TORONTO — During Nick Nurse’s pre-game media availability late Sunday afternoon, a reporter covering the visiting Miami Heat asked the Toronto Raptors head coach what he’d learned about Kawhi Leonard since he started coaching the NBA’s most mysterious superstar.
Nurse gets this question a lot. He was asked it during training camp, he’s been asked it repeatedly throughout the regular season, he’ll be asked it when the playoffs begin a mere 61 games from now. For an NBA head coach, repeating yourself is part of the gig.
Accordingly, the soundbite gears began to whir, and Nurse shifted into autopilot. He didn’t know Leonard prior to this season. Never had a conversation with him. Only coached against him a couple times. But it’s obvious how serious the two-time all-star is about the game, how much time he puts in, how much he cares about his craft.
But then, something sparked in Nurse’s mind, and he took a sudden turn, bringing up a Leonard trait he’d never brought up before.
“He’s, surprisingly, a good leader,” Nurse said. “I’ve seen some great leadership traits from him.”
The statement was purposeful. About 24 hours earlier, San Antonio head coach Gregg Popovich was holding his own pre-game availability, and was asked about Patty Mills, the Australian guard currently playing his 10th season in the league, and his eighth with the Spurs. How has Mills grown as a leader? How important has that been after the offseason departures of long-time Spurs like Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and Leonard?
“Well, I mean, Kawhi was a great player. But he wasn’t a leader or anything,” Popovich said. “Kawhi’s talent will always be missed. But leadership wasn’t his deal at that time. That may come as he progresses. But Patty and Manu filled that role for us last year, and LaMarcus [Aldrige] came a long way in that regard, also.”
It was a curious comment. Popovich was being asked about Mills’ leadership, not Leonard’s. And yet, instead of focusing on the former, he went out of his way to scrutinize the latter.
In turn, Nurse was being asked about Leonard in general — not about his leadership specifically. But he went out of his way to bring it up. Just a few months into their still-growing relationship, Nurse made a point of standing up for his guy.
And he expanded on it, too. Nurse says he started appreciating Leonard’s leadership qualities during training camp. That he enjoyed seeing a different, more personable side of the cold, calculated player he’d watched from afar.
It was the little things. Encouraging others to get to the gym early. Offering to share his pre-game shooting time with teammates who wanted extra work. Keeping things light in the locker room.
“Obviously, he’s got a little bit of a reserved personality. But he’s a little bit more gregarious than everybody thinks. He’s pretty funny and the guys really enjoy him — I really enjoy talking to him,” Nurse said. “He does some little, neat things that I think say a lot about a guy. He does it quietly — but they’re leadership things to me.”
That’s the thing everyone says about Leonard, but no one seems to want to believe. That the Leonard who grits his teeth through interviews isn’t the same as the Leonard coaches, players, and team employees get to know away from the cameras. There is no shortage of people in the league who will tell you Leonard is funny, insightful, outgoing in the right circumstances. He’s just not going to seek any more attention than he already gets.
And why would he? The guy laughed uneasily at a press conference two months ago and still hasn’t heard the end of it. If people can’t relate to an athlete so focused, so methodical, so utterly about his business that he engages in zero nonsense whether playing, practicing, or fulfilling media obligations, so be it. It means more to be well-respected than well-liked. He gets paid to play the game he loves — not the extracurricular one the internet does.
Did Leonard hear about Popovich’s comments? Of course he did. Does he have an eyes-emoji-provoking response to them? Of course he doesn’t.
“You know, it’s just funny to me,” Leonard said. “I don’t know if he’s talking about last year or not. But, I guess when you stop playing they forget how you lead. But, other than that, it doesn’t matter. I’m here with the Raptors. And I’m focused on the season and not what’s going on on the other side.”
‘Last year’ would be the one Leonard missed almost entirely due to a right quadriceps injury, the one that precipitated his departure from San Antonio, and the one that seems to still be on Popovich’s mind. The unfortunate details and particulars of Leonard’s final Spurs season remain unknown — they might forever. It’s a good bet Leonard would prefer it that way.
But it’s also a good bet he doesn’t think all the sweat equity he poured into the Spurs organization for the six seasons prior should be so easily discarded. No one criticized his leadership in the 2014 playoffs, when he was named NBA Finals MVP. He led the Spurs quite literally in points and minutes per night in each of the three subsequent seasons. And he feels he’s still leading now.
“I lead by example. Coming into practice every day just going hard, and coming into these games mentally focused,” he said. “Guys ask me questions about their match-up or if I see something on the floor. I’m telling guys, ‘Go here, go there.’ Or just motivating people, you know what I mean? I just try to lift people’s spirits up on the floor. That’s about it. Just don’t try to get nobody too down and just lift them up.”
Good leadership doesn’t have to look like an overwrought scene from a movie. It doesn’t have to be ranting and raving. It can be quiet, discrete, purposeful. It can be actions rather than words. That would be the case for a guy like Leonard — he’s never going to be the loudest in the room. He’s not going to be the guy melting down on the floor.
Case in point, he achieved a career first on Sunday. After a blatant foul on Leonard went uncalled late in the third quarter, he had stern words for the officials all the way up the court, and received the first regular-season technical foul of his career. His only other tech came in a playoff game in 2012.
For a player like Leonard, who’s been in 422 regular-season games, averaged more than 30 minutes a night in them, and been the focal point of practically every offence he’s played in, to not have a technical foul until now tells you all you need to know. You don’t have to say a lot to lead. But, again, it fell to Nurse to stand up for his guy.
“That was his first career technical?” Nurse asked after the game, a little astonished. “I didn’t even notice him over there talking to [the official]. … He wasn’t that upset. He probably didn’t deserve it. But there ya go.”
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