INGLEWOOD, Calif. \u2014 Kawhi Leonard will talk about his LA Clippers future. Just not yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me cry about this loss a little bit more,\u201d he said after Wednesday night\u2019s 126-121 home defeat against the Golden State Warriors in the Play-In Tournament, which ended the Clippers\u2019 season.<\/p>\n
LA led 98-85 with 9:53 to play, but was outscored 41-23 to end the game, including a decisive 14-2 run that saw the Clippers fail to make a field goal for more than three minutes. Leonard finished with 21 points, but only two of those came in the fourth quarter, on a meaningless dunk with 16.9 seconds remaining.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re gonna have our discussions when that time comes,\u201d said Leonard, who turns 35 in June and is entering the final year of a contract extension signed in January 2024.<\/p>\n
Leonard finished this season playing 65 games, qualifying for awards, and turned in the highest scoring season of his 15-year NBA career, averaging 27.9 points on 50.5 percent shooting from the field. After missing 10 games in November with right ankle and foot sprains, Leonard missed only seven the rest of the season.<\/p>\n
He also didn\u2019t miss any games due to his surgically repaired right knee. \u201cI had no headaches with it the past two years, so I feel great,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
When asked about how long he would want to play, Leonard signaled he would not be done anytime soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m gonna just keep waking up every day,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen that time comes, that\u2019s when I\u2019ll stop playing. But I\u2019m happy, was able to play more games than I did last year. (I) think about 20, 30 more games. And I feel good still \u2026 I feel like my body\u2019s in a good place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leonard was also asked about the Aspiration scandal. The NBA is investigating allegations that the Clippers and their owner, Steve Ballmer, paid Leonard millions of dollars more than they were allowed to under league salary cap rules through an endorsement deal with Aspiration, a California-based company whose co-founder faces federal fraud charges.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to ask the NBA,\u201d Leonard said of the league\u2019s inquiry. \u201cI\u2019m not the one doing the investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INGLEWOOD, Calif. \u2014 Kawhi Leonard will talk about his LA Clippers future. Just not yet. \u201cLet me cry…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[11952,355,99],"class_list":["post-587634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-los-angeles-clippers","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}