Why Paul George, Kawhi Leonard are the solution to the Clippers’ closing championship window

Paul George basically lost a year of his career last season. He missed three months after suffering a torn ligament in his shooting elbow, and just as he returned for the Play-In Tournament, the LA Clippers’ star entered health and safety protocols prior to the elimination game loss to the New Orleans Pelicans.

After an offseason that balanced training for this upcoming season and hosting his teammates for several outings, George spoke of his window closing on media day, just before the team’s flight to Las Vegas for training camp. He also shared where his head was as the Clippers entered a season with lofty expectations.

“One word: Focused,” George said in September. “My window is shrinking to be a champion. That’s the biggest — I think that’s the one word I can say to sum up the mindset going into this year.”

But now, it’s mid-January, and George is once again answering questions about the sense of urgency to contend with a team that’s underachieved.

“I mean, it’s now,” George said before Wednesday’s game at Utah. “We’ve just been behind the ball just in terms of injuries and lineups and guys in and out. Urgency starts now. We’ve got to start playing with some desperation.”

George’s latest comments came one day after he returned to the Clippers’ lineup against the Philadelphia 76ers after missing 12 days with a sore right hamstring. Ultimately, George’s return wasn’t enough to help end a five-game homestand on a high note as the Clippers went 2-3 to sit at 23-23 overall.

George stood in the locker room after that loss and said he felt good about his return to play. But he wasn’t going to be able to play the next night on the road against the Utah Jazz.

“We will be smart, because it’s a back-to-back,” George said.

Without George, Kawhi Leonard, or Luke Kennard the following night, the Clippers were blown out. For the first time since Week 3, the Clippers are under .500 at 23-24. Only the Los Angeles Lakers, San Antonio Spurs and Houston Rockets have more losses in the Western Conference than the Clippers. And Wednesday’s game was the start of a stretch where the Clippers play 11 games in nine cities, reaching all four time zones.

Roster continuity has been an ongoing issue for the Clippers the season, particularly for George and Leonard. George has suited up 31 times while Leonard has played in 22.

The Clippers have four issues this season, and each involves their two stars.

If there’s one thing Lue and the front office can agree on as the Feb. 9 trade deadline approaches, it’s that Leonard and George are the solutions to their needs and woes. The front office, led by 2020 NBA Executive of the Year Lawrence Frank, has put together a roster anchored by two star two-way wings in Leonard and George under the concept of “You can never have too many wings.” Lue, head coach of the 2016 NBA champion Cleveland Cavaliers, would really appreciate just having Leonard and George play a string of games together so that the team can play consistently competent basketball.

“It’s been a big thing for us when guys miss five or six games, and now you take their offensive package out and you bring them back and guys are like, ‘Oh,’” Lue said before the 76ers game. “They don’t really know their spots, where they’re going to. It’s just kind of hard. But other than that, I mean, it is what it is. I’m not going to complain about it anymore, not going to talk about it anymore. We just got to play better basketball, and try to win games until we get whole.”

This is Leonard’s and George’s fourth season together in LA, but Leonard didn’t play at all last season after undergoing knee surgery to repair a partially torn right ACL suffered in the 2021 postseason. The success of the Leonard-George tandem has been there, though. The Clippers had a 27-10 record when George and Leonard played together during the 2019-20 regular season, and a 32-11 record when they played together in the 2020-21 regular season. The Clippers outscored foes by 13.2 points per 100 possessions in the 890 minutes George and Leonard shared the floor in their first season together, and by 17.6 points per 100 possessions in the 1,028 minutes on the floor together in 2020-21.

The Clippers’ next games are at San Antonio on Friday and at Dallas on Sunday. Lue joked that he wouldn’t go on the trip if George, Leonard and Kennard weren’t traveling.

“We got more than one game,” Lue said. “Now, if you said playing…”

The next Clippers back-to-back isn’t until the following weekend, when the season-long six-game Grammys road trip begins with visits to Atlanta and Cleveland on consecutive days. That sets the Clippers up to get potentially four straight games from Leonard and George together for the first time all season.

“Typically, we’ve been good on the road,” George says, “I think we’ve had some of our best wins and some of our biggest growth have come from us being on the road. So we’re looking forward to it. I think it is an opportunity to come together. We’ve been together for quite a few days. So that’s just good in general. But we’ve got to take it one game at a time and approach it from there.”

Of course, George has said the Clippers will grow closer on the road before too, prior to the team’s five-game trip to end December. It didn’t lead to success. Now is the time that George’s return and call to urgency results in the Clippers looking like the team that commanded urgency in the first place.

(Top photo of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George: Winslow Townson /Getty Images)