Over the past few seasons, the Los Angeles Clippers have overtaken the San Antonio Spurs to become the franchise that's synonymous with the term “load management.”
However, where Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich was sitting out his aging stars against lower-level competition in order to preserve them from the playoffs, the Clippers have been sitting out their injury-riddled stars for the same reason.
After all, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George have both played in 60 or fewer games over the past four seasons. Leonard missed the entire 2021-22 season as he recovered from an ACL injury.
Nonetheless, habits and chemistry are built during the course of an 82-game regular season and missing a quarter of each season will have a negative effect even if it does keep Kawhi and PG healthy enough to make it to the playoffs.
As a result, Clippers general manager Lawrence Frank revealing that the organization has to place greater emphasis on the regular season is not only interesting but encouraging.
“We have to be honest with ourselves,” says Lawrence Frank, per Tomer Azarly of ClutchPoints. “We have to look in the mirror. It starts with me. We have to get back to honoring and respecting the regular season.”
“The regular season matters,” Frank continues. “Not that our guys don’t think it matters. I think all of us, starting with me, we can compete harder every single day. We can hold each other accountable every day.”
The Clippers and Frank will have to prove they mean what they say after all these years, as fans have seen all but the opposite of L.A. respecting the regular season in the Kawhi Leonard (and Paul George) Era.
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