we talking ‘bout aspirations?

we in here talking about plants? not the buckets? not the boards? we talking about plants

Everyone talking about how bad AI is and I’m like there’s no way Allen Iverson did those things

Kawhiverson

I think he has a person in Toronto he really trusts with them, I remember him having some fresh cornrows on his first game back

The headband, the cornrows, he clearly just feels like he has to do everything he must to fill the Ingram-shaped hole we have.

I have noticed guys that get rid of cornrows seem to get them back real quick, maybe some regret? Thank God I’ve held on to mine after all these years

but im not a rapper

It sends a strong message, “im not sweating”

Lenope.

He also gets to be like that because he is so good at what he does.

He’s like reverse KD. Kawhi da goat

He don’t give a gaf fr

We all aspire to be like him.

I feel like he’s a relatively normal guy that happens to play in the NBA. Yeah I uprooted my career to be with aging family, what of it?

He never gaf.

Yeah but that’s why I never gave a fuck about him.

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I don’t think I know anyone else who feels bad about Kawhi leaving. We got a parade and that team was so much fun to watch with iconic moments. Sure, if we could have ran it back that would have been sick, but Torontonians are okay with how it went down, I’m sure Spurs peeps (and the dozen Clips fans) feel differently

Well, he omitted another (very large) reason that he switched teams.

Tmac did the same thing going to Orlando. He regrets it now, but still

As long as you play hard and don’t request a trade for no good reason, can’t be mad.

If he puts it this way thats a totally legitimate reason that nobody can fault, unless it’s an outright lie. Family should be more important than ball, unless you’re Jordan or Kobe in which case ball is more important than literally life, and tbh I don’t agree with that but I understand it

I can assure you that at the time, everyone in Toronto was more than okay with him leaving. The reasons he gave were sound, family comes first. He got us a chip. There were no hard feelings.

So you’re buying this excuse that took 6 years to manufacture, interesting.

I don’t think he would have went to the Clippers if they didn’t pay him.

I don’t think he left because of old family members. I think he left for the near max deal then 50ish million extra dollars and weird ownership stakes in things.

So maybe not contentious but hilariously dishonest.

I dunno I feel like if maybe he had some shame he wouldn’t be part of a constant media circus…

The thing is he might have been less inclined to leave us if he wasn’t getting millions and millions off the books from the clippers.

I didn’t give a shit personally when he left originally. Like yeah I cared but I understood going to live by his family. The fact they paid a millions and millions changed that for me personally

He thought the raptors couldn’t run it back … This was in the news. This is why he wanted the Raps to trade for PG and the only way the Thunder were giving up PG was if Siakam was traded. I think it was a mix of both that he wanted to play in LA but it’s also known that he didn’t think the Raps could win again

He only wanted to move back to Toronto after he saw his time in LA was over lol

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Amazing

Her sister went to jail too i think. Ya he needed to be with family.

Something I read a long time ago (2020?) was one of the main reasons he wanted to be in LA was so that his mother could help raise his daughter during the season since he was on the road so much.

No seriously. Call your mom. And answer her calls. Call your grandmother as well. Matter of fact go fucking visit them. Don’t say you’re busy with work because if you got offered courtside NBA Finals tickets you would miraculously make time for that.

I’ll better call yours

🔥❤️

“Welcome to Costco Mortuary, I love you”

He actually tried pretty hard to hide it, lol

Not even a little bit of respect? Its not like teams are just offering it to him, he got his uncle asking for part ownership of teams on his behalf.

I have a hard time believing that Zip drives w shit loads of bitcoin wouldnt have been much easier and maybe already common

Reminding you that multiple players have raped children

Tim Donaghy says “put some respect on my name”

Yeah Kawhi scammed a billionaire, literally worse than Karl Malone

Looking forward to checking out “If I did it,” by Kawhi Leonard from my local library.

Idk if it’s the biggest. We’ve legit had people throwing games for gambling purposes for the better part of a century

Even if we look only at actions within the sport he’s not even anywhere close to the top.

This is way below throwing games, or all the athletes who were doped to the gills.

It was cap circumvention, and it didn’t even really help anyone other than his checkbook.

It’s not even in the conversation with what Lance Armstrong did let alone the mass doping programmes in East Germany and the USSR (and Russia more recently).

Not to mention mass bribery scandals like Calciopoli.

It’s not a competition but I know a former Kings player (camp invite) who did something worse than what Kawhi did.

He committed a crime?

First, holy pearl clutch. Second, Brunson next.

*Steve Balmer committed the crime, ya know, the literal billionaire who didn’t care how being caught doing something like this could effect his own team.

This man committed the biggest crime in the history of the sport

You need some perspective if you think this is a bigger deal than the multiple rapists that have been in the league.

Listen I think the whole situation is incredibly fucked too but he broke the NBA rules, not the law.

NBA fans are insane if they think this.

Right it was strictly the basketball that brought him back to LA and nothing else

tbf NBA reddit is full of weirdos

That’s insane

Well Balmer is probably much more upset about the 5 picks lost.

Eat the rich

Ballmer also spent $50 million in legal fees

A sports podcast I listened to said the 700k was less of a fine and more just payments that were owed from Kawhi inappropriately spending team money.

