Basketball season is almost here, and the Los Angeles Clippers hosted their first-ever media day at their newly opened Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California. Clippers stars James Harden and Kawhi Leonard shared their thoughts and expectations for this upcoming NBA season for the group. Here are some key takeaways from them.
James Harden on why he chose to re-sign with the Clippers and expectations:
“I’m home. I don’t plan on going anywhere else. Like I want to leave a legacy especially here. I got an opportunity to be home, so I love everything that we’re doing.”
“I know a lot of outsides or analysts or whatever you want to call them don’t really have high expectations for us, but we have high expectations for ourselves. I’ve never missed the playoffs in my entire career. So, I feel like our entire team, we got a lot to prove. You know, for me, like as a leader, there’s been a lot of situations where teams where we weren’t quote on quote good enough, and we made people believe in us. So, I feel like this is an opportunity.”
James Harden on if there be any patience with this new group:
“We don’t have time and patience. We got to get to it now. We got to get off to a really good start and these last few weeks, you know I’ve been in the gym with these guys. We are conditioning and running crazy and preparing ourselves. You know what I mean because we are behind, and training camp is going to be helpful for us. Preseason is going to be helpful for us. You see a lot of young teams especially get off to a great start and then you know, trickle out at the end. And more of the older teams, it takes them a little bit more time to get going. But we got to get ourselves to a good start and make our name and our presence known at the beginning and carry that with us the entire season.”
Kawhi Leonard on how he’s feeling physically:
‘We’ve been taking it day by day. Everything’s been going great for the past month, but you know, they’re being very cautious for reasons.”
Kawhi on his motivation to keep playing:
“I can play. I mean, I played the most games I played in a long time last year. I played like 68 games, who was one of the guys that didn’t probably take a rest break earlier on in that season. But just keep going, obviously last two years, I came back from ACL and been injured, and you know it’s a progression for me.”
“I went from 0 games to 52 to 68. So, let’s see if I could keep it going from there.”
Kawhi Leonard on if he feels more pressure with Paul George gone:
“No, not really. I mean, obviously, he made things easier on the court. But as far as my mental focus going into the game, I don’t feel like it’s going be harder for me, personally I didn’t look at for anybody I’m on the court with, I don’t look at him to be my savior. I take in my own role and my challenges that I have to face each and every game and you know, go in there and try to dominate the game. So, with that being said my mindset is going to change in that way.”
This will be the Clippers’ first season without the Paul George and Kawhi Leonard duo since the 2018-19 season. George chose to sign a four-year contract with the Philadelphia 76ers over the summer. Many basketball experts don’t have high expectations for this team, so it will be interesting to see if this group can prove them wrong.
Aaron Parker is a contributor for Back Sports Page as a basketball writer. He writes content on the Lakers and the Clippers. You can follow Aaron on Twitter @AirParker24.