Farewell Kawhi

27 Sep, 2026

I have mixed feelings on Kawhi's tenure with the Clippers. Admittedly I was a huge fan back then. This was a Southern California dude, born several days apart from me, quiet personality like me, went to a Cal State University like me. Really felt like he was the guy I can throw my support behind no matter what team he was on. So when he was injured in game 1 of the 2017 Western Conference Finals from Zaza's foot, I was pretty upset. Especially seeing how good he was doing against the mighty KD Warriors. Look at this box score below of that game before he got injured.

26 points in 24 minutes and the Spurs were up 76-55! And then the injury happens and the Spurs lose the game and will eventually be swept in the series.

Eventually he got traded to the Raptors and won a title immediately and I felt vindicated in my fandom.

So when he decided to sign with the Clippers in the summer of 2019, I was so ecstatic. The player I decided to be a fan of, is going to the team that I am also a fan of. Honestly, that timeframe in 2019 was pretty peak for me. I got married in the spring, went on a great honeymoon, then my sports fandom looked like it was heading in a positive direction, and then a couple months later we found out my wife was pregnant with our first child. I really felt untouchable in that 6 month period.

But then COVID happened in early 2020, and in the sports world, the NBA shut down, the bubble happened, and the Clippers lost a 3-1 lead to the Nuggets. And that kind of disappointment became the running theme for the rest of the Kawhi era over the next couple of seasons.

I'm not going to rehash everything about the last 7 seasons because it was a lot of letdowns. And with the news from Pablo, and the investigation, and the punishment, it's a lot of bad news for a Clippers fan and the future does look bleak. It's easy to blame Kawhi for how bad these last couple seasons were and how bad things will be in the future.

But I'm in my mid-30s now, and one thing I learned since the bubble is to really disassociate negative emotions with my sports fandom. Yes, it's okay to be disappointed, but getting mad or having strong negative feelings over professional sports is not worth the energy.

Looking back at this era though, Kawhi gave the team superstar performances when he was available. He kept the team relevant after Lob City. The Clippers continued having records above .500 despite constant injuries and setbacks. Here's how the Clippers did during this time.

At minimum, the team made the play-ins which is not great but it means that playoffs was always a possibility. And there was a season where the team finally broke through to the conference finals which has been a constant criticism as well. So 7 seasons of not being successful but still better than how it used to be before Lob City when winning was more rare.

Kawhi did end the 2021 season with an ACL tore during the second round of the playoffs and the Clippers still made it to the next round due to strong performances from the rest of the team. But the idea that the team could have gone further in thr post season had he stayed healthy will always linger, just like the injury in 2017 with the Spurs. That ACL tore also led to missing the entirety of the 2021-2022 season and pretty much set the tone for the rest of his career on the team.

So looking at his regular season averages below.

Any team would love to have a player put up the numbers he did on their roster. But that's also just it, great numbers, a lot of wins in the regular season when he was available, and not much else in terms of positive outlook. Looking at the games played, he only played a total of 331 out of 554 games in the regular season. So we only got to see him 60% of the time throughout these 7 seasons and that's the biggest misfortune here.

He did finish his Clippers stint with his highest scoring season, playing some of the best ball of his career, and showing the league that he's still an incredible basketball player. For me, it was a reminder of why I was a huge fan. Too bad this last season quickly became about setting up for the future instead of competing in the playoffs with multiple mid-season trades of vital players.

At the end of it all, his great on-court performances on this team will always be completely overshadowed by his injuries, failed playoff runs, and now the Aspiration scandal and punishment.

So am I happy to be moving on from Kawhi into a new era for the Clippers? I'm not sure. It's a lot of mixed emotions where I'm glad it's over but bummed it didn't work out. Am I still a fan of Kawhi? It's complicated. He was involved in some very shady deals with Ballmer and now the Clippers are down 5 first round draft picks in the future. I guess if I was in my adolescence, all of this would be very heart breaking, but now at this age, all I can do is move on and keep remembering that the sports world is not that serious on the scale of important things to worry about.

There'll always be the memories though. Like game 2 of the 2025 playoffs against the Nuggets where Kawhi scored 39 points, 34 points off FGs on 15/19 shooting. Started the game shooting 6 for 6. I remember watching that live and it was such a fun game that the Clippers won. I made a shot chart below of this game as a reminder that Kawhi was that dude and there was a reason I was a fan of his game.

Made in python. Data from sportsdataverse-py. Emoji: Twemoji (CC-BY 4.0)

Farewell Kawhi, I wish you the best.