LOS ANGELES -- Kawhi Leonard did not play a regular-season game in Los Angeles this season, as the Toronto Raptors ruled the forward out Tuesday night with a hip injury against the Clippers.
Leonard participated in the morning shootaround, but the Raptors opted to keep their star forward out of Toronto's 123-99 win.
"He hurt his hip toward the end of the last game," Toronto head coach Nick Nurse said of the Raptors' 104-99 home loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on Sunday. "[Leonard] did go through shootaround today [and] we were hoping he would pass the test and go, but it's a little too sore and we are going to hold him out."
The Raptors are slated to play at the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday, and Nurse said Leonard's status will be "up in the air still" for the game against the defending champs.
"I mean if his hip's good, he'll go," Nurse said. "Nothing other than trying to get his hip ready right now that he just recently dinged a little bit."
The Raptors thus played without Leonard in their only two visits to Staples Center this regular season. Leonard did not play during Toronto's 121-107 win over the Lakers here on Nov. 4 due to a jammed foot.
The pending unrestricted free agent is from Southern California, and both the Lakers and Clippers will be interested in Leonard in free agency next summer. League sources told ESPN's Tim Bontemps that the Clippers are expected to be Toronto's biggest challenger to keeping Leonard north of the border.
The Clippers haven't been shy about their pursuit of Leonard this season. Multiple high-ranking front-office executives have attended several of Toronto's games in person this season to scout Leonard, including Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank, who was in Toronto for the Raptors' loss to the Denver Nuggets last week.
Like the Lakers, the Clippers will not get to see Leonard play at Staples Center this regular season.
"You just are reminded how good he is, really," Clippers coach Doc Rivers said about what he has seen from Leonard this season. "It's amazing. We all do it: A guy misses a year, and you kind of forget, you know, and then you see him, after about 10 games, you are reminded, oh my goodness, this guy is really good. That is what you see, and he's a great player."
Including Tuesday's contest, Leonard has now missed seven games this season. However, Nurse said Leonard is nearly over the quad injury that kept him out of all but nine games last season.
"His health, we are almost to the point where this [current hip injury] is a separate little ding that [all] players have come and go throughout the season," Nurse said. "From his historical health standpoint, I think we are almost done with that. Right? Not quite. But we are almost there where we are just playing.
"We have ramped up the minutes, he's playing a lot more, there's no like restrictions per quarter or per stint or per game anymore. We were kind of targeting this back-to-back as a [possibility] that he would play both, so we are getting closer on that. There is still a lot to learn as far as just chemistry and us jibing with him and him learning our guys and us figuring out exactly how we are doing some things. But it looks pretty good to me, and his defense is pretty good."