Kawhi Leonard Odds: Spurs, 76ers, Clippers Still Favorites to Have SF for 2018
Where will Kawhi Leonard play basketball next season?
The San Antonio Spurs remain the front-runners.
According to Stephen Campbell of OddsShark, the Spurs are -170 favorites (bet $170 to win $100) to retain their superstar forward, with the Philadelphia 76ers (+400) and Los Angeles Clippers (+700) remaining the top contenders to pry him away from San Antonio.
Other teams listed include the Los Angeles Lakers (+900), Boston Celtics (+1100), Cleveland Cavaliers (+1200), New York Knicks (+1400), Charlotte Hornets (+1500) and Milwaukee Bucks (+1500).
Leonard, 26, established himself as arguably the NBA's best two-way player coming into the 2017-18 campaign. But he played in just nine games this past season due to a right quadriceps injury.
The controversy surrounding that injury has perhaps fractured the relationship between Leonard and the Spurs. Ramona Shelburne and Michael C. Wright of ESPN.com reported last week that there were disagreements between the Spurs and Leonard over the precise nature of the injury and the required recovery.
The Spurs, whose doctors cleared Leonard to play during the season, believe he's suffering from quadriceps tendinopathy, while "Leonard's camp has come to believe the issue has more to do with an ossification, or hardening, in the area where the muscle has been repeatedly bruised, and then an atrophy, which in turn affected the tendons connecting the muscle to the knee."
Each prognosis comes with a different rehabilitation, leaving the two sides on different pages, and such was the disconnect that the Spurs held a players-only meeting in March to seek answers regarding Leonard's absence. The two-time Defensive Player of the Year maintained to his teammates that he wasn't healthy enough to return.
Still, suspicions grow that Leonard may want out of San Antonio. Shelburne and Wright reported that "multiple league sources also told ESPN that the Spurs have grown worried that Leonard's group has an ulterior motive to fray the relationship and get Leonard traded to a larger market such as Los Angeles (Leonard's hometown) or New York or Philadelphia."
The primary bargaining chip for the Spurs, however, is their ability to offer Leonard a $219 million "supermax" contract extension this summer, well beyond any deal he could get as a free agent in the 2019 offseason. Passing up that type of money would be a hard decision for any player and is likely the reason the odds continue to favor a return to San Antonio for Leonard.
