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Kawhi Leonard spoke at length about his decision to join the L.A. Clippers in free agency, noting it was a decision based mostly on the closeness to his family, rather than one pertaining to his career. An often shy and quiet “fun guy,” Leonard expressed his desire to play in Los Angeles from the time of his ugly divorce with the San Antonio Spurs.
The two-time MVP had a choice between three teams — the Toronto Raptors, whom he had just won a title with, the L.A. Clippers, and a fast-charging Los Angeles Lakers team that opened up the cap space just in time to join the race for his services.
Leonard went in depth in a palpable, heartfelt explanation as to why the proximity to his family mattered so much:
“You know, once I got together with my team and we put the pros and cons down, it was never about winning a championship,” Leonard told Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports. “It was about what the future has to hold. And for me, myself and my family, that's what type of decision I had to make. It’s no discredit to Toronto, I just wanted to play at home. I wanted to do that before I got traded there, and obviously when I got there, it was a goal of mine to make history and get them a championship, and I feel like I did my job there pretty much and that I should be granted to go play where I wanted to after I gave them what they needed. I just wanted to play at home. Like Paul [George] said, our families are able to come to games. But just from my own thinking, it’s like we're in the NBA and I played eight years already. Eight years can fly by so fast, and we’re not able to do anything with [our families] eight or nine months of the season.
“So once the summer comes, you got three months to either go see family, train and do your other business obligations. There’s really no time to see them, to see your family. I love my family. Over the last five or six years, I’ll go back home and see my family, my nieces and nephews, and they’re talking, playing, shooting basketballs, and I’m like, ‘Dang, I missed all this. Y’all talking already. What? You’re doing this?’ So it’s like, ‘Man, where the hell have I been?’ It feels like you been in a matrix or something.
“For me, it was a family situation more so than a basketball decision. Basketball is going to be here long without me, so I feel like when we’re here, we just have to make sure we share it with our loved ones, and that’s one of the big reasons why I came to the Clippers.”
For a rather quiet star that stays often behind the scenes, Leonard does have a sensitive side to him and one that obviously prioritizes his loved ones over his own ambitions. After inking a three-year, $103 million deal with the Clippers, it seems the slogan will now be: family man gets paid.
