Dont play em a single minute , em Pop ... this your chance for revenge
https://www.espn.com/olympics/basket...-olympic-gamesKawhi Leonard is planning to play for Gregg Popovich again and chase a gold medal.
Leonard said Sunday at the NBA All-Star Game in Atlanta that he is planning to compete with USA Basketball this summer at the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics -- which would reunite him with Popovich.
Leonard spent his first seven seasons in the NBA with Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs, before moving on to the Toronto Raptors and now the LA Clippers. Popovich will serve as head coach at the Olympics for the first time.
"My plan is to go," Leonard said. He helped Popovich and the Spurs win the 2014 NBA championship and was MVP of that season's NBA Finals.
The Olympics could be a potentially tight squeeze schedule-wise for Leonard. The Clippers will likely be one of the contenders to win the Western Conference finals and play in the NBA Finals -- which, if they go the full seven games, are currently scheduled to end on July 22.
The Tokyo Olympics begin July 23, and the U.S. plays its first game against France on July 25.
"If I feel up to it and feel ready to go around that time, then I'm going to play," Leonard said.
USA Basketball is expected to finalize a player pool of about 60 names -- many of them holdovers from the 44 announced as members of the pool last year, a group that includes Leonard -- in the not-too-distant future. From there, a team will be picked, and the current plan is to bring that group to Las Vegas around July 1 to begin training camp and a series of exhibition games against other national teams.
The U.S. staff, including managing director Jerry Colangelo, men's national team director Sean Ford, Popovich and assistant coaches Lloyd Pierce, Steve Kerr and Jay Wright have been talking for months about plans and contingencies -- including which players they might want to wait for even if their NBA clubs go deep into the playoffs.
Many top NBA players said entering the 2019-20 season that they were considering Olympic plans before the pandemic struck and the Olympics were pushed back a year.
"A lot of people were in for 2020, but just the pandemic pretty much killed everything," Leonard said.
Dont play em a single minute , em Pop ... this your chance for revenge
lol,, pop will pick the players the thinks will win, but i could see Leonard backing out at the last minute citing "fatigue" Pop is the bigger dude and Leonard couldn't face him back round 2017. Leonard could have easily asked pop to fire the person who said the thing that uncle used to drive the wedge to get him out. They chose not to take the direct path, which led us here
He said he planned to playing the 2018 World Cup too, and came up with some excuse at the last minute. He’ll bail, and realistically, with his quad tendonosis, he should. He only has so many minutes left in that leg, and shouldn’t waste them playing internationally.
Somehow this is giving dumb Spurs fans false hope that he'll return to the Spurs in the future.
Y'all need to stop worshiping this bum. It's borderline masochistic.
Hopefully Pop has enough "nasty" left in him to cut Kawhi and say it's because of his quad injury.
S bag doesn't deserve to have an Olympic gold on his resume.
I hope he goes and his quad explodes tbh.
Oh my gosh! Does this mean he wants to come ba... uh... I... nvm.
He's a bum!
Pop should hold him out citing “load management”.
I know you say this sarcastically, but I hope it happens. I think there will be a lot of star players backing out of this Olympics, and would make a good opportunity for Demar to step in and win a championship.
That would be perfect.
Easy to say knowing there will be no olympics
Leonard is one of the biggest assholes in sports and the media never talks about it.
Is it projected that the Olympics aren't going to be on? I haven't followed it at all.
That bridge has been burned between PATFO and what's his face, a long time ago! Number Doo Doo ain't thinking about the Spurs organization, except for himself, and PATFO won't allow themselves to get burned again with his and his uncle's drama antics.
Play him every second of every game
You think he could play in traffic on the Santa Monica Freeway instead?
Just wants to check another box to pretend his affluenza ass is more accomplished than he is. Showed little to no interest in giving the program the time of day in the past. Also, the arrogance to speak as if he's already on the team.
If the puke actually follows through, if I were Pop I'd tell Colanegelo and company that I'm not putting on an act and pretending, I'll resign if he's selected and they can clean up the PR mess.
Kawhi wants to be on Team USA which Pop happens to coach.
one dead uncle away from kawhi coming back
jk, cali is where it’s all. kawhi + KJ would be something though...
The key phrase by this clown "If I feel up to it and feel ready to go around that time, then I'm going to play," Leonard said
Which leaves the door open for him to not play in the Olympics. I actually hope he doesn't. I don't want to have to root against Team USA.
No . This is the equivalent of choosing Maybe when someone invites you to a Facebook event.
How do u know he didn't ask?
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