Kawhi Leonard will be treated like the other Toronto Raptors, and he probably wouldn’t want it any other way.
Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri told The Associated Press on Tuesday the team won’t give the superstar small forward any special treatment during his tenure in Toronto. The Raptors hope to convince Leonard to sign a long-term contract extension with the team, instead of leaving next summer as a free agent, but won’t bend over backward to accommodate him.
“There is nothing we are going to do different,” Ujiri said, per The AP. “We are going to be ourselves.”
A lack of “star treatment” at the 2016 NBA All-Star Game reportedly started the rift between Leonard and the Spurs. That rift widened into a breakdown of the relationship between Leonard and the Spurs, who traded him to the Raptors in July in exchange for DeMar DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl and a first-round pick in the 2019 NBA draft.
Ujiri didn’t address Leonard’s experience in San Antonio but he’s sure the two-time Defensive Player of the Year’s personality will fit well with the Raptors’ culture.
“I think the situation with him in San Antonio, which I don’t want to talk about because I don’t know much about it, but he’s a quiet kid,” Ujiri said. “That’s his nature. We can’t all be the same kind of people. But he is as engaging as he would want to be and he’s very interesting. There is no maintenance with him. There are no tons of people around him. His (focus) is on basketball which is what you want. He is a basketball junkie.”
Leonard missed almost the entirety of last season due to a quadriceps injury, but Ujiri expects the 27-year-old to return to his best form and lead the Raptors’ charge toward Eastern Conference and/or NBA supremacy
“He is determined and seems in the right frame of mind,” Ujiri said. “You will be hearing from him shortly. I think there is a fire inside of him and we are all excited about that.”
