{"id":255050,"date":"2025-08-28T08:47:36","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T08:47:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/255050\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T08:47:36","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T08:47:36","slug":"tyronn-lue-shuts-down-harsh-kawhi-leonard-narrative-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/255050\/","title":{"rendered":"Tyronn Lue shuts down harsh Kawhi Leonard narrative"},"content":{"rendered":"

The post Tyronn Lue shuts down harsh Kawhi Leonard narrative<\/a> appeared first on ClutchPoints<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Over the past couple of seasons, one of the biggest false narratives from fans and media surrounding LA Clippers star Kawhi Leonard<\/a> is that he chooses to sit out games, especially back-to-backs. What a lot of those people don\u2019t seem to realize is that the game restrictions and limitations are coming from the team and medical staff themselves. During a recent appearance on Shannon Sharpe\u2019s show, \u2018Club Shay Shay,\u2019 Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue<\/a> shut down those narratives<\/a> surrounding Kawhi Leonard<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI feel sorry for him, you know? Because all the work he puts in \u2013 we see it every day. And just what it takes to get on the floor on a consistent basis \u2013 it takes a lot for him to get out there. And so it\u2019s not like he\u2019s wanting to sit out and miss games,\u201d Tyronn Lue said. \u201cHe puts the work in every single day. And the grind that he has to do to even get on the floor to play \u2013 it\u2019s just tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo when he tries to push through that threshold himself, he gets himself in trouble,\u201d Lue continued. \u201cSo a lot of times, it\u2019s coming from us. It\u2019s coming from Lawrence Frank, the medical staff. We\u2019ve got to protect him from himself. Because you know sometimes he wants to play back-to-backs. . .And it\u2019s just tough because he\u2019s not a guy that wants to sit out. Not wanting to play. His whole mindset is to win championships \u2013 and that\u2019s what he wants to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2023-24 season was actually a milestone for Leonard in that he played 68 games in the regular season, the most number of games he\u2019s played since the 2016-17 season when he suited up in 74 games. That was also when Leonard suffered a major injury in the 2017 NBA Playoffs against the Golden State Warriors.<\/p>\n

This past season, Leonard was recovering from a knee injury<\/a> sustained against the Dallas Mavericks in the 2024 playoffs. He appeared in only 37 games, averaging 21.5 points, 5.9 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 1.6 steals with splits of 49.8 percent shooting from the field, 41.1 percent shooting from the three-point line and 81 percent shooting from the free-throw line.<\/p>\n

Related: Tyronn Lue holds back thoughts on LeBron James\u2019 Clippers move<\/a><\/p>\n

Related: Why Jeff Teague takes Russell Westbrook over Kawhi Leonard<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The post Tyronn Lue shuts down harsh Kawhi Leonard narrative appeared first on ClutchPoints. Over the past couple…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3789],"tags":[7,559,11583,149,164,529,4034,192,4032,251,135,4033,4031,6,1355],"class_list":{"0":"post-255050","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-clippers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-clippers","10":"tag-club-shay-shay","11":"tag-dallas-mavericks","12":"tag-golden-state-warriors","13":"tag-kawhi-leonard","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-la-clippers","16":"tag-laclippers","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","19":"tag-losangeles","20":"tag-losangelesclippers","21":"tag-nba","22":"tag-tyronn-lue"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115105526204702476","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}