"We're doomed. Kawhi wants too much special treatment" - Clippers insider says Kawhi Leonard's diva behavior sabotaged the 2020 title run

Yahoo

26-07-2025

"We're doomed. Kawhi wants too much special treatment" - Clippers insider says Kawhi Leonard's diva behavior sabotaged the 2020 title run originally appeared on Basketball Network.
It began with a helicopter. Two of them, actually — hovering above the private terminal at LAX as Kawhi Leonard and Paul George touched down in July 2019, officially ushering in a new era of Clippers basketball.
The Lakers may have gotten Anthony Davis, but L.A. belonged to the other team now.
On paper, the Clippers were built for it. Leonard was fresh off a championship run with Toronto. George had just finished third in MVP voting, and the team retained its blue-collar core — Patrick Beverley, Montrezl Harrell and Lou Williams. Add Doc Rivers, a championship coach and the deepest bench in the league so the math felt simple — title or bust.
A system built on sand
By January 2020, the Clippers were 31–14, second in the West. They'd beaten the Lakers on opening night and again on Christmas Day.
But cracks had started to show. Leonard was load managing, sitting out back-to-backs. George missed time with shoulder issues. Continuity was a rumor. Inside the locker room, tension simmered. One moment in particular came to define the unease — Kawhi's pregame privacy request.
"How do you ever build a strong team with that s— going on?" one team source asked. "I thought from the beginning, 'We're doomed. Kawhi wants too much special treatment.'"
According to one beat reporter who covered the team at the time, Leonard asked for a personal space away from teammates before games, a decision that didn't sit well with staffers or players. Some saw it as a red flag and others saw it as a wall.
"If there was one dynamic that showed the issues with some of the preferential treatment," the reporter wrote, "It was Leonard's pregame privacy request."
The perks extended beyond that. Leonard lived in San Diego and was routinely late to team flights. He and George had input on the schedule, rest days, even practice structure.
It was resentment and disconnection. The role players — the ones who had battled through two playoff runs, who nearly knocked off the Golden State Warriors the year before — suddenly felt peripheral. They were now background pieces in a production they had never auditioned for.A collapse in the making
By the time the Clippers entered the NBA bubble in Orlando, they still hadn't established a rhythm. Leonard and George had only played 37 games together during the regular season. Harrell missed the beginning of the restart due to a personal emergency. Williams made headlines for leaving the bubble to attend a funeral — and a side trip to Magic City.
Still, talent prevailed early. The Clippers dispatched the Mavericks in six games. Leonard was averaging 32 a night. George had rebounded from a shaky start. Up next: the Denver Nuggets — a rising team, but not a rival anyone expected to push them to the brink.
Instead, Denver pushed them over it. The Clippers led 3–1 in the series, held double-digit leads in Games 5, 6, and 7 and lost all three. In Game 7, they scored just 33 points in the second half. Leonard finished with 14 points on 6-for-22 shooting. George shot 4-for-16. They lost and they vanished.
"I think a lot of the issues that we ran into, talent bailed us out," Lou Williams said after the collapse, airing out his vantage point. "Chemistry, it didn't. In this series, it failed us."
Talent had never been the problem. Belief, trust, consistency and the intangibles that championship teams hold close — the Clippers had treated those like luxury items. The franchise gambled that it could layer superstars over a tight-knit culture and win overnight. But culture doesn't stack like blocks. It fractures.
Rivers was let go within weeks. Harrell signed with the Lakers. The Clippers retooled again, this time under Ty Lue. Leonard and George stayed, but the illusion of inevitability was gone.
In hindsight, the signs were everywhere. A team with title expectations but no emotional center. Two stars with max deals and minimal accountability. A locker room divided not by effort, but by access.
Kawhi maybe didn't ask for the kingdom — just control. But in giving it to him, the Clippers lost the belief that everyone was pulling in the same direction. And by the time they realized what it cost, they were already on the flight home.This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jul 25, 2025, where it first appeared.