FEBRUARY 27: Although he didn’t participate in the team portion of today’s workout session, Leonard returned to the Spurs’ practice facility on Tuesday, reports Jeff McDonald of The San Antonio Express-News. As McDonald details, Leonard has suggested in conversations with teammates that he intends to return to the court this season.
“He said he’ll be back, so we knew he was going to be back eventually at some point — playing-wise, not just being around,” Danny Green said. “If he’s that confident mentally, I know he’s going to get the work done to get it done physically.”
McDonald suggests that a “soft target date” for Leonard’s return could land sometime as early as the Spurs’ mid-March road trip to Golden State, Oklahoma City, and Houston.
FEBRUARY 26: Kawhi Leonard plans to start working out again with the Spurs this week with the aim of returning to action in March, Michael C. Wright and Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN report.
This comes as somewhat of a surprise since Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said last week that he’d be surprised if Leonard played again this season, even though the star forward has been medically cleared to play. Leonard has been nagged by a right quad injury that has limited him to nine games this season. He just returned to San Antonio after spending three weeks in New York, seeking further medical opinions on his injury, the ESPN duo continues.
Leonard isn’t expected to immediately start engaging in full five-on-five practices, league sources told ESPN. But he hopes to get to that level in near future. Leonard had been working out at the Players Association headquarters gymnasium, the ESPN report adds.
Friction has developed between Leonard and the organization over his ability to play with the injury, according to the report. That has caused concern within the organization over Leonard’s desire to stay there when he could enter free agency in the summer in 2019.
Looking to return in March, what does this mean. Was there friction between him and the organization? Was he healthy enough to play or not? Were the Spurs aware of this and Pops comments were intentional to throw everyone off? Has the relationship soured to the point of no return?
Here’s what we know, this is the Spurs and as such, even if there is friction, they’ll work it out. Look at Pop and LMA this past summer.
And should it be beyond repair, you won’t hear a peep until he’s been moved.
Well reports said it was the uncle causing a lot of problems, with the uncle/manager secretly hoping Kawhi leaves for LA to up his market as a player. But maybe Kawhi told him that he needs to chill and let him play basketball. This is just speculation from a fan, but I think that’s probably what happened. His uncle is just gonna have to suck it up and live with it.
Pop has issues with Kawhi. He loves LeBron running his mouth. Let Cavs sign LeBron, send him to Pop, Cavs get Kawhi and a player.