The Los Angeles Clippers saw their 2025-26 season come to an end Wednesday night with a 126-121 loss to the Golden State Warriors in the NBA play-in tournament.
The Clippers had beaten the Warriors just days earlier in the regular season finale. However, they looked lost when it mattered most.
The next agenda would be tilting their focus to the offseason and what they can do to change their fortunes for good. The aftermath of that play-in loss is that Kawhi Leonard has been spotlighted once more for falling short as he has been for the majority of his years with Los Angeles.
Kawhi Leonard Still in Clippers’ Future Plans
Leonard brought a championship pedigree to the Clippers. He won a title with the San Antonio Spurs and one with the Toronto Raptors, his previous franchise before moving to L.A. The Clippers have been patient with the 34-year-old through injury woes and availability issues.
It hasn’t yielded any success, six years and counting, however, Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank admits that his faith in Leonard hasn’t changed at all.
“Lawrence Frank says the Clippers’ plan is to win with Kawhi Leonard,” wrote Clippers beat writer Joey Linn on X.
This amounts to the organization’s most direct public commitment to Leonard amid any speculation about his future in the franchise.
The Clippers have spent all these years building around Leonard. They have endured losses more than gains including trading away future assets like the 2026 first-round pick that now lands with Golden State to acquire him and Paul George in 2019.
L.A. also traded for James Harden in 2023 and, less than a year later, lost George to the free agency market. Harden was traded in February.
Notwithstanding, Leonard turned in one of his most durable and productive seasons in a Clippers uniform this year. He averaged a career-high 27.9 points per game while playing in 65 games, only the second time in his Clippers tenure that he has eclipsed 60 games played.
Where Does L.A. Go From Here?
At the end of the day, Leonard’s career-high season didn’t amount to a playoff. Since he arrived, the Clippers have had little to show for in the playoffs — except in 2021, when they reached the conference finals but met hard luck when Leonard went out injured in Game 4 with an ACL tear.
Outside of that brief surge are multiple first-round exits, or play-in exits if this season is included, injury-plagued campaigns and long stretches of mediocrity.
Leonard is still under contract at least for one more season. He becomes eligible for a two-year maximum extension this summer and he hasn’t made any indication that he is unhappy at the Clippers. The two parties may be willing to move together into the future.
“Our plan is to win with Kawhi,” Frank said, according to ESPN. “We obviously showed as an organization that we want to continue and we are driven to win. So, at the appropriate time, we’ll sit down with Kawhi, and very similar to 2024, lay out our plan. And if our goals are aligned, then we’d like to win with Kawhi.”
The move to trade Harden to the Cleveland Cavaliers for young guard Darius Garland was one step. The Clippers want to follow a different approach seeing how their veteran-heavy plan with Leonard, Harden and George was a failure.
Los Angeles Clippers Make Official Decision on Kawhi Leonard’s Future