{"id":607346,"date":"2026-02-17T02:15:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T02:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/607346\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T02:15:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T02:15:19","slug":"aspiration-drama-has-followed-kawhi-leonard-and-clippers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/607346\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspiration drama has followed Kawhi Leonard and Clippers"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Kawhi Leonard<\/a>, this season has been the ultimate roller coaster.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He went from being the biggest snub of the NBA All-Star Game to putting on its best performance after commissioner Adam Silver added him as an injury replacement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He went from helping the Clippers become the hottest team in the league amid a 17-5 run to watching them deteriorate into rebuild\u00a0mode after they traded James Harden<\/a> and Ivica Zubac earlier this month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kawhi Leonard dribbles past Sacramento Kings guard Daeqwon Plowden.s Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

He went from being embroiled in drama<\/a> before the season even began amid allegations that the Clippers circumvented the salary cap regarding a $28 million endorsement deal through Aspiration to having one of the best seasons of his career.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He went from being dismissed an injury-riddled has-been to reminding everyone that he\u2019s one of the league\u2019s top superstars.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Leonard has quietly been one of the biggest storylines of the season for both the best and worst reasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And on Sunday, he was at the center of the basketball world after eking his way into the All-Star Game as the sole representative of the Clippers and their shiny new $2 billion arena,\u00a0which hosted the event.<\/p>\n

Leonard responded by putting on a MasterClass in showmanship. He scored 31 points in 12 minutes on 11-for-13 shooting from the field and 6-for-7 shooting from beyond the arc during the World versus Stripes contest, including making a game-winning stepback 3-pointer with four seconds\u00a0left.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even though his team didn\u2019t make the championship round of the league\u2019s new round-robin tournament, he received four of the 14 MVP votes. (Anthony Edwards received the remainder of the votes after leading his team to win the competition.)<\/p>\n

For Leonard, Sunday was a microcosm of his season as a whole: He has managed to shine through all of the drama.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I\u2019m one of the best when I am playing basketball,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kawhi Leonard goes to the basket against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Getty Images<\/p>\n

There are a long list of hypotheticals surrounding this season for Leonard.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If it weren\u2019t for the Clippers\u2019 dreadful 6-21 start, would he have been in the MVP conversation? If the team hadn\u2019t punted this season by trading two of their most important players, could he have helped them claw their way up the Western Conference standings? If it weren\u2019t for the Aspiration scandal, would the league\u2019s coaches have voted him into the All-Star Game as a reserve?<\/p>\n

For Leonard, the most frustrating part of all this is he\u2019s\u00a0finally\u00a0playing like himself again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He\u2019s averaging a career-high 27.9 points a game and is leading the league in steals (2.1). He\u2019s also averaging 6.4 rebounds and 3.7 assists for the Clippers, who are in 10th place in the Western Conference with a record of 26-28.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no doubt about it: When Leonard is healthy, he\u2019s atop the league.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The problem is that\u2019s a big caveat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Heading into this season, Leonard had missed 226 regular season games since joining the Clippers in free agency in\u00a02019, as well as multiple playoff series. It has been such a glaring issue that two years ago, ESPN\u2019s\u00a0Stephen A Smith<\/a>\u00a0said Leonard should retire.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kawhi Leonard drives to the basket in the second half against the Cleveland Cavaliers at Intuit Dome. Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

But this season, Leonard has come roaring back.\u00a0He\u2019s dominant. He\u2019s fluid. He\u2019s one of the top two-way players in the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unfortunate timing considering his great play has been\u00a0overshadowed by all of the drama.<\/p>\n

He was embroiled in controversy beginning at Clippers\u2019 media day, when he was peppered with questions\u00a0about\u00a0the salary cap circumvention allegations. \u201cNone of us did\u00a0no wrongdoing,\u201d he said at the time. \u201cWe invite the investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Five months later, Leonard was once again in the spotlight after the Clippers stunningly traded Harden and Zubac in an attempt to get younger and clear salary cap space for free agency in 2027.<\/p>\n

The player who\u2019s famous for his stoicism couldn\u2019t help but show tinges of disappointment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a complete turnaround from what I thought we could potentially do,\u201d Leonard said Feb. 6. \u201cNot saying we were contenders. But we thought we could make some noise or mess somebody\u2019s season up.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Kawhi Leonard, this season has been the ultimate roller coaster.\u00a0 AP<\/p>\n

The question is what\u2019s next for Leonard?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a big unknown for now. He has one season left on his deal after this one. And the Clippers\u00a0reportedly<\/a>\u00a0turned down multiple inquiries\u00a0about him ahead of the trade deadline.<\/p>\n

Leonard, who has been the face of the franchise for seven seasons, watched Paul George leave in free agency in 2024 and then Harden wanted out a few weeks ago. Now, the championship window on this iteration of the team has been officially slammed shut.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Will he be a part of what\u2019s next for the Clippers?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Could he demand a trade? Or eventually leave in free agency? Or will he remain a centerpiece of the team\u2019s\u00a0retooling? And how does the Aspiration scandal impact all of this?<\/p>\n

Right now, there are more questions than answers for the\u00a0beleaguered superstar.<\/p>\n

Leonard is clearly choosing to deal with the uncertainty by focusing on the one thing he can control.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He\u2019s finally healthy and he\u2019s hellbent on reminding the world what that means.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Kawhi Leonard, this season has been the ultimate roller coaster.\u00a0 He went from being the biggest snub…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3789],"tags":[7,160,559,560,529,4034,192,4032,251,135,4033,4031,6,66,3677,1355],"class_list":{"0":"post-607346","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-california","10":"tag-clippers","11":"tag-james-harden","12":"tag-kawhi-leonard","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-la-clippers","15":"tag-laclippers","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","18":"tag-losangeles","19":"tag-losangelesclippers","20":"tag-nba","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-steve-ballmer","23":"tag-tyronn-lue"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116083565335807197","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607346","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=607346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}