Kawhi Leonard Wants To Play Back-To-Backs But Clippers Are 'Protecting Him From Himself'

Los Angeles Clippers superstar Kawhi Leonard has often come under fire for sitting out of games and not playing back-to-backs, but his head coach, Tyronn Lue, says he isn't the one to be blamed. Lue shared on the Club Shay Shay podcast that the Clippers are the ones who stop Leonard from playing and spoke about the work he puts in behind the scenes.

"I feel sorry for him, 'cause all the work he puts in, we see it every day," Lue said. "And just what it takes to get on the floor on a consistent basis. It takes a lot for him to get out there. And so it's not like he's wanting to sit out and miss games. He puts the work in every single day.

"The grind that he has to do to even get on the floor to play, it's just tough," Lue continued. "So, when he tries to push through that threshold himself, he gets himself in trouble. So a lot of times it's coming from us, it's coming from Lawrence Frank, the medical staff, we got to protect him from himself because sometimes he wants to play back-to-backs, but we've seen the trend."

Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry had shared once that the players are never the ones who want to sit out when talking about load management. It's the team that wants to protect a valuable asset, and that's what's happened with Leonard as well. With how often his body has broken down, the Clippers are being cautious.

Leonard has played in just 266 out of a possible 472 regular-season games for the Clippers since arriving in 2019. He missed the first 34 games of the 2024-25 season as well with a right knee injury, and the team was very careful with him as a result.

Leonard only played his first back-to-back of the season on April 5 and 6 against the Dallas Mavericks. The Clippers had wrapped the six-time All-Star up in wool and only gave the go-ahead when they found themselves in a tight race for the automatic playoff spots.

The Clippers would end up getting the fifth seed, and Leonard managed to avoid missing time due to injury in the playoffs for the first time in years. He had gotten injured in 2021, 2023, and 2024, and had missed the postseason entirely in 2022. Some bad luck was involved, and Lue feels for Leonard.

"It's just tough because he's not a guy that wants to sit out, not wanting to play," Lue stated. "His whole mindset is to win championships, and that's what he wants to do, and sometimes like you said it just it's unfortunate. It's some bad luck that things happen, but it's not like he doesn't want to work or he doesn't want to play. That's definitely not true." 

Despite Leonard's presence, the Denver Nuggets eliminated the Clippers in seven games in the first round of the playoffs. The series could have gone either way, but that was little consolation.

Leonard, who averaged 21.5 points, 5.9 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 1.6 steals, and 0.5 blocks per game in 2024-25, managing to stay upright was a positive at least. Here's hoping the 34-year-old is relatively injury-free moving forward.