In a recent interview with the LA Times where he recounted the acquisition of Kawhi Leonard, Doc Rivers implied Leonard didn’t wanted to be a Laker.
Arash Markazi of the LA Times sat down with LA Clippers’ head coach Doc Rivers to recount the days leading up to the Kawhi Leonard trade that not only changed the landscape for the team, but for the entire league. If you haven’t read Arash’s piece yet, stop right now and check it out.
There’s a lot of interesting information in the article which offers us a little more insight into that up and down day of July 6 that ultimately ended with both Leonard and Paul George joining the Clippers. One of the more interesting tidbits from the piece is that George was the only player Kawhi wanted to play with despite being given a list to essentially choose from.
Somehow more interesting than that though was the fact that Kawhi seemed to really not want to play for the Lakers and made it clear to the Clippers’ that they were his top choice all along.
Rivers recounted that the first positive they noticed was that Kawhi was willing to come to meet with the Clippers but forced the Lakers to come to him.
"“We had a meeting with Kawhi at my house in Malibu and we felt we had the inside position,” Rivers said. “The Lakers had a meeting with Kawhi and they built this whole thing up for him to come to their new practice facility and he said, ‘No, you can come to my hotel room.’ But with us he said, ‘Yes, I’ll come to your house.’ When we heard that it felt like he was telling us he wants to come here.”"
As Rivers said, this gave the Clippers a clear indication that he wanted to be with them. If that subtle message wasn’t enough, Kawhi flat out told them at their meeting that he wanted to play for Doc.
"“He said, ‘I want to play for you,’ and he pointed at me. He said, ‘Mr. Ballmer, I love the things you do and what you stand for, but your team is not good enough and if you don’t change your team, I’m not coming.’ ”"
Was Doc the main factor in Kawhi’s decision? It certainly seems that way. Yes, he gave the Clippers an ultimatum, but he made it very clear that they were his top choice all along.
During free agency, many speculated that Kawhi could go the Lakers. Many of those reports were coming from questionable sources, but there became a real fear that the Lakers were his preferred destination.
Signing him obviously removed those fears. The Lakers felt like they got played. Clipper Nation is happy. Having Doc reaffirm that he wanted to be a member of the Clippers all along is pretty great and just gets us even more excited to see this team take a court in just a few weeks.