Los Angeles Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue drew headlines with a stark assessment of his team’s roster construction, highlighting the chasm between Kawhi Leonard and the rest of the squad and questioning the practicality of the “next man up” mantra when a top-10 player is sidelined.
Lue underscored the difficulty of replacing Leonard’s impact, noting,
“When you lose your best player, a top 10 player when he’s on the floor, it’s hard to really make up for that. I know a lot of people say ‘next man up’ but if (your best player) is making $60M and your next man is making $400,000,” drawing attention to the structural realities of the salary cap and roster tiers.
While Tyronn Lue referred to Kawhi Leonard as a top-10 player before the latest Clippers-Lakers, Leonard has not been floor raiser he has been for years.
After latest Lakers W over LAC, Clippers have been outscored by 57 points with Kawhi on floor this season. pic.twitter.com/CShierT5Ps
— Law Murray ⛲️ (@LawMurrayTheNU) November 26, 2025
Lue’s comments arrive amid an uneven stretch for the Clippers and ongoing questions about availability and depth. Coverage around the battle of Los Angeles framed his stance against a backdrop of injuries and fluctuating rotations, with the coach acknowledging the strain of operating on “next man up” while emphasizing how Leonard’s presence changes the equation against elite opponents like the Lakers.
Lue’s quote resonated because it framed a tough truth without spin: replacing the impact of a max-salaried superstar with minimum-scale contributors is not linear, particularly in high-leverage games where shot creation, defensive attention, and late-clock execution are disproportionately borne by the top of the roster. That gap is magnified when injuries compress rotations and push role players beyond their comfort zones, a scenario the Clippers have faced repeatedly over the last several seasons.
For the Clippers, the path forward hinges on two intertwined threads: stabilizing availability for their primary engines and extracting consistent value from the middle of the roster in ways that mitigate the extremes Lue described. His frankness may be uncomfortable, but it maps to a reality every contender confronts. The margin for error without a healthy Leonard is thin. The more the Clippers can widen it through continuity and balanced contributions, the less they will have to lean on a calculus that, as Lue made clear, is stacked against them when their best player is not on the floor.
