To at the present time, Spurs followers nonetheless boo Kawhi Leonard as a result of they suppose he deserted the franchise and his former teammate has make clear why he needed out.
Kawhi performed for the Spurs between 2011-18 and in his time there, received them an NBA Championship and earned Finals MVP.
Many on the organisation, in addition to its followers, thought that Leonard was in in it for the lengthy haul and would keep it up Tim Duncan’s legacy.
But he compelled a shock commerce to the Raptors in 2018.
His former teammate LaMarcus Aldridge defined why issues went bitter between Leonard and Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich.
“When somebody’s ready to go, they ready to go,” Aldridge said on All The Smoke. “Even when you’re there, certain s**t is never told to everybody, some s**t stays behind closed doors. S**t was going back and forth with them but we didn’t know what was going on.”
Stephen Jackson, who performed for the Spurs within the early 2000s, additionally shared his ideas about the place issues went flawed for Kawhi in San Antonio.
“You got to be a strong-willed and strong-minded brother to make it on the San Antonio Spurs organization because Pop is going to test you,” Jackson mentioned. “He’s trying to make you a better person, but he will put you in many situations to test you. He did it to Me, he did it to Kawhi, he did it to couple other people,” Jackson mentioned on All The Smoke podcast. “Me and Kawhi couldn’t take that s**t. We wanted to hoop, we didn’t want to be in the corner, we want to ISO, we wanna run pick-and-roll, and that was Kawhi’s attitude.”
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