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Hacksaw’s Great Sports Weekend Podcast
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“CLIPPERS IN CRISIS”
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You wish it did not have to end this way, but I fear it is the beginning of the end.

As Team USA gets ready to head to Paris for basketball medal play, they willl board the the plane to Europe without legendary NBA forward Kawhi Leonard.

The LA Clippers star, who helped lead San Antonio and Toronto to NBA heights, has been removed from the Team USA roster and sent home.

The player, a self made superstar, is now having to deal with some very basic physical realities.  His body is betraying him.

Chronic knee problems look as if they are starting to collect its tolls on him.

Leonard played heroically all season long, but the game minutes tore him down to the point he could not finish the regular season.  And despite the extensive rest and rehab, he tried to lineup and play in the post season, and lasted less than two games and was gone.

That was months ago, and now upon reporting to the Olympic workouts, he lasted one healthy practice, but came up limping the next day.  3-practices later they removed him from the roster.

Leonard has had 3-surgeries on his right knee, from quad, to meniscus, to cartilage.  It looks as if this career will be short circuited sooner than later.

The Clippers, who signed him to a (3Y-152M) extension last year, are now facing their own reality.  They may have.a great ‘part-time player’ at best in the Claw.  And they don’t have his running mate, Paul George, who defected as a free agent, signing a 4-year deal in Philadelphia.

And the Clippers are also facing a dose of history.  For the second time in a decade, the team they put together to be an NBA power is falling apart again.  This time is the aftermath of the Kawhi-PG tandem.  Before that it was the demise of the big time caliber team led by Chris Paul-Blake Griffin, done in too by chronic injuries.

If this is the beginning of the end of the great Aztecs player, it is too bad it has happened just beyond the age of 30.

What a great talent, what a complete player, maybe close to being a Hall of Famer.  But it does not look like we will ever see the greatness that Kawhi Leonard became.

The wheels are falling off the machine, and that is tough to see.

Team USA’s roster decision delivered the message no one wanted to hear.
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