Leonard and the Clippers are taking precautions.
Kawhi Leonard will be sitting out his second back-to-back game this season and once again, this one was supposed to be on National television. Tonight, the Clippers are supposed to play against the Milwaukee Bucks and Leonard is being sat for “load management.” The league has strict rules about sitting stars during Nationally televised games and fans are pretty upset about Kawhi’s absence. Despite these rules and the anger from the fans, it seems as though the NBA is completely okay with the decision and are even endorsing it.
According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the league has confirmed with the Clippers that Leonard has an injury and that the health files would indicate as such. This means the Clippers are allowed to sit Kawhi as they see fit.
“Kawhi Leonard is not a healthy player under the league’s resting policy, and, as such, is listed as managing a knee injury in the LA Clippers injury report,” NBA spokesperson Mike Bass said. “The league fice, in consultation with the NBA’s director sports medicine is comfortable with the team medical staff’s determination that Leonard is not sufficiently healthy to play in back-to-back games at this time.”
Now that Kawhi is being given the go-ahead to rest in such a way, a precedent has now been set where we could see this happening more ten in the future. Whether this turns out to be a good thing remains to be seen.