Recently, the Los Angeles Clippers completed their trade of Kawhi Leonard to the Toronto Raptors, bringing back a package headlined by Brandon Ingram and draft compensation. Now, the team has gotten an unfortunate update on Ingram's status as the new season approaches.

“The Clippers say they've found a partially torn Achilles in Brandon Ingram's foot after his heel surgery. He will not be ready to start the 2026-27 NBA season,” reported NBA insider Tomer Azarly of ClutchPoints on X, formerly Twitter.

It's certainly not an ideal update as the new season approaches in less than a month.

Ingram was already known to be nursing a different injury prior to the season after undergoing surgery over the summer, and it's unclear just how significant “partially” means in this context, or how much time the All-Star is expected to miss this year.

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Things were already looking quite bleak for the Clippers entering this season after the NBA recently brought down the hammer on the organization for circumventing the salary cap in its dealings with Kawhi Leonard, forcing the team to give up five future first-round picks, in addition to hefty fines and suspensions for various members of the Los Angeles brass.

Now that Ingram is out for the start of the season, it's certainly fair to wonder where the brunt of the Los Angeles offense will come from, without many reliable scoring options on the wing or around the basket.

In any case, the Clippers are slated to kick off their new season on October 21 vs the Sacramento Kings.