Thanks to another surgical performance from Kawhi Leonard, the Clippers are (somehow, some way) back at .500.
On Monday night Los Angeles beat the visiting Knicks, 126-118, thanks to 29 points from Leonard on 10-for-19 shooting from the floor. His 21 first-half points gave the Clips a double-digit lead they would not relinquish. The victory puts the team at 32–32 on the year and allowed them to surpass the Warriors for eighth in the West.
“Team currently in the play-in tournament reaches .500 on the season,” might not sound like the biggest news, but this L.A. team fought a long, difficult battle to get back to even after losing 21 of its first 27 games to kick off the 2025–26 campaign. Back in November the NBA world had largely written off the Clippers as dead, and went so far as to preemptively bemoan the franchise gifting the Thunder a top-five pick at the end of the year; Los Angeles owes its unprotected first-rounder to OKC as part of the Paul George trade in 2019.
But despite what seemed a deep grave earlier this year, and despite a trade deadline that sent James Harden and Ivaca Zubac out of town, the Clippers have scratched and clawed their way back to respectability. Leonard’s play has been at the forefront of the remarkable turnaround; Monday night was merely the latest in a slew of quality performances from the All-Star this year. But he was quick to remind everyone the job isn’t done yet.
Speaking to media after beating New York, Leonard gave a rather blunt and on-brand view of the Clippers boasting a .500 record for the first time Nov. 3.
“It’s cool,” Leonard said to media. “But the job ain’t done. The season’s not over. It’s what’s expected. Like I told the fellas, we don’t train to lose. We train to win. So it’s alright. … We still got games to play. So it’s nothing to be happy about.”
Kawhi Leonard on the Clippers getting back to .500:
“It’s cool. But job ain’t done. Season not over. It’s what’s expected. Like I told the fellas. We don’t train to lose. We train to win. So yeah. It’s alright.”
Said he told teammates after the game the job isn’t done.
“We… pic.twitter.com/D6qbFIqlfR
— Joey Linn (@joeylinn_) March 10, 2026
An unsurprising reaction from the stolid Leonard. And he is, of course, right. It’s a nice milestone to hit given the team looked like it was set to suffer through an awful season with not even the luxury of a high pick as a reward at the end of it. But there are 18 games left in the season—plenty of time for the Clippers to slide again. Getting back to even is nice—now Los Angeles must stay there, or better yet, keep trending up.
Still, that reality shouldn’t completely overshadow just how remarkable the last few months have been for the Clippers.
Leonard has led the charge back to .500 for the Clippers
The very beginning of the year wasn’t actually that bad for Los Angeles, going 3-2 over the first five games of the year. But once the slide started, it was hard to stop. The Clippers lost 19 of their following 22 games , with separate losing streaks of six, three, and five games apiece. Leonard missed 10 games during that stretch. It all bottomed out with a blowout loss to the Thunder on Dec. 18 that dropped L.A. to 6–21. Given the advanced age of the roster and Leonard’s reliably unreliable injury status, the Clippers’ season was declared over before Christmas by many.
But Leonard refused to mail it in. He’s played at a career-best level offensively since returning from that 10-game absence, averaging 28.4 points per game since Nov. 23. Most importantly he’s only missed four games in that same stretch. As a result the superstar forward is on pace to average his most points per contest in a single season, made more impressive by his three-point percentage dropping below 40% for only the second time in a Clippers uniform.
Obviously there’s only one stats that matters to Leonard: wins. Since falling to 6–21 Los Angeles has gone 24–9 in games Leonard has played. Over the course of a full season that would make the Clippers a 60-win team based on winning percentage. It’s been an incredibly impressive stretch from a future Hall of Fame player and one made all the more remarkable by the roster turnover occurring throughout; the Clips traded Leonard’s running mate as well as his starting center, didn’t miss a beat, and so far have successfully acclimated newcomers Darius Garland and Benedict Mathurin into the mix.
It’s been awesome to watch. Beyond that, it’s been historic. The Clippers are only the second team in NBA history to fall 15 games below .500 and then make it back to even in the same season. Going forward they have the chance to be the first team ever to go above .500 after falling 15 games below.
In a championship-centric culture it’s easy for such an achievement to get lost. Los Angeles probably will not climb the standings much higher, with a five-game gap to the Suns for the seventh seed, and history is not kind to any NBA playoff seeds below the fourth. But what the Clippers have done is worth remembering, and so too have been the performances by Leonard to get them to this point.
More NBA on Sports Illustrated
Listen to SI’s NBA podcast, Open Floor, below or on Apple and Spotify. Watch the show on SI’s YouTube channel.