VANCOUVER, British Columbia — He was back. The man with the stoic demeanor, signature cornrows and neatly trimmed beard was spotted methodically hitting jump shots from the elbow throughout warm-ups.
Only for the fans inside Rogers Arena, the sighting felt like an alternate reality.
One year ago, in this very same building, Kawhi Leonard, the NBA’s unassuming superhero, made his preseason debut as a member of a new team. This, after a surprise offseason move that changed the NBA landscape, turning his new squad into a championship contender while igniting basketball debates everywhere from barbershops to Instagram comment sections.
The storyline this year is similar but with slightly different details.
Leonard had New Balances on his feet, not Jordans. His costume was a white and blue jersey, not red and white. He will have Paul George as a sidekick, not Kyle Lowry.
This year, he was a Los Angeles Clipper, not a Toronto Raptor. This year, it was his choice.
Thursday’s preseason game here against the Dallas Mavericks offered another glimpse of not only Leonard’s new beginning but also the most anticipated and promising era in Clippers history.
“This is the team they wanted, this is the team that will contend,” said NBA analyst Kenny Smith, who was in Vancouver. “When was the last time the Clippers contended to win an NBA championship? Not in my lifetime.”
The Clippers, of course, went all-in to chase a championship. They boast arguably the NBA’s most complete roster, with versatile pieces that can combat any team in the league. In a newly released poll of general managers, the Clippers—not their crosstown rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers—were favored to be the last team standing.
“It’s a privilege,” Clippers coach Doc Rivers said after the game. “I would rather have that. I didn’t hear one survey pick us last year.”
In a wild and well-documented offseason, the Clippers invested two max contracts in Leonard and George—and lost several first-round draft picks and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander—to complement an established core that turned heads last season, powered by a cast of gritty role players.
“[Rivers] had a really high-character group of guys,” said former NBA coach and current analyst Stan Van Gundy of last year’s Clippers squad. “I think he said that this was a group who had all gotten over themselves and they didn’t have selfish agendas. It was a team that played very well together with a great energy.”
How the additions of Leonard and George will affect that chemistry has been difficult to assess. George, who came via trade from the Oklahoma City Thunder, sat out the entire preseason and will likely miss the first half-dozen games of the regular season to recover from shoulder surgeries. Leonard played in just two exhibition contests—including the one here, where he scored 13 points on 5-of-19 shooting. Los Angeles finished the preseason 2-3, only logging wins over pro teams from Melbourne and Shanghai.
While the sample size for the new-look Clips is limited, we have already witnessed some of the flexibility and variety their new system provides Leonard. In preseason, he went to work on the block; he played both sides of the pick-and-roll; he isolated before shaking, baking and finishing; he pulled up for threes. But regardless of what Leonard did, ball movement and off-the-ball motion by his teammates never went stagnant whenever he was on the floor.
“Even with stars, Doc has always been able to incorporate the other guys,” said Van Gundy, who last coached in 2017-18 for the Detroit Pistons. “I don’t think you are going to see much of one guy just standing there on the wing isolated and everyone else standing. They are all going to get their chances to attack out of the offense.”
Last year’s team was already strong on that end, averaging 115.1 points per game (which ranked fifth in the league) while shooting 38.8 percent from beyond the arc (second). The team returns essentially the same core, with added firepower in Leonard and George, who combined for over 54 points per game last season.
Even in an underwhelming preseason, there were flashes of that same robust defensive squad. The length was obvious. Here, Rivers experimented with a group that included Leonard, Landry Shamet, Montrezl Harrell and Maurice Harkless, who got hands on balls, played passing lanes and made lightning-quick rotations. The 6’9”, 220-pound George and Patrick Beverley, one of the league’s best on-the-ball stoppers, will complete their elite unit.
Defensive intensity and offensive grit were the Clippers’ calling cards last season. The All-Star-less team that snuck into the playoffs with 48 wins—and pushed the defending champion Golden State Warriors to six games in the first round—built an attractive culture that A-list free agents wanted to be a part of.
“[Leonard and George] wanted to go to organizations that seemed to be on the right track,” Van Gundy said. “I think the Clippers got the perfect types of guys [in Leonard and Paul] for chemistry because they are unselfish guys; they play both ends of the court. Those two guys are quite possibly the two best perimeter defenders in the NBA.”
As stacked as the Clippers are, the health of their stars will dictate their postseason destiny. There is no question L.A. will follow the Raptors’ load management blueprint for Leonard—and possibly George.
“I think the main challenge is going to be around the whole load management thing,” said Van Gundy, who added he would be surprised if Leonard played more than 65 games. “One of the reasons that Toronto was able to do what they did with [Leonard] sitting out 22 games is they went 17-5 in the games that he missed.”
He added: “That is going to be hard to do in the Western Conference as strong as it is this year."
The West boasts championship contenders in the Lakers, Warriors, Denver Nuggets, Houston Rockets and Utah Jazz, while the Eastern Conference features the Milwaukee Bucks and Philadelphia 76ers.
Possibly the largest threat to the Clippers’ championship mission is the team they share an arena with. After a disastrous 37-45 season—maybe the worst of LeBron James’ career—in which they missed the playoffs, the Lakers also reloaded, most notably trading for superstar Anthony Davis and revamping their coaching staff with Frank Vogel and Jason Kidd. The James-Davis combo has the potential to be one of the top one-two punches in league history.
The Lakers also addressed their glaring weaknesses—such as shooting; they were 29th in the league in three-point percentage (33.3)—by adding three-and-D guys Danny Green, Quinn Cook and Avery Bradley. Additionally, they took gambles on big men with All-Star resumes in Dwight Howard and DeMarcus Cousins, though Cousins will likely miss the season with a knee injury.
Despite the power moves the Lakers and other teams made in the offseason, the Clippers have the depth, experience and chemistry to divide and conquer.
While not as glamorous or marketable as the King and AD, George and Leonard are proven two-way stars with versatile skill sets. Both can shoot, create off the dribble and in pick-and-rolls, make plays like point guards and, as we saw when Leonard eliminated the Sixers in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals, hit clutch shots. On defense, both can match up with multiple positions on the ball or off—as well as play passing lanes.
The Clippers also have reliable shooters in Shamet, Beverley, Lou Williams and JaMychal Green. They have emerging bigs in Harrell and Ivica Zubac. Preseason surprise and second-round pick Terance Mann will provide a spark off the bench, perhaps emerging as the team’s X-factor.
“I don’t see a lot of holes with that team,” Van Gundy said.
Whether his stars are on the court or not, Rivers will rely on last season’s formula of Beverley’s defensive tenacity, Harrell’s energy and Williams’ shot-making and late-game heroics.
“Oh, we’re going to need them,” Rivers said. “They know how to play together; that’s the group that I’m least concerned with.”
Clippers management hopes its significant (and expensive) offseason upgrades result in a seamless blend of the team’s own past formula and Toronto’s blueprint for success.
Board Man flips another franchise. That’s the plan, at least.
The storyline for Leonard isn’t too much different from last year’s. Los Angeles will feature him, load-manage him and protect him from all the external noise—which can be hard in Hollywood. Only this time he is close to his hometown, with a near-equal superstar and another great coach, and his supporting cast is deeper than his squad in T-Dot.
Now, they just need the same ending.
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October 22, 2019 at 06:02AM
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