It sure sounds like Kawhi Leonard won’t be back this season
By Josh Hill
San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich gave a pretty grim update on the status of Kawhi Leonard.
Counting on the San Antonio Spurs to simply figure it out is a time-honored tradition. No matter how good the Warriors have been or where LeBron is playing, a common thread constant in the NBA has been Gregg Popovich keeping the Spurs in title contention against all odds.
If he’s hoping to do that again this year, it’ll be against the toughest odds yet.
Kawhi Leonard has been bogged down with a quad injury all season long, and it doesn’t look like he’ll be returning to action anytime soon. He hasn’t played since the end of January and now the Spurs are adding to the mystery of his season by sitting him down for the home stretch.
Pop didn’t say that Kawhi is out for the year — so don’t get it twisted — but he also wasn’t ready to commit to a return this year. Semantics matter here and Pop said he’d be surprised if Kawhi came back at any point this year, but didn’t say he’s not going to.
Right now the Spurs are the third best team in the West, despite the issues all year long with Kawhi. It looks like they’ll at least get out of the first round but without Kawhi it’s hard to see them finding a way to best Houston or Golden State.
Losing Kawhi for basically the entire year is a downer, but the Spurs aren’t above keeping a guy out one year and setting him up for a future return. If there’s a franchise that isn’t about rushing a guy back it’s San Antonio, but you can never lose hope that he’ll be back whenever the playoffs roll around.