It’s been quite the season for Kawhi Leonard and the San Antonio Spurs.
The Spurs’ small forward played only nine games this season due to a quad injury that was announced in September during training camp. Leonard later was sidelined indefinitely in January.
The 26-year-old isn’t expected to make a return at any point during the playoffs as he rehabs away from the team. And although there have been rumors of a rocky relationship between Leonard and the Spurs, there are signals given off behind the scenes that he won’t be traded, per The New York Times’ Marc Stein.
After Monday night’s 116-101 Game 2 loss to the Golden State Warriors, Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich had people thinking he was throwing shade at Leonard with his praise for LaMarcus Aldridge, saying he “plays through everything,” and he couldn’t imagine “being more proud of a player as far as playing through adversity and being there for his teammates night after night after night.”
But through all of this — the trade rumors and the reported distance between Leonard and his team — the relationship between the two-time All-Star and Popovich reportedly still is strong, per Tim Bontemps of the Washington Post.
“But is a reconciliation even possible? The relationship between Popovich and Leonard, multiple sources say, remains strong,” Bontemps writes. “The fact Aldridge remains a Spur at all — after he was upset enough last summer to ask for a trade — lends credence to the argument that it is always too early to judge these things.”
Basically, don’t make assumptions about Leonard’s future when just last season it was assumed Aldridge wouldn’t be on the Spurs for the 2017-18 campaign.
The Spurs can offer Leonard a five-year, $215 million max deal this summer.
