Clippers want to protect Leonard’s health in restart
A recharged Kawhi Leonard said he’s healthy, he feels good, and that he’s homed in on the prize — just as he was before the coronavirus interrupted the Los Angeles Clippers’ title quest.
Leonard was averaging career highs in points (26.9), assists (5.0), and rebounds (7.3) for the secondseeded Clippers — when the league pressed pause.
Coach Doc Rivers said the Clippers will finish their journey as they were, safeguarding Leonard’s health.
So far this season — as he did last season with the eventual champion Toronto Raptors — Leonard has missed one game in every back-to-back set. Rivers suggested that won’t change when play finally resumes at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex near Orlando, Florida. (The Clippers play back to back games once during the eight-game seeding schedule, when they face the Trail Blazers on Aug. 8and the Netson Aug.9.)
“Kawhi is healthy for the most part,” Rivers said, noting that there are no limits to what the two-time Finals MVP and this year’s All-Star MVP can do. “That still doesn’t mean that we don’t want to maintain him and get him through the first eight games and get ready for the playoffs.
We want to be smart about this. Not just for Kawhi; it’s with everybody.”
A ROLE WITH WAITERS FOR LAKERS>> For now, Playoff Rondo is on hiatus. A right thumb fracture will shelve the Lakers’ Rajon Rondo for six-to-eight weeks, a blow to the team’s depth that Frank Vogel acknowledged was “a huge loss.” He’s scheduled to leave the NBA’s restart to have surgery this week and begin his rehabilitation outside of the bubble.
But Vogel doesn’t think that means Playoff Rondo — the 34-year-old’s worldbeating, stat-stuffing alter ego which has cropped up in postseasons past — is done for good this year.
“We expect Rajon to be a part of our playoff run,” he said. “Looking at six to eight weeks puts us somewhere around the first, second round of playoffs. We’re very confident that he’ll be able to get back and be a major factor for us.”
The Lakers spent much of Monday imagining what their backcourt rotation will look like in the meantime. Rondo’s injury combined with Avery Bradley’s absence means the West’s No. 1 team will likely have roles for Dion Waiters and J.R. Smith, two players who have yet to record a game in Laker uniforms. KINGS’ BARNES ISN’T AT NBA RESTART, SAYS HE HAS CORONAVIRUS >> Harrison Barnes of the Sacramento Kings became the latest NBA player to reveal that he has coronavirus, making the announcement Tuesday and saying he has hopes to join his team at the league’s restart later this summer.
Barnes is the only player who has started all 64 of the Kings’ games this season. To extend that streak, he’ll need to be cleared and arrive at Walt Disney World before Sacramento’s season resumes with the first of its eight seeding games on July 31 against San Antonio.