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Clippers 2025 Exit Interviews: Kawhi Leonard
Our exit interview series on the 2025 Clippers continues with the team’s best player, the injury-troubled Kawhi Leonard.
Basic Information
Height: 6’7
Weight: 225 pounds
Position: Small Forward/Power Forward
Age: 33 (34 in four weeks)
Years in NBA: 14
Key Regular Season Stats: 21.5 points, 3.1 assists, 5.9 rebounds, 1.6 steals, 0.5 blocks, and 1.9 turnovers in 31.9 minutes per game across 37 games played (all starts) on 49.8/41.1/81.0 (5.1 3PA, 3.3 FTA attempts) shooting splits (58.9 True Shooting)
Postseason Stats: 25.0 points, 4.7 assists, 7.6 rebounds, 1.1 steals, 0.7 blocks, and 2.1 turnovers in 37.9 minutes per game across seven games played (all starts) on 53.7/40.5/77.8 shooting splits (5.3 3PA, 5.1 FTA) shooting splits (63.0 True Shooting)
Expectations
Perhaps no player in the entire NBA had a wider range of
expectations this year than Kawhi Leonard. Pessimists could realistically say
they expected absolutely nothing of Kawhi considering his fiasco at the
Olympics and his being ruled out indefinitely before the regular season.
Optimists could point to Kawhi’s highly successful 2024 regular season and the
Clippers just being cautious in bringing him back, with a plan to have him at a
similar level in 2025. People in the middle thought Kawhi would miss some
portion of the season, and might not be able to reach similar heights as he did
in 2025, but still be a contributor of some kind. At the end of the day, nobody
knew what to expect from Kawhi.
Reality
Kawhi missed almost half the season with his knee injury, first appearing in the Clippers’ 35th game of the year, against the Atlanta Hawks on January 4. He had a slow ramp up period, with his first three games being limited to around 20 minutes per game, his next four being around 24 minutes, and his next four sitting at 28 minutes before getting the bump to around 32. Kawhi also sat most of the Clippers’ back-to-backs until very late in the season, when he played in their last two while the Clippers were making their postseason push.
For the first two months of Kawhi’s season, in January and February, even as his playing time progressed, Kawhi did not seem truly like Kawhi. The per minute production was excellent, and the scoring from midrange was as pure as ever, but Kawhi’s impact was not the same. He wasn’t contributing as much on the glass, the defense was only ok, not great, and he wasn’t getting to the free throw line at all. Concerns grew that Kawhi would not be Kawhi again in 2025.
Things shifted in March, when Kawhi’s averages rose to 25 points and 7.5 rebounds per game. More importantly, his defense took a step forward, and his on-court/off-court stats started to reflect a high-impact player. Kawhi’s ramp-up continued for the rest of the season, as his minutes load was completely removed, and he was even able to play in back-to-backs. All seemed set for a vintage Kawhi performance in the playoffs with the Klaw fully healthy and ready to go.
Unfortunately, that’s not really what the Clippers received. Kawhi put forth a dominant Game 2 effort, one of the best performances of his entire career, and one that primed Clippers fans for more of the same after a disappointing Game 1. Instead, the Clippers just got a merely “very good” Kawhi, who was largely impactful but not a true game-changer. While Kawhi’s stats for the series look mighty impressive, his numbers in the six games outside of Game 2 are markedly less so: field goal percentage drops from 53.7 to 49, three point percentage from 40.5 to 36.6, and FT percentage from 77.8 to 74.2, with points per game falling all the way from 25 to 22.6. There was one game of greatness, and that was all.
The Clippers’ previous four playoff runs (2021-2024) all ended with Kawhi on the sidelines not able to contribute on the court. There was always the “what if Kawhi was healthy” factor looming over the Clippers, which meant a lack of closure on those teams. Well, Kawhi was healthy in 2025, and the Clippers lost anyway. That’s not all on Kawhi, of course – almost every Clipper disappointed in the playoffs. But as the team’s best player, the burden falls heaviest on him. It was a miserable ending to what had been a terrific season for both Kawhi and the Clippers.
Future with Clippers
Kawhi Leonard has two more seasons left on his contract at $50 and $50.3M. The Clippers are in a very interesting position, and Kawhi is at the center of it. The team won 50 games while Kawhi only played 37 games and took the Nuggets to 7 games – who took the champion-favorite Thunder to 7 games. The Clippers could very easily decide to keep their current roster together, run things back, and try another season at competing with this core.
There is the chance that the Clippers will conduct more of a reset this summer. Kawhi is entering his mid-30s. Harden is closing in on his late-30s. Most of the other Clippers’ rotation are somewhere in their 30s as well. There is every chance that the Clippers are worse next year, aren’t as healthy entering the postseason, or just don’t have the same infectious chemistry that carried them to 50 wins this year. Thus, could the Clippers get out ahead of those risks and shake up their roster more this summer? It’s possible.
However, moving Kawhi himself remains unlikely. While he only has two years left on his deal, and is an All-NBA caliber player while healthy, it is doubtful that any team would give up real assets for Kawhi – and the Clippers would only trade him for a haul of some kind. Instead, I’d expect the Clippers to retool around Kawhi, and maybe, finally, get a physical, large power forward next to him to help take some of the defensive and rebounding load off his shoulders. I’d be rather shocked if Kawhi was not on the Clippers next season, which means it will be another year of praying he is healthy come end-of-year.