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San Antonio Spurs point guard Tony Parker appears to be among the biggest culprits of Kawhi Leonard’s chagrin, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (h/t Rob Lopez of Def Pen Sports).
Woj: The 'last straw' for Kawhi Leonard were Tony Parker's comments about Leonard's injury.
Lowe confirms he also heard the same thing. pic.twitter.com/G7qBYQT6ZJ
— Rob Lopez (@r0bato) June 30, 2018
“The last straw for him, I was told, was when Tony Parker made those comments about ‘My quad injury was a hundred times worse’. If you remember shortly after, Kawhi Leonard left San Antonio, and he didn’t want to be part of the media glare there and did not come back until the season was over.”
Apparently, Leonard and his camp have been irked by Parker’s belittling of the two-time All-Star’s health trouble. Back in March, the French court general told Tom Orsborn of The San Antonio Express-News the following with regards to the career-threatening injury scare he had in 2017:
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I’ve been through it. It was a rehab for me for eight months. Same kind of injury (as Kawhi), but mine was a hundred times worse. But the same kind of injury. You just stay positive.”
Leonard played in only nine games last season with an enigmatic quad injury. He didn’t appear at all in the playoffs, too, where the Spurs were brushed aside by the Golden State Warriors in the first round, four games to one. Tony Parker, on the other hand, dealt with a ruptured left quad injury during the 2017-18 season but managed to appear in 63 games.
Not all players have the same response and recovery time in relation to treatments and rehabilitation programs, but anyone could understand Leonard’s resentment toward Parker’s comments. That said, it’s something that could easily be patched up if only Parker and Leonard got to sit and talk about their differences. It’s too late for that now, however, as Leonard and the Spurs appear to be on the verge of splitting up.
