Gregg Popovich finally made his stance clear regarding his most recent interaction with the San Antonio Spurs fans about Kawhi Leonard. As veteran members of the basketball community will be aware, Kawhi Leonard began his NBA career with the San Antonio Spurs. Leonard managed to help the Spurs win an NBA championship by eliminating LeBron James and the Miami Heat back in 2014.
He went on to lead the Toronto Raptors to their first championship in franchise history in 2019. Soon after, Kawhi joined the Los Angeles Clippers and looks to win another title alongside Russell Westbrook, Paul George, and James Harden.
As the Clippers faced off against Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs, Popovich seemed to think that the crowd was getting out of hand and urged them to control themselves. He did so during the moment when Kawhi was trying to shoot a free throw and the crowd was trying to distract him.
Since it is quite unheard of for the opposition’s coach to behave in this manner, Popovich was questioned about his actions during the postgame interview. With that being said, let us take a closer look at what he had to say and how fans feel about this issue.
Gregg Popovich did not want to taunt Kawhi Leonard
Fans who witnessed Popovich pick up a microphone and address the San Antonio Spurs crowd may have assumed that he did so out of some form of respect or softness towards Kawhi Leonard. After all, the Clippers star helped Popovich win a title less than a decade ago.
The San Antonio Spurs coach later revealed that he asked the crowd to control their emotions in order to prevent them from ‘poking the bear.’ The bear in this analogy is clearly Kawhi Leonard.
“I spoke English. I just told you. Anybody that knows anything about sports knows You don’t poke the bear. That’s my answer.”
POP: “Anybody that knows anything about sports. You don’t poke the bear.”
REPORTER: “Can you clarify?”
POP: “I spoke English. I just told you. Anybody that knows anything about sports. You don’t poke the bear. That’s my answer.” pic.twitter.com/BmqV3F0wcw https://t.co/S3FygL6IfG
— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) November 23, 2023
Perhaps Popovich made the right call. Upon hearing his statement, fans realized that he was behaving out of fear towards Kawhi as opposed to respect, “So it wasn’t about respect… pop was just simply scared that kawhi would start going off.”
So it wasn’t about respect… pop was just simply scared that kawhi would start going off 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
— Mikey (@Mikeyy905) November 23, 2023
Despite the Spurs coach’s speech, he was unable to stop Kawhi from scoring a game-high 26 points while leading his team to victory over the Spurs.
Kawhi Leonard’s turbulent relationship with the Spurs
Although it has been several years since Kawhi Leonard played for the San Antonio Spurs, one could argue that bad blood still remains between both sides. After all, Kawhi was clearly unhappy with the team and their methods of dealing with his injuries before eventually being traded to the Toronto Raptors.
While Kawhi hasn’t proven himself to be the most durable player in recent times, Spurs fans largely view him as a player who quit on the team. Since he managed to win another NBA championship soon after leaving the team as they fell out of relevance, we can certainly understand why the fans felt the urge to boo him in the game between the Clippers and Spurs.