Kawhi Leonard was cookin’ on Sunday night. Sautéeing, barbecuing, grilling. Stone-oven, hibachi-style, Michelin Star-type stuff.
ESPN crunched some numbers and determined Leonard’s 55-point career night in a game the Clippers won, 112-99 – and in which his usage was 42% – ranked as the second-best game in the NBA this season.
The 34-year-old Moreno Valley legend – and Western Conference Player of the Week – served up a Clippers franchise-equaling scoring night, with sides of 11 rebounds, five blocked shots and three steals. He sent the Eastern Conference-leading Detroit Pistons home, stat-stuffed, with a to-go box score for the road.
Reminded the world that, yes, the jumbo-jacked version of Kawhi Leonard is still on the menu.
And you know what? If I’m a team that is close to the front of the line this season, I’m salivating.
I’m making the call, asking how much it would cost to have what the Clippers are having?
I’m willing to barter, big time. To see what the Clippers would trade their Top Chef for? How sweet a deal would get them to bite? I’m doing the math: cups-to-fluid ounces; ounces-to-grams; the final year and change on Leonard’s $150 million three-year contract-to- ___?
How many picks from future harvests would the Clippers find palatable? Goodness knows they need some.
Or would the Clippers consider a younger, starrier star with a swappable contract to market their shop – to bring people into it?
Because a tear like Leonard’s – in the past four games, all wins, he’s averaging 39.6 points on 51.6% shooting, including 44.1% on 8.5 attempts per game from 3-point range, and 9.8 boards, man, while adding 4.0 assists, 2.8 steals, 1.8 blocks – is making me forget about my reservations about his health and availability and getting me to try and get a reservation at the bargaining table.
I probably wouldn’t trade the proverbial farm for the oft-injured forward, but if I were jockeying for position near the top of the trough, I wouldn’t table any talks for a guy with his amount of will and want-to.
Not only has Leonard worked his way back from ACL surgery and quadriceps tendinopathy and a torn meniscus, but take a gander at what he’s doing for the team right now. He’s carrying the Clippers on his broad shoulders and with his battered knees, doing incredibly heavy lifting.
With barely a shrug, he told reporters at Intuit Dome on Sunday night that this scoring surge is by design.
“I’ve never really been in this situation,” he said. “I’m more trying to get guys the ball and just sharing it more than what I’ve been doing. But the coaches need me to be aggressive the entire game. It’s just a different evolution … I love to come in the gym and work on my game and just try to evolve. That’s the process that me and Coach [Jeremy] Castleberry have been going for, he’s been working on me getting more shots up, [more 3-pointers] off the dribble …
“The team needs it.”
And, so, sure, Leonard is the stoic face of the Clippers’ franchise. But when has that stopped them from flipping the tables before? They jettisoned Blake Griffin to Detroit in 2017, just weeks after locking him into a five-year deal in free agency. And this season, they broke up with retiring franchise icon Chris Paul in the middle of the night.
The Clippers have a recipe, and it requires an emphasis on mise en place, the art of assembling ingredients and equipment in preparation to cook. No, it hasn’t netted them a championship yet, but it’s kept them competitive.
Until this year.
Because the trend around the league has become less fine wine than energy drink, with the best teams featuring players with wings bouncing off the walls.
As currently constructed, the veteran-heavy Clippers – so professionally committed to competing – have mostly failed to compete with that.
And so, even after this Leonard-infused four-game winning streak, they find themselves at 10-21, sitting in 13th place in the Western Conference standings, 2½ games out of the 10th spot – which comes with the last spot in the play-in, the last-gasp, end-of-season mini-tournament for the likely treat of facing the first-place Oklahoma City Thunder in a best-of-seven series.
Congratulations to whomever wins the right to be OKC’s first-round appetizer.
Still, admirably, the don’t-quit Clippers are four wins toward Coach Tyronn Lue’s stated goal of finishing 35-20. But that wouldn’t do anything more than get them to .500 and, realistically, no closer to the title they’ve been chasing all these years under owner Steve Ballmer.
Everyone sees that things in Clipperdom already are simmering until 2027, when they almost entirely clear the books of every deal – including Leonard’s – and try to catch another big fish.
Getting a healthy return for Leonard in the NBA’s complicated marketplace would only help them in their expedition, and getting that would come from a deal that’s best served hot. And at the moment, Kawhi is on fire.