The Clippers, denounced and accused of mistreatment of Kawhi Leonard!

A soap opera is coming in the NBA with the Los Angeles Clippers and Kawhi Leonard involved. Randy Sheltonformer physical trainer of the Los Angeles team, has denounced the franchise for unjustified dismissal, derived from his constant warnings about the mismanagement of Leonard’s injuries and health. According to Shelton’s accusations, the Clippers would not have respected the star’s recovery deadlines, who has missed up to 170 of 435 games since he joined the Los Angeles team in 2019.

The California franchise has denied the facts and NBA was not aware of it until now according to a spokesperson. A case that explains quite clearly the constant physical problems of the double NBA champion of 33 yearsout indefinitely at the start of the season due to inflammation in his right knee.

The scandal, uncovered by the ESPN, It comes a long time, starting all with a plot by the Clippers to bring in Kawhi. In 2017, when Leonard was still playing in the Spurs and the physical trainer worked for the Texas franchise, the Clippers asked him for private health information and tempted Shelton himself to join the organization as bait to attract the star given his good personal relationship with her.

Leonard was eventually traded to the Toronto Raptors in the summer of 2018 in the notorious operation by which the Canadian team got rid of DeMar DeRozan. A move that went well for Toronto, which would win its first ring in 2019 with Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka on the roster.

The physical trainer also denounces practices of tampering by the Clippers, who tried to convince the player to join their team, a practice prohibited with players under contract.

Randy Shelton would join the Clippers in 2019 coinciding with the arrival of Kawhi Leonard, who broke his anterior cruciate ligament right knee in the 2021 playoffs. Shelton established a recovery period for the star of 730 days -two years- given his previous injuries, a term that the Clippers considered “unacceptable.” The player ended up reappearing in October 2022, 480 days later, 250 days less than the physical trainer had proposed.

Kawhi complained of pain and inflammation and that season he had ligament problems in his right ankle and ended up tearing his meniscus in the 22-23 playoffs. Shelton said that after that injury he wrote a complaint to the Clippers President of Operations, Lawrence Frankwho told him that he would take his point of view into consideration. However, the physical trainer was fired at the end of the season.

Leonard also missed 4 of the 6 games in the first round of the last playoffs against Dallas due to physical problems. The declaration to the ESPN from one of Shelton’s lawyers about the Clippers is devastating for the Los Angeles team.

“We hope that our client’s lawsuit serves as a warning to the Clippers organization that its players are not just dollar values, but we will be humans who require appropriate and not rushed health and recovery treatment.”

Decreased by the departures of Paul George and Russell Westbrook and Kawhi’s new illness, the happy parenthesis of the opulent debutant did not last long for the Los Angeles franchise. Intuit Dome.

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