Clippers All-Star Kawhi Leonard participated in the contact portion of practice Wednesday for the first time this season, but coach Tyronn Lue said there is still no timetable for the return of the team’s best player, who has been absent. season while dealing with a right knee injury.
Leonard will travel with the Clippers for games in Dallas (Thursday and Saturday) and Memphis (Monday), but he will not play in either game, Lue said. The Clippers then return home to play Golden State at the Intuit Dome on December 27.
“Well, he practiced today, five-on-five with contact,” Lue said Wednesday. “So, it’s good to see him do that.” It went well. So, just continue the process and make sure you check each box before it returns to play. … He will travel, yes, but he will not play during this trip.
Lue said the Clippers had days off to practice during the trip. Leonard could participate in these practices and will do rehabilitation work with the team’s medical staff.
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This will be Leonard’s first regular-season trip, his last since traveling with the team to Hawaii for training camp in late September.
“It’s exactly the same thing, I’m progressing,” Lue said of what the Clippers want to see from Leonard down the road. “Just keep checking the boxes, making sure that when he’s done with the five-on-five, with the contact, making sure he doesn’t have any swelling, making sure he doesn’t have no setbacks. And he can do a lot of rehab and other things on the road with our team. That’s why he’s making the trip.
Leonard has stepped up his workouts in recent weeks.
He last played a game for the Clippers in Game 4 of a first-round playoff series against the Dallas Mavericks on April 26.
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“I can see him getting more excited,” Lue said. “He put in a lot of work to get here. So today, doing five-on-five with contact was a huge step for him. As I said, we must continue to do what we are doing now. The medical staff was wonderful. He is good at getting the job done. So now we just have to keep building from that.
Leonard has been deemed 100% ready to participate in workouts, but the Clippers remain cautious.
“Yeah, he feels good,” Lue said. “We just need to make sure he continues to feel good.” We want nothing more than a day or two and to get back to where it was. This is why we are slowing down the process. That’s why we do it the right way. He feels good. So we just need to make sure he can do it long enough to check all those boxes, make sure the process is correct and not just kick him out on the floor.
This story was originally published in Los Angeles Times.
