Exactly. People want to ignore the facts that are coming out.
The Spurs have tolerated a ton of shyt in silence. All this wouldn’t fly in a market like LA or NY.
The Spurs have tolerated a ton of shyt in silence. All this wouldn’t fly in a market like LA or NY.
You're way too invested in this hit the showers breh.
Anyone that's done any reading at all into this knows there's shyt going down and I doubt we'll ever fully know all of it. I'm sure there's things when dealing with the Spurs that rubbed Kawhi the wrong way and I'm sure it's no different from every other star that didn't get his way before him. I'll say though, in all the years of following stories and hearing from people inside and outside situation, I can't remember a more annoying story than this one. Spurs need to go ahead and end this shyt so people can move on LA, Philly, Orlando, I really don't give a fukk.
And if Kawhi's move to LA is about his brand, sneaker deal, or whatever he can throw the Clippers on his list but it's clear what LA team he has to join. Obviously Bron's on a bigger scale but no way in hell any player ever is getting that reception in a Clippers jersey.
ESPN's Michael C. Wright outlined in detail on the Back To Back Podcast how Kawhi Leonard and the San Antonio Spurs' relationship became fractured over the past year to the point where he's requested a trade.
"The Spurs were in the dark for most of the season," said Wright. "Like some of the things that were happening were crazy.
"I probably shouldn’t say this, but I’m going to say it because Kawhi is about to be out of there I think. There was a point during his rehab process in New York that some of the Spurs brass went out to see him in New York. As soon as those guys arrived to the building, Kawhi’s people grabbed him and sequestered him to another part of the building. And so the Spurs' people couldn’t even see him.
"These are the types of things that are going on that people don't know about."
The Spurs handed over direction of Leonard's rehab on August 8, 2017. Leonard felt like the exercsises the Spurs were having him do were making him hurt even more. Leonard had multiple opinions on his thight.
Leonard then went to China for a promotional tour about a week later.
"When he went away to China, the Spurs couldn't get him on the phone. They could not get in touch with him. The thing is when the Spurs have something like that, a guy go on a league sanctioned trip abroad, they're going to send their security people. They're going to send their PR people to be with that player. They couldn't even get in touch with him.
"If you talk to people within that organization, they'll tell you that was the turning point in the relationship when he went off to China and they could not get in touch with him. Everything changed after that."
Wright said the Spurs still aren't 100 percent sure how they want to handle the situation.
"Even right now, as we speak, the Spurs still don't know what they want to do with him. Trust me, I've had conversations in the last couple days with very high ranking Spurs' officials. They do not know if and when a trade is going to happen. They don't know if they're going to end up keeping him and trying to work it out. Their preference is to try to work that relationship out, but at some point I don't know how you can get there at this point."
Wright also reported that Leonard's relationships with Gregg Popovich and RC Buford have always been great.
"That's the weird part of it. They can have a conversation with Kawhi and everything be great. But then when you involve his people in the whole thing, that's when everything becomes contentious. That to me, that middleman (Dennis Robertson) is the part that makes everything untenable at this point."
"The Spurs were in the dark for most of the season," said Wright. "Like some of the things that were happening were crazy.
"I probably shouldn’t say this, but I’m going to say it because Kawhi is about to be out of there I think. There was a point during his rehab process in New York that some of the Spurs brass went out to see him in New York. As soon as those guys arrived to the building, Kawhi’s people grabbed him and sequestered him to another part of the building. And so the Spurs' people couldn’t even see him.
"These are the types of things that are going on that people don't know about."
The Spurs handed over direction of Leonard's rehab on August 8, 2017. Leonard felt like the exercsises the Spurs were having him do were making him hurt even more. Leonard had multiple opinions on his thight.
Leonard then went to China for a promotional tour about a week later.
"When he went away to China, the Spurs couldn't get him on the phone. They could not get in touch with him. The thing is when the Spurs have something like that, a guy go on a league sanctioned trip abroad, they're going to send their security people. They're going to send their PR people to be with that player. They couldn't even get in touch with him.
"If you talk to people within that organization, they'll tell you that was the turning point in the relationship when he went off to China and they could not get in touch with him. Everything changed after that."
Wright said the Spurs still aren't 100 percent sure how they want to handle the situation.
"Even right now, as we speak, the Spurs still don't know what they want to do with him. Trust me, I've had conversations in the last couple days with very high ranking Spurs' officials. They do not know if and when a trade is going to happen. They don't know if they're going to end up keeping him and trying to work it out. Their preference is to try to work that relationship out, but at some point I don't know how you can get there at this point."
