Clippers' Paul George Calls Out 'Incorrect' Narrative About Kawhi Leonard's Injuries

Los Angeles Clippers star Kawhi Leonard has dealt with health problems during his career, which have prevented him from playing at various times.

Teammate Paul George wants to make sure there isn't any "narrative" suggesting Leonard doesn't want to take the floor and is sitting out for reasons beyond injuries. George discussed as much during the latest episode of Podcast P, which is presented by Wave Sports + Entertainment (58:31 mark):

"I do want to shed a little light on the Kawhi situation. We're not here to provide updates or comment on his situation, but I do want to talk a little bit about the narrative that surrounds Kawhi that he doesn't want to play, which is simply incorrect. You talk about someone that is all about playing playoff basketball and is all about—even if he's not 100 percent, he wants to give whatever he can and he did that in game two. Just to drown the noise of that whole narrative, he was literally shut down because I guess the higher ups didn't think that he was himself and didn't want to further harm him by playing games that he was not a hundred percent on. So I just want to clear that up to all the fans out there, Kawhi is one of the most hardworking down to put it all on the line players that you can find. Sometimes it is better that someone can see it from afar and kind of just know when someone is not completely themselves. So yeah, we wish Kawhi the best on recovery and this process we hear with 'em, we're going to hold it down until he is back. We got two, we're going to take care of it."

Leonard missed the final eight games of the regular season because of right knee inflammation and was also sidelined for Games 1 and 4 of the Clippers' first-round series against the Dallas Mavericks.

Los Angeles also already ruled him out for Game 5.

To the Clippers' credit, they won the two games he missed to make up for their losses in the two games he played. He didn't look like himself when he was on the floor and averaged 12.0 points while missing all five of his three-pointers in those two contests.

It is surely a disappointing development for the future Hall of Famer, who appeared in 68 games during the regular season. That was Leonard's highest total since he was with the San Antonio Spurs during the 2016-17 season.

Yet Los Angeles will have to figure out a way to continue its success without him for the time being as it faces the Mavericks.