On January 9th, Beijing time, the latest round of NBA regular season has come to an end. In the just-concluded Western Conference focus match, the Nuggets hosted the Clippers at home. It was originally thought that this would be a century-old matchup, a prelude to the Western Conference Finals, but it turned out that after only the first quarter, the Nuggets led the Clippers by 14 points, with a 16-point advantage at halftime, announcing the game had entered garbage time early. Ultimately, the Nuggets defeated the Clippers 126-103 at home without much effort.
It is worth noting that in this game, the Clippers star Powell performed brilliantly, starting for 28 minutes and scoring the highest 30 points in the game with 8 out of 17 shots, but unfortunately, all the Nuggets starters scored in double figures, even the veteran Jordan who scored the lowest got 12 points, 9 rebounds, and 2 assists, completely overwhelming the Clippers' core Zubac on both offense and defense.
Of course, the reason why the Clippers suffered a crushing defeat to the Nuggets is also due to Leonard's sudden departure. This Clippers star, after resting for nearly half a season, only returned to play one game before officially leaving the team again, saying goodbye to the NBA. However, after in-depth understanding, we learned that Leonard's withdrawal from the team this time was not due to injury, but because the Los Angeles fire destroyed his home, so Leonard chose to temporarily leave the team to accompany his family. It is worth mentioning that not only Leonard's home, but also the Los Angeles luxury villa areas where George and other NBA stars are located were hit by the fire, and even the new arena built by Ballmer with a huge investment of 2 billion US dollars is in danger.
Although it is undeniable that Leonard chose family over work, Ballmer did invest a huge sum to provide him with a three-year super top salary. Under the circumstances where his family could evacuate safely, Leonard seemingly did not need to leave the team, as his presence would not have a substantial impact on his family. In contrast, other players in the league chose to continue playing and uphold their professional spirit.
In fact, fans who know Leonard are aware that this is not the first time he has made such a decision detrimental to the team. Back in the Spurs era, Leonard was sidelined for the season after being fouled by Zaza during the playoffs. The following year, when the Spurs were in trouble, the team hoped Leonard could return to save them, but he continued to refuse to play even though he was basically healthy, abandoning the team's principles, which ultimately led to his trade to the Raptors.
In the ensuing years, Leonard moved around to the Clippers, never playing a full season with the Clippers, and even failing to play with George until they were eliminated in the playoffs, repeatedly injured and repeatedly holding up the "no battle" sign, causing the team management to doubt whether it was really worth paying him a top salary to recover from injuries these years?
In my opinion, judging from the perspective of cost and return, Leonard's contract is the worst contract in the NBA. His problem is not high pay for low ability, but taking a super annual salary without playing, similar to Simmons and Zion. Who can stand it? It should be noted that in previous years, the Clippers missed too many stars for Leonard, and even sent Alexander to the Thunder to satisfy Leonard's request in exchange for George. Now looking at the talented Alexander, I guess the Clippers management must be regretting it.