With the Ballmer NBA ban in place the clippers streetlights over spotlights campaign really does need a revival

Yep. Their net worth isn’t even remotely in the same stratosphere.

If Balmer has around \(100 billion and Kawhi has \)100 million, that means balmer has about 1000x more money than Kawhi.

If Kawhi was fined \(700,000, the equivalent fine to Balmer would be around \)700,000,000.

Someone with \(100,000 would receive an equivalent fine of \)700.

The more accurate math works out so that Kawhi’s \(700k fine is around 22x more impactful relative to his net worth than Balmer's \)30M fine is to Balmer.

Also the power of giving up the bigger fish

Imagine if we all unionized

I’ll get down voted because this is Reddit but this exact mentality has greatly hurt unions in the US. Protecting bad workers only hurts good workers, and should not be in the interest of the union to do this. I like unions but US unions have shot themselves in the foot with things like this

Also Leonard cooperated while Clippers claimed innocence when they should have at the very least just shut up about it

Idk if this is the best example because the union protected a guilty party.

I mean yes the union also is okay with players Getting paid outside the cap though lol. I men obviously not officially but it’s good for players if the cap is not respected. If they could get rid of the cap they would so this naturally an area where the union and the people who think the cap circumvention is bad will not align. the cap protects capital from the players and thats the whole game. the union was never going to just let the NBA take the mans money

It’s not a one way street dude. He knew he was breaking the rules right along with them.

This comment is wild. The clippers didn’t break the rules because they wanted to, Kawhi asked for more money. People keep treating him like a child while blaming uncle Denis, Kawhi is a grown ass man who asked teams for extra money for no work

Kawhi is responsible for the conduct of Uncle Dennis and others as his representative. The requests made by Uncle Dennis were not allowable per the CBA.

lol he’s a grown man, he knew it was illegal taking the money and showing up to all these places and not having to do anything

And he went along with it. He knew it was illegal and still did it anyway. He should face consequences.

It’s called negligence lol

… the fact that people actually believe this is incredible to me.

Kawhi is as at fault as the Clippers. And should have been suspended at the very least.

you are insane

I mean him and ibaka did eat bif penis

It’s a Police Academy dream come true.

I’m going to laugh so hard at you raps fans when he shits the bed like he has for the last 6 years.

Thank you. It’s good to be back.

For sure he used them as leverage but he said he wanted to go to LA and he went to LA. People act like he betrayed them when he was VERY up front about wanting to play in LA to be near his family.

He 100% used the Raptors for leverage

So? Your company will use the fact that they can hire other people as leverage. If you are capable, you should use the fact that other companies want to hire you as leverage. So what he use the Raptors as leverage? That’s a given that players will use teams interested in them as leverage.

That’s not what he said and that’s not what his actions indicate.

He’s done charity work in the city without even being part of the team.

Using a team as leverage is a non-issue so let’s move past that.

Clippers are being punished for their actions. Maybe not harshly enough but they’re being punished.

I mean Trump was president, theres no reason he wouldnt have approved that

Yeah, that’s another 700k fine.

Kawhi wanted LA but wanted money under the table more, he has been doing this since 2017, like i said he asked the Spurs for money under the table when they said no he faked the injury, when the Raptors also said no he dipped

He would have stayed in both SA or Toronto if they offered him what he wanted, which was the money

The Lakers in LA wanted to trade for him btw a year before the Raptors did, they even offered a better offer than the Raptors but he told them no i won’t extend with you if u don’t give me money under the table

He wanted money under the table*

He asked for shit from the Spurs to extend.. he was literally willing to if they did, from the Raptors as well

Again i know Kawhi won you your only ring and made you relevant but come on

I mean someone gave it to them, in the end they got all that money, a ring, go to go to LA and now all they paid for it is 700k

I’d take that deal ²⁴⁄₇ lmao

Funny thing is, when he left the Spurs, one thing we were told repeatedly by detractors is that Kawhi just cares about basketball and that’s why we didn’t deserve him

And I mean listen I’m not saying it was his main motivator because they were doing everything shady possible so I 1000% believe the main motivator was money but all of his family was in LA and it was reported very early on how he wanted to be there with them

Honestly I think even if Toronto offered up the world I don’t know if he would have stayed. I think those under the table negotiations with Toronto were just for fun to see how far they could push it lol. Because I always got the vibe he wasn’t going to stay regardless of how good the team was or how much money they gave him

Funniest thing is it’s all non raptors fans

Everybody here knew he was leaving regardless of what happened during the season, especially after going and winning them the championship there were absolutely no hard feelings when everybody knew he was just using the team for leverage in negotiations and was going to one of the LA teams

Both things can be true. And he isn’t gonna indemnify himself and cause distractions on team media day. He gave the media friendly response that his new team wants communicated to the public.

What do you want him to say at the press conference? “No regrets because I made a shit ton of money due to the Clippers’ desperation to be relevant in a town that doesn’t like them”.

I thought the clippers had a good chance - didn’t they pick up 2-3 guys other than kawhi from the 2019 raps squad that won it all, and PG was considered legit at the time.

Hindsight’s ²⁰⁄₂₀ though

He had nothing to prove esp not to us. We needed him not he needed us. He woulda had to carry the offense for Toronto most of the time too.

What?

Shut up bitch