The San Antonio Spurs officially moved on from All-Star forward Kawhi Leonard in a blockbuster trade to the Toronto Raptors this past week.
In wake of the move, there have been plenty of reactions from around the league from both current and former players. Among those is Hall of Famer David Robinson voicing during an interview on ESPN”s “The Jump” that the entire ordeal involving Leonard was something that he had never seen before since he first entered the league as a player.
“It's one of the oddest situations that I have seen I have been pro basketball. He's a hard guy to understand. He's a tough guy to read. San Antonio we obviously have a reputation for taking care of our players. It's almost too much. I mean criticize us for sitting guys down. Now all of a sudden we got a guy who said he felt pressured to play, which is tough. I mean, what can you do. We typically don't risk our players' health. If a guy is not happy then he's got to go somewhere where he thinks he can play. I think Pop and R.C. did a pretty good job of meeting our needs for the future. We will move on from the deal and continue to grow and get better.”
This was certainly a unique situation that stands out on its own, as there was some internal dysfunction in terms of how Leonard's injury was handled. The Spurs have developed the reputation as being one of the most health-centered team, focusing on making sure their players on overworked over the course of the season.
However, what is different about this entire ordeal is that it led to Leonard going to get an opinion from a doctor away from the team that further built a level of distrust with the team that was compounded by his teammates publicly blasting him about the situation, along with head coach Gregg Popovich.
All of this ultimately made a trade the only feasible option to resolve the entire matter for both sides to finally move on.
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