Spurs news: Kawhi Leonard accepting of supermax not a certainty

The San Antonio Spurs have been put in a precarious position involving star forward Kawhi Leonard centered the handling of his quad injury. This has moved to the point to where his long-term future with the franchise has seemingly been put up in the air.

Leonard is set to enter the fourth year of his five-year, $94.3 million deal that includes a fifth-year player option. The Spurs will have the opportunity to present the 26-year-old with a supermax contract over the upcoming offseason, but there is no certainty at this point that he would sign it, according to Vincent Goodwill of Bleacher Report.

Leonard can be offered a “supermax” contract this summer, a five-year deal worth up to $219 million. But rival executives feel neither the Spurs' offer nor Leonard's accepting the offer is a certainty—thus the trickiness of the Spurs' old-school ways and Leonard's modern sensibilities.

This has become quite a complicated situation as there is clearly some separation between both sides that has developed over the last few months The entire handling of his quad injury has created an uneasy tension around the ordeal that has made for a lack of communication.

What has also been troubling is that Leonard was not present at the team's first playoff game on Saturday night against the Golden State Warriors. Beyond the Spurs declaring him out for the playoffs, head coach Gregg Popovich also voiced no clarity as to when the two-time Defensive Player of the Year would return to the team.

There are many wrinkles to this situation that make it difficult to simply write off something that can be resolved with a sit-down meeting both sides. This has building sense that much more could come with the legitimate possibility that trade talk could arise at some point during the offseason if things remain the same. All of this is a fluid situation that should reach a resolution at some point this upcoming summer.