The long-term success of the San Antonio Spurs took a major blow on Sunday morning when Kawhi Leonard took to Twitter to announce his retirement from the NBA.
Leonard has been dealing with a quad injury that hasn’t seemed to get better. He had been cleared by team doctors but not his own personal doctors.
He had just returned to New York to continue to train and see his doctor and according to Marc Spears of The Undefeated, his doctor told him it was something that would never improve and the pain would continue to always be there.
Leonard has now decided he doesn’t want to deal with the pain and instead will move on from the San Antonio Spurs and the game of basketball.
This is the final breaking point between the Spurs and Leonard and their relationship, something that has had issues for some time.
For the Spurs, it actually isn’t that surprising that he has decided to retire, as Spears reports. During their players only meeting a couple of weeks ago some players actually told Leonard that the best step for him to take was to just retire and not come back to the team. He has been too much of a distraction for too long, and some players were ready to move on.
It seems that Leonard has taken the advice of his doctors, and some of his teammates and has hung up the sneakers for good.
April Fool’s! Kawhi Leonard is not retiring and hopefully will be back on the court playing for the Spurs soon.
