Kawhi Leonard’s 2024 Summer Olympics are over before they even started, as the oft-injured Los Angeles Clippers forward has been replaced on Team USA.
USA Basketball announced on Wednesday that Leonard will not be a part of the 12-man squad that heads to Paris later this month. While there is no explicit mention of an injury or setback by USA Basketball, Leonard missed the last eight games of the 2023–24 regular season due to an ailing knee. He then missed the Clippers’ first playoff game against the Dallas Mavericks before attempting to play in Games 2 and 3. However, the knee clearly still ailed him, and after 25 minutes played in Game 3, he sat out the remaining three postseason games for Los Angeles.
“Kawhi has been ramping up for the Olympics over the past several weeks and had a few strong practices in Las Vegas,” USA Basketball stated. “He felt ready to compete. However, he respects that USA Basketball and the Clippers determined it’s in his best interest to spend the remainder of the summer preparing for the upcoming season rather than participating in the Olympic Games in Paris.”
Clippers Coach Tyronn Lue is one of Steve Kerr’s assistant coaches with Team USA, so he’s gotten a first-hand look at Leonard since he and the rest of the team arrived for training camp in Las Vegas just after July 4. Leonard’s withdrawal from the team comes just one day after he stated that he planned on participating in Team USA’s exhibition versus Canada on Wednesday, although he also admitted his knee was in a “neutral” state.
With Leonard now off the team, USA Basketball had to fill his void, and it chose one of his former teammates with the San Antonio Spurs to replace him. Derrick White of the Boston Celtics is now joining Team USA, fresh off winning an NBA championship and being named to his second All-Defensive Team.
White previously played for USA Basketball at the 2019 FIBA World Cup, in which the United States finished seventh.
Unfortunately for Leonard, being hurt this time of year is nothing new for him or for basketball fans. Apart from this current knee injury, which affected his postseason participation, Leonard previously tore his meniscus in the 2023 playoffs, which forced him to miss the Clippers’ last three games of their first-round loss to the Phoenix Suns.
In 2021–22, Leonard missed the entire season after tearing his ACL in the 2021 playoffs, also missing the final eight postseason games of that season. Prior to that, he missed the entire 2018 playoffs due to a quadriceps injury and missed four of the last five games of the 2017 playoffs due to an ankle injury.
The Paris Olympics would have been Leonard’s first tournament with USA Basketball after being drafted into the NBA in 2011. He was a member of the USA Basketball Select Team in 2012, which practiced against the National Team ahead of the London Olympics, and he was also part of the select roster two years later that practiced against the National Team before the 2014 FIBA World Cup. The United States National Teams would go on to win gold medals in each of those tournaments.
With Leonard being replaced by White, Team USA gets younger but also smaller as the 6-foot-4 guard becomes the third Celtic on the squad. Boston is the only NBA team with more than two players heading to Paris, as Jrue Holiday and Jayson Tatum join White. The Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns are the other teams with multiple Team USA members. The former boasts LeBron James and Anthony Davis, while the latter has Kevin Durant and Devin Booker.
The other five members of Team USA are Stephen Curry, Tyrese Haliburton, Anthony Edwards, Bam Adebayo, and Joel Embiid.
After Wednesday’s exhibition versus Canada in Las Vegas, Team USA will head to Abu Dhabi for pre-Olympic contests against Australia on July 15 and Serbia on July 17. The United States will then head to London for its final tune-up games, against South Sudan on July 20 and against Germany on July 22.
Team USA will then go to Paris to begin its 2024 Summer Olympics with group-stage matches versus Serbia (July 28), South Sudan (July 31), and Puerto Rico (Aug. 3).
