Nick Nurse was hanging out with a few Raptors coaches Friday night when Kawhi Leonard’s name popped up on his phone.
The text Nurse knew might come had arrived:
“I’m going home,” Leonard wrote to his head coach.
News broke shortly after on Saturday morning that the Finals MVP was leaving Toronto for the Clippers.
“And I just said, ‘You’ve changed a lot of lives, man, by what you’ve accomplished in Toronto. Mine especially,'” Nurse told reporters Saturday night at the NBA Summer League. “And thanked him for what he did, and we’ll look to the future, and we’ll look to [win a title] again.”
Nurse said that he was always aware the publicly quiet Leonard could leave this offseason even if they won an NBA championship — which they did.
“I think you can’t blame a guy for wanting to go home,” Nurse said.
Leonard was believed to be choosing between a return to the Raptors, or a homecoming with either the Lakers or Clippers.
The 28-year-old decided on the Clippers after recruiting fellow star Paul George, whose request to be traded from Oklahoma City to the Clippers was also fulfilled Saturday.
There was speculation Leonard could return to Canada on a one-year contract to defend the title.
“It’s certainly disappointing,” Nurse said. “I think, first of all, he’s a great person. He was unbelievably fun to coach, just locked in and loaded and ready to go. People would ask me, ‘What was it like coaching him?’ And I always said the best thing was I got to stand there on the courtside and watch this guy go to work. That was something that I’ll never forget.
“Now we got to go kick his a–.”
https://nypost.com/2019/07/07/how-kawhi-leonard-told-raptors-nick-nurse-the-bad-news/
2019-07-07 15:32:00Z
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