Wright also reported that Leonard's relationships with Gregg Popovich and RC Buford have always been great.
"That's the weird part of it. They can have a conversation with Kawhi and everything be great. But then when you involve his people in the whole thing, that's when everything becomes contentious. That to me, that middleman (Dennis Robertson) is the part that makes everything untenable at this point."
Name one thing the Spurs did wrong in this whole situation.
They let him get a 2nd opinion.
They let him do his own rehab.
They let him decide when he wanted to return to the team.
Seriously. What the fukk are you talking about?
And this is what I mean by you needing to take a break.
I didn't say anything about the Spurs violating with his recovery and don't know how you came to that conclusion. I said I'm sure they haven't seen eye to eye on everything and that's going to happen with entitled star ball players in any sport. LeBron didn't get what he wanted in Miami, Kobe didn't get traded when he wanted, I'm sure Kawhi's Uncle has wanted the Spurs to bend to them and they haven't. That's all I meant.
You're way too emotional about this shyt. Wanting apologies, arguing for pages on end. Spurs will be fine in the end whether he says or goes.
The part I don’t get Is how do you not want to be in brons shadow but you’re willing to go to the CLIPPERS lol it literally doesn’t get more second fiddle than that organization in Los Angeles
its probably not true.....I'd imagine Kawhi being a low key dude wouldn't mind Bron getting the spotlight while he chills in the background. But who knows, maybe he's feeling like he wants that bigger profile
These nikkas treating kawhi like Elian Gonzalez...
Summary via someone from Reddit:
Here's my quick write up from the full podcast for those that don't want to listen to the whole hour and 15 minutes.
At the All Star game in NO a few years ago Kawhi and his group are at a hotel and the Spurs security tells them what time they need to get them out to get them to the game on time. Uncle Dennis says "no we're not doing this, this is when we're going to leave". They decide to leave when Uncle Dennis says and they end up stuck in traffic a block away from the hotel. The police end up letting them through but it would take them an hour and a half to get to the arena. They ended up having Kawhi get out, put a hood over his head, and walk to the Arena from the hotel.
Uncle Dennis thinks the Spurs are too controlling but he doesn't have any experience representing any other players from any other teams.
Spurs gave Kawhi and his camp complete control of his "rehab" starting August 8th. The rehab was controlled by his own doctors although Wright does not know if he really did shop around for a bunch of doctors or not. Spurs had absolutely no say in his rehab process at all which is why Pop would refer reporters to Kawhi's group when asked questions about his status.
Wright thinks the Spurs were too accommodating to Kawhi and his group which is why all of this has happened. Says Kawhi realized he was a star in the league and wanted to be treated as such. In the words of Wright "Spurs gave him an inch and Kawhi took a mile".
If Spurs offer supermax he thinks he would re-sign (because $$$ talks) but at this point the Spurs probably don't trust the people around Leonard enough to offer up that amount of money (would be 30% of their Cap). (This leads me to believe that the rumors about the Spurs not offering the supermax are true.)
The Spurs have told Wright that they want to get Kawhi in a room ALONE. No Dennis, no one else speaking for him. Just Kawhi.
The Spurs would get a call from Uncle Dennis saying "Kawhi wants this and that" but the Spurs would never know if it was really Kawhi's wishes or his Uncles.
The Spurs don't believe that his Uncle has his best interest at heart but know that his Uncle means a lot to him due to the fact that he was there for him after his father was murdered.
Wright did not write the story about Parkers comments because he knew exactly that it would be taken out of context as soon as he said it. He says the reports about Kawhi being betrayed by Tony's comments are excuses coming from his Uncle.
The reason Kawhis teammates were frustrated and called a team meeting was because Kawhi's group kept throwing out return dates which would come and go. Eventually the team got fed up and confronted him about all the pump faking. Manu's comments a week or so before the team meeting seems to confirm that the team knew they were getting hit with the Okie Doke by Kawhi's group.
Kawhi told them he would be back for the game against NO on March 19th which was picture day. Kawhi showed up for pictures but as soon as they started pre game shoot around he left. That night after the game they had the team meeting and two days later Kawhi left for NY and never came back to the team.
Up to the point before the trade request in June Wright talked to multiple people in the organisation who were confident they could get Pop to sit down with Kawhi and iron everything out. The death of Pop's wife complicated things and it took a while for him to get the meeting with Kawhi. Kawhi didn't want to meet with Pop and did everything he would to avoid the meeting. At that point the trade request news came out.
Kawhi's side feels like Spurs are leaking info that makes him look bad. Wright thinks those are excuses and that he just doesn't want to play in San Antonio. He doesn't see a good ending for either side here.
