of this to get youngsters to play and place themselves well in the Draft by chaining defeats, even if it means bouncing back better. Not the Clippers. They could have sacrificed their campaign, they could have waited quietly for the 2022-23 season with a healthy Kawhi and Paulo, but instead they never gave up. Finishing the regular season with a positive record of 42 wins for 40 losses, the Clips managed to grab a place in the Top 8 of the Western Conference to give themselves two opportunities to qualify for the Playoffs. Certainly that was not enough, Los Angeles losing twice against Minnesota then New Orleans (without Paul George covided) in the play-in tournament. But the collective solidity and resilience of Tyronn Lue’s men won over more than one. Including Kawhi Leonard.
“It was incredible. Especially when they won by making big comebacks. There were matches where people thought they were going to lose for sure, but they fought to make them competitive or even win them. It shows their competitive side, their mentality, their desire not to give up when they could have given up the season. Without the play-in tournament, we would have participated in the Playoffs. »
From scratchy status, the Clippers now want to become a real heavyweight in the Western Conference. Kawhi Leonard is back and ready to smash everything, Paul George is in good health, John Wall has the slab after a white season in Houston, and the squad is ultra deep after the arrival of solid role players like Robert Covington and Norman Powell during the last trade deadline. So everything seems in place for the fourth year of the Kawhi – PG era to be the one where the Clips finally achieve their big goals. after the premature eliminations of recent seasons, including the humiliating one in the bubble in 2020. No need to go overboard, it is the NBA title that is targeted for the Los Angeles team this year. The title, and nothing else. In 2021 the Clippers had finally managed to reach the semi-finals of conf ‘despite Leonard’s injury against the Jazz, now you have to go even higher.
“This is the most important season in Clippers history. They’re armored, they’re deep to 15th player, they’ve got the deepest team in the NBA. And their two stars are back. »
– Zach Lowe (analyst for ESPN)
The Clippers may have fallen short of the Playoffs last season, but above all they have laid an excellent foundation for the campaign to come. And with Kawhi Leonard back from injury, we can expect to see Los Angeles return to the fore in the Wild Wild West. And if 2023 was really the year for the Clips?
Source texte : Media Day Clippers