Kawhi Leonard has always been a man of few words. He rarely gives the media much to work with, and demanded complete silence as he weighed his options during free agency. When the choice was made, though, he barely lifted that restriction. Toronto Raptors coach Nick Nurse told Jackie MacMullan of ESPN how Leonard revealed his decision to him. Nurse was at a concert with one of his assistant coaches, Nate Bjorkgren, when he received a simple three-word text message from Leonard: “I’m going home.”
The message itself wasn’t particularly informative. Leonard met with three teams during free agency, and two of them play in Los Angeles. If that was indeed Leonard’s only communication, he didn’t even tell Nurse what team he was signing with, but simply that he would be leaving the Raptors.
Star players are often criticized for the delivery of their free agency choices. LeBron James is the most notable example, as it took him years to overcome the backlash he faced following “The Decision.” Leonard went in a very different direction with the news of his decision, choosing not to make any sort of public statement and letting reporters break the news traditionally. In today’s media environment, controlling the narrative around such a choice would be extremely difficult.
Kevin Durant saw that firsthand this offseason when he initially planned to announce his decision to join the Brooklyn Nets on Instagram. Reporters broke the news early, and though he made the announcement as planned, it lacked the teeth it might have had years ago when he could have been the first to reveal where he planned to play.
That makes it difficult for players like Leonard to manage their goodbyes to their old teams. Ideally, they would do so in a respectful manner as early as possible to give their teams a chance to regroup quickly. But Leonard was awaiting another transaction, the Clippers‘ acquisition of Paul George, and could not make a decision until there was a resolution on that front.
Once the Clippers acquired George, Leonard informed the Clippers he planned to join them. That would have severely limited the window he would have had to speak with the Raptors in more depth. Such cases are becoming increasingly frequent in the modern league. Ideally, teams and players would be able to communicate clearly and decisively early in the process, but that just isn’t the NBA world we live in anymore. As terse as this message was, Leonard didn’t exactly have an opportunity to do much more.
