Report: Clippers Feel Kawhi Leonard Needs Elite Team to Mitigate Inevitable Injuries

Having already committed to Kawhi Leonard for three more seasons, the next task for the Los Angeles Clippers' front office will be to find a way to keep a star-laden team around him after injuries robbed him of another postseason.

Per The Athletic's Sam Amick and Law Murray, the Clippers hope to keep Paul George and James Harden this summer to mitigate the "seemingly inevitable injuries" Leonard keeps suffering:

"Even with the Clippers' latest disappointing finish—a second consecutive first-round flop that followed their playoff absence back in 2022—they are expected to make strong efforts to re-sign both Paul George and James Harden. The thinking, team sources say, is that a team built around the oft-injured Leonard simply must have as much elite talent as possible as a way of mitigating the seemingly inevitable injuries that have come to define this Clippers era."

George and Harden are set to become free agents this summer and their futures with the Clippers are uncertain right now.

Per Hoopshype's Michael Scotto, the Clippers' in-season extension talks with George saw the team not want to offer him more than the three years and $153 million Leonard got in his new deal because Leonard is viewed as their best player.

If the Clippers want to keep George, they may be forced to make him a max offer. ESPN's Ramona Shelburne said this week on the Hoop Collective (17:45 mark) that both the Philadelphia 76ers and Orlando Magic have the ability to make him a max offer.

On the same episode, ESPN's Brian Windhorst noted George's decision is "just a matter of whether the Clippers are gonna give him the max, which is something they don't wanna do because they didn't give it to Kawhi [Leonard]."

Harden's negotiations could also be tricky because one potential sticking point for him with the Sixers last offseason was he said president of basketball operations Daryl Morey previously verbally committed to giving him a max contract before later backing out.

Amick and Murray noted it's "unclear" if Harden will try to push the Clippers for a max deal, but both sides "want this relationship to continue."

When Leonard has played, he's been everything the Clippers could have hoped for. The six-time All-Star is averaging 24.8 points on 50.4 percent shooting, 6.5 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game during his tenure in Los Angeles.

Leonard missed 12 of the final 14 Clippers' games between the end of the regular season and their first-round playoff series due to issues with his right knee. He was able to play in two games against the Dallas Mavericks, but it was apparent in Game 3 that things weren't right.

The two-time NBA Finals MVP was on the court for just 25 minutes in a 101-90 loss. Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank said prior to Game 4 that Leonard wanted to play, but his "mobility was severely restricted" in the previous game that it didn't make sense to push him.

As the Clippers' season ended on Friday with a 114-101 loss in Game 6 to the Mavs, Leonard was only able to watch from the bench.

This has become an all-too-familiar feeling for the Clippers since Leonard originally joined the team prior to the 2019-20 season. He's played in 257 out of a possible 433 games, including the playoffs.