The 2017-18 season is one for the ages. It's when the relationship between Kawhi Leonard and the San Antonio Spurs broke apart and changed the NBA landscape.
Leonard only played in nine games that season due to a lingering quad injury. Toward the end of the season, Leonard was cleared by Spurs doctors to return to the court, but the two-time Defensive Player of the Year was never cleared by his own doctors to play and thus never returned to the lineup.
So many things happened that season which ultimately led to Kawhi Leonard requesting a trade from the Spurs. Tony Parker’s comments about his own quad injury being “a hundred times worse” than the ailment Leonard dealt with was the “last straw” for Leonard, according to ESPN insider Adrian Wojnarowski.
Parker sustained a ruptured left quadriceps in May of 2017 and underwent surgery. The procedure was done by Spurs doctors and the future Hall-of-Famer was able to make his return to the court in November of 2017.
Then you had Parker and Manu Ginobili reportedly leading a players-only meeting in which Spurs veterans asked Leonard whether he planned to return for the season. Leonard was supposedly caught off guard by the meeting and left the team for New York to rehab his injury. He felt like he was being ambushed by the team and needed space.
San Antonio was hoping head coach Gregg Popovich could convince Leonard to change his mind about his trade request after the season ended, but Leonard told Popovich during a meeting in San Diego that he wanted out as soon as possible. Kawhi didn't trust the Spurs medical team anymore and was apparently hell-bent on getting to Los Angeles.
The Spurs’ brass was also planning to have an all-hands-on-deck meeting with Leonard in the hopes of working out their differences and continue what had been largely a positive and productive partnership up until that season, but Leonard was not interested in a return. He wanted to be traded to either the Lakers or Clippers and continue his basketball career out of San Antonio.
Trust is everything in the NBA. Leonard became a superstar with the Spurs, but he no longer had faith in the medical team and front office that they had his best interests.
The Toronto Raptors, who acquired Leonard from the Spurs, load managed Leonard during the 2018-19 regular season. Leonard said multiple times last season he was happy with how the Raptors managed his health. It paid off in the end, as Kawhi guided the Raptors to their first-ever title. Leonard won his second Finals MVP along the way.
What if Parker never said those comments to the media? What if he and Ginobili didn't lead that meeting and the Spurs' medical staff didn't lose the trust of Kawhi? There's a chance Leonard still may be with the Spurs. After all, San Antonio could have offered Leonard a supermax extension, a deal that would have paid Kawhi over $200 million.
Instead, the Spurs were forced to trade their best player to Toronto and watch their championship aspirations go down the drain while Leonard won a ring with the Raptors. To make matters even worse, Leonard is now back in the Western Conference playing with the Clippers with his pal Paul George by his side.
There's a chance the Spurs could watch Leonard win back-to-back titles. It's got to be a tough pill to swallow for the organization since they could have handled things differently and maybe kept one of the best players in the world.
Follow Us
Subscribe