Wright says people think he's exaggerating about Uncle Dennis but some of the things that he requests/demands are unrealistic. According to him some of the stories are hard to believe and he laughs when he thinks about them. (I should note that Jeff McDonald, another Spurs beat writer has compared Uncle Dennis to Lavar Ball).
Kawhi doesn't want to go to the Lakers. His preferred destination is the Clippers but the Clippers have absolutely no assets that the Spurs want. He expects a dark horse team to come in and nab Kawhi in a trade.
He does not see Kawhi handling the LA media scene very well. Says he was well protected from the media in San Antonio and doesn't think he is ready for an environment like that.
Here's my quick write up from the full podcast for those that don't want to listen to the whole hour and 15 minutes.
At the All Star game in NO a few years ago Kawhi and his group are at a hotel and the Spurs security tells them what time they need to get them out to get them to the game on time. Uncle Dennis says "no we're not doing this, this is when we're going to leave". They decide to leave when Uncle Dennis says and they end up stuck in traffic a block away from the hotel. The police end up letting them through but it would take them an hour and a half to get to the arena. They ended up having Kawhi get out, put a hood over his head, and walk to the Arena from the hotel.
Uncle Dennis thinks the Spurs are too controlling but he doesn't have any experience representing any other players from any other teams.
Spurs gave Kawhi and his camp complete control of his "rehab" starting August 8th. The rehab was controlled by his own doctors although Wright does not know if he really did shop around for a bunch of doctors or not. Spurs had absolutely no say in his rehab process at all which is why Pop would refer reporters to Kawhi's group when asked questions about his status.
Wright thinks the Spurs were too accommodating to Kawhi and his group which is why all of this has happened. Says Kawhi realized he was a star in the league and wanted to be treated as such. In the words of Wright "Spurs gave him an inch and Kawhi took a mile".
If Spurs offer supermax he thinks he would re-sign (because $$$ talks) but at this point the Spurs probably don't trust the people around Leonard enough to offer up that amount of money (would be 30% of their Cap). (This leads me to believe that the rumors about the Spurs not offering the supermax are true.)
The Spurs have told Wright that they want to get Kawhi in a room ALONE. No Dennis, no one else speaking for him. Just Kawhi.
The Spurs would get a call from Uncle Dennis saying "Kawhi wants this and that" but the Spurs would never know if it was really Kawhi's wishes or his Uncles.
The Spurs don't believe that his Uncle has his best interest at heart but know that his Uncle means a lot to him due to the fact that he was there for him after his father was murdered.
Wright did not write the story about Parkers comments because he knew exactly that it would be taken out of context as soon as he said it. He says the reports about Kawhi being betrayed by Tony's comments are excuses coming from his Uncle.
The reason Kawhis teammates were frustrated and called a team meeting was because Kawhi's group kept throwing out return dates which would come and go. Eventually the team got fed up and confronted him about all the pump faking. Manu's comments a week or so before the team meeting seems to confirm that the team knew they were getting hit with the Okie Doke by Kawhi's group.
Kawhi told them he would be back for the game against NO on March 19th which was picture day. Kawhi showed up for pictures but as soon as they started pre game shoot around he left. That night after the game they had the team meeting and two days later Kawhi left for NY and never came back to the team.
Up to the point before the trade request in June Wright talked to multiple people in the organisation who were confident they could get Pop to sit down with Kawhi and iron everything out. The death of Pop's wife complicated things and it took a while for him to get the meeting with Kawhi. Kawhi didn't want to meet with Pop and did everything he would to avoid the meeting. At that point the trade request news came out.
Kawhi's side feels like Spurs are leaking info that makes him look bad. Wright thinks those are excuses and that he just doesn't want to play in San Antonio. He doesn't see a good ending for either side here.
Wright says people think he's exaggerating about Uncle Dennis but some of the things that he requests/demands are unrealistic. According to him some of the stories are hard to believe and he laughs when he thinks about them. (I should note that Jeff McDonald, another Spurs beat writer has compared Uncle Dennis to Lavar Ball).
Kawhi doesn't want to go to the Lakers. His preferred destination is the Clippers but the Clippers have absolutely no assets that the Spurs want. He expects a dark horse team to come in and nab Kawhi in a trade.
He does not see Kawhi handling the LA media scene very well. Says he was well protected from the media in San Antonio and doesn't think he is ready for an environment like that.
Kwaihi is the Gary Coleman of basketball
Great summary.
People should listen to the podcast anyway tho. It was good.
SadimirPutin
Superstar
On the trying to work it out thing.............
I dont see how that is possible.......
I dont see how that is possible.......