Reply With Quote
He's gone.
https://www.expressnews.com/spurs-na...y-12926456.php
Hardly a day goes by that advertising executive Al Aguilar doesn’t find himself involved in a conversation about Kawhi Leonard and the tension between the Spurs and their franchise player.
Some of the bewildered include fans who admit they have soured on the two-time All-Star. When the Spurs were in the midst of being ousted by the Golden State Warriors in the first round of the playoffs last month, Twitter was aflame with posts criticizing the absent Leonard.
“Dude let his team down bigtime!! ANY other star would’ve been getting KILLED by the media. If you can play PLAY!!! #Kawhi #NBAPlayoffs,” wrote one user.
Leonard played in just nine regular season games in 2017-18 despite receiving clearance from the Spurs’ medical staff to return from a quadriceps ailment. His decision to continue rehabbing away from the club under the supervision of his own medical team created a rift between him and the Spurs, as well as many of their fans.
“It’s a bit of a dark cloud,” Aguilar said of the saga, which ranks among the strangest in club history.
Related: A brief history of the No. 18 overall pick in the NBA Draft
Still, the Spurs hope to meet with Leonard and his representatives soon in a bid to mend fences and pave the way for Leonard to come to terms on a five-year $219 million supermax contract that he will be eligible to receive starting July 1. If attempts to patch up the relationship fail, the Spurs will be forced to explore trading a player coach Gregg Popovich once labeled “the future face of the franchise.”
With Leonard’s status in San Antonio in doubt, Aguilar and other marketing experts were asked what he could do to rehabilitate his image and prove to the Spurs he wants to remain with them.
Each believes it would be an easy fix provided the notoriously media-shy player steps out of his comfort zone long enough to get in front of some reporters, microphones and cameras at a news conference and say a few words.
“I know the community would embrace him in a heartbeat if he would just come out and say something positive in a succinct way,” Aguilar said.
A San Antonio native, Aguilar is the co-founder and CEO of Creative Civilization. He is perhaps best known for coining the ubiquitous “Go Spurs Go” slogan while developing an advertising strategy for the team for the 1999 playoffs, which ended with the Spurs capturing the first of their five NBA les.
“San Antonio to me has historically been a very friendly community, so I don’t think it will take a heck of a lot of what I call PR repair for fans to embrace him again,” Aguilar said. “All he would need to do is offer a simple, brief message that brings clarity, something that says, ‘We are back on track. Let’s go do what we need to do (to win another championship),’ maybe a simple phrase like, ‘I love San Antonio.’
“I think the community would be very happy to hear that, and from one day to the next, everything could be fixed. I don’t think it’s too complicated.”
He's gone.
"Soured on the two time all-star?" Ya ing think
Go Spurs Go starting in 1999
Who is this moron who wrote this? The whole stadium has been chanting that at games at least since the 80s.
The FO will do its best to resign Kawhi, simply because the small market Spurs cannot survive a losing season. No respectable big time FA would come knocking on Spurs door unless Kawhi is signed. And Pop at109 yrs old is not staying to rebuild. Kawhi pretty much guarantees 6 or more winning seasons that means ticket sales. Why would any good businessman mess with that? Spurs FO will suck it up. Will offer Kawhi the max and forget anything happened.
ST universe is never happy.
Lock his ass up in a contract then trade him to HIV in 2-3 years or less if his health/athleticism starts declining tbh.
Who is this moron who wrote this? The whole stadium has been chanting that at games at least since the 80s.Probably the 70's...maybe they were smart enough to trademark the slogan and make t-shirts.
This is about it. I'm very concerned about the value of my tickets. No doubt him signing the super-max and staying here will be great for ticket sales.
There’s the annual rodeo
Bull crap we got LMA and lots of teams were after him
Only if he's healthy. Wasn't it his camp saying that there was calcification in his quad? If that's the case, year 5 at $49M could break the bank. Even if they get insurance, that only pays the bills. That dead money would stay on the cap unless he were medically retired. Players resist this. See: Bosh, Chris.
Who is this guy and why is he speaking for the Spurs? This piece of marketing guy is not paying kawhi the super Max... And I'd be surprised if he has an input at all
Article should be led *areas marketing man does not want to sell for a rebuilding team without it's Star". It's rather they cite Spurs talk than this loser
Bye. And take all these spurstalk bums with you
Spurs are going to offer the Supermax and Kawhi is going to accept it.
They will take the next season to try and repair the relationship. Hopefully everything is repaired and worked out as the season progresses. If the relationship is still fractured, they trade him next offseason. Benefits the Spurs in that they have more leavage for a trade because he would be under contract. Benefits Kawhi because he maximizes his money.
This
It's harder to put a trade together next year when the extension kicks in and he's making 35% of the cap. It's also not ONLY about the relationship, it's about his health, and his group has drum beat over and over that his quad is calcified, which is supposedly why he sat out 73 games. You CANNOT sign him to the SuperMax if he's not 100%.
Pretty sure the Spurs wouldn't be offering the supermax unless they felt reasonably confident he is (or can be) healthy. Obviously, they have no way of knowing for sure...but if they strongly suspected otherwise, they wouldn't throw nearly a quarter billion dollars at him.
If this report is accurate, then it's good news.
If Kawhi can prove he’s healthy and ready to go, he’s worth the investment. Every superstar in this league is a prima donna. We may as well keep ours.
Amen. Spurs fans were lucky to have Duncan for two decades, but let's face it...there aren't anymore Duncans in the league. The only player in the league that even compares is Dirk, and he's on his way out.
Trade him to ing Tijuana if he thinks he's going to get his supermax deal and then ask for a trade next summer.
Of course, the Spurs don’t sign him if they think it’s a chronic condition and he is going to miss big chunks of the season every year. But one of the issues between them is the Spurs doctors cleared him months ago. If they cleared him and said he could play months ago, why would they change the diagnosis now? Wouldn’t the Spurs position during all this drama of he’s cleared and should be playing go out the window if after all year now when it’s extension time they change their position?
And even if Kawhi extends at the supermax and is 75%, the offers would be much better than they are now. Bad and mediocre teams won’t offer anything because he could walk in a year. The lakers and clippers figure they can wait a year, not give up assets and pay less. We are talking about fultz and ingram as centerpieces of Kawhi deals right now. A 75% Kawhi under contract gets more than the rumored deals floating out there.
While not the supermax, people said the clippers would never be able to trade Blake Griffins contract because of the amount and his injury history. A few months later he’s gone to detroit.
I believe harden and Westbrook both signed supermax deals or supermax extensions. Most of not every team would line up to trade for them
Best case realistic scenario would be to get KL to sign the extension. Then the Spurs call the shots.
Those hoping for a trade are really underestimating how bad RC would get bent over in a trade tbh.
Plus, Spurs fans are spoiled. We’ve gone from basically Gervin to Robinson to Duncan to Kawhi with only a few losing season and none since 96. The hardest player to get, especially in a small market, is the franchise, top 10 player. I don’t think a lot of spurs fans recognize this because of our luck in getting them and them staying. People anxious to get rid of Kawhi for markel fultz or Brandon Ingram don’t realize that we could very easily turn into the Sacramento kings
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
