San Antonio Spurs general manager RC Buford says that the Spurs prefer to keep Kawhi Leonard on board this summer. From the San Antonio Express-News:
“Kawhi and his family mean a lot to our organization and to our community,” Buford said. “While none of us would wish we are where we are, we are going to do what we can to build the best relationship we can with him. We will explore all of our options, but the first one would be to keep Kawhi as part of our group.”
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“I don’t know that timing is a factor in this,” Buford said. “He is under contract for another year. Our goal is to keep him as part of our program for a long time.”
Asked if he wishes the club could have handled things differently in regards to Leonard’s rehab, Buford admitted to some level of second-guessing.
“I think all of us would wish that things would have gone differently at times,” Buford said.
All hope of the Spurs retaining Leonard seemed lost when multiple reporters tweeted, within seconds of one another, that Leonard wanted out of San Antonio.
Since then, however, Leonard met with Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich in San Diego, which certainly could have changed things.
Leonard, 26, is one of the best players in the NBA when healthy. He had his best season ever in 2016-17, averaging 25.5 points, 5.8 rebounds, 3.5 assists and1.8 steals per game while shooting 50.6 percent from the field and an astounding 44.3 percent from 3-point range. In 2017-18, however,
