Sibling rivalry

If LeBron James (right) is healthy and Kawhi Leonard doesn’t take a day off for load management, the Christmas day duel between the Lakers and the Clippers could end up being pretty special. —AP

The NBA’s Christmas Day games are already a circled date in basketball fans’ calendars, but this latest one, which features that battle for Hollywood, could end up drawing even wider attention.

The reason? the league’s most discussed silent rivalry.

Lakers vs Clippers at Staples Center, the Los Angeles arena both teams consider home. In the middle of all of that, LeBron James vs Kawhi Leonard. A brewing sibling rivalry. Two players who rarely speak about their brewing war even as everybody else seems to fuss about it.

“I would say there’s mutual respect but that there’s an appropriate level of fear as well,” an anonymous Eastern Conference general manager told Bleacher Report, which dove deep into the quiet war between both players. “They know each other are really talented. But there’s not a lot of admiration. I don’t see them going out to dinner.”

Patrick Patterson, Leonard’s teammate, was more direct in the report by Ric Bucher: “They’ll never acknowledge it, but I think under the table, yeah. You’ve got two guys in LA, of all places, who are both eyeing the same prize and are on tremendous teams and have a tremendous chance of making it to a championship and winning it. Our goal, first and foremost, is to get to the postseason, but I think there’s a little eyeing going back and forth. There’s got to be.”

If they’ll share the court in the first place.

Part of the anticipation for the game is because recent developments have cast doubts on the availability of James—and free agent catch Anthony Davis—for the Christmas Day special.

Both players missed practice on Monday. James missed Sunday’s game against the Denver Nuggets with a thoracic muscle strain in his back and Davis suffered a knee injury on Sunday when he awkwardly fell during the game.

Los Angeles coach Frank Vogel said both players will be reevaluated on Tuesday.

If James does show up, and if Leonard’s load management schedule doesn’t include a day off on the 25th, there’s much to look forward to.

The Clippers drew first blood in this season’s rivalry by winning their opening night matchup, 122-102, a game where James and the Lakers actually struck first, taking a 13-2 lead before wilting under the heat of Leonard’s 30-point performance.“It was like a prized-fight,” Clippers’ head coach Doc Rivers was quoted as saying after the game. “They hit us with a punch to start, but we just kept moving forward,”

And then there’s the recent history.

The two stars were almost teammates as James’ Los Angeles Lakers tried to lure the reigning finals MVP back home to the city of angels.

Leonard did go back home but signed with the Clippers. And that partnership, Leonard and the Clippers, hopes to play out as the little brother trying to topple the glitzier half of the sibling rivalry.

According to an interview with an NBA general manager by Bleacher Report, “Kawhi looked at joining LeBron on the Lakers and said, ‘I’d be helping him with his legacy more than mine.’” —With reports from Louie Greg Rivera and AFP