It has not been the easiest season for Kawhi Leonard and the Los Angeles Clippers. Despite entering the 2022-23 campaign, with plenty of high hopes with the impending return of Leonard from an ACL injury that kept him out for the entirety of last season, the Clippers have had bouts with inconsistencies. Moreover, both Leonard and Paul George have missed significant time due to injuries. In fact, some had even wondered whether Leonard could ever be the same player he was back when he was a stone-cold postseason killer.

But Kawhi Leonard is continuing to put those doubts to rest.

With the Denver Nuggets gaining separation over the Clippers in the third quarter of their Friday night matchup despite being without Nikola Jokic, Leonard knew he had to do something to shift the momentum back towards their favor. But who could have expected Leonard to do so with a resounding poster jam?

Following a handoff from John Wall, Kawhi Leonard had a full head of steam going towards the basket. Leonard, filled with bad intentions, rose up to throw a dunk right in Zeke Nnaji's grill. And with such a mismatch on paper, only one could have reasonably come up on top.

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Simply put, Leonard, indeed, is not washed up. He is slowly ramping up his workload, and he even said that, perhaps in the future, he could suit up during both games of a back-to-back. Coming off a stellar 33-point night on an incredible 9-12 shooting from the field (3-5 from beyond the arc) and 12-12 from the foul line, Leonard is currently having another strong outing against the Nuggets, a solid 20-point bounce back performance (at the time of writing) relative to his previous dreadful performance against Denver.

With the Clippers having failed to gain separation from the rest of the Western Conference pack, a fully healthy Kawhi Leonard should prove to be the difference between an outright playoff berth and having to slug it out in the play-in tournament much like they did last season. And if Paul George comes back healthy soon, the league better watch out for the possibility of a sleeping giant's awakening.