'Dude's a clown': What you don't know about Kawhi Leonard
Considering he’s one of the biggest names playing a sport professionally for a Toronto-based franchise, it really is incredible how little we know about Kawhi Leonard.
He’s kind of like a basketball-playing Batman. He steals headlines and we watch his heroics on the hardwood regularly. Yet, despite that, we know next to nothing about his life away from the sport and who he is as a person. (However, we do know his identity, so that is a start.)
Although he constantly provides highlight shows with content whenever the Toronto Raptors play, he gives the cameras absolutely nothing the moment the final buzzer sounds.
Honestly, if you didn’t know him, you’d think that he is the most boring person on the planet. Phil Handy, an assistant coach for the Raptors and the team’s head of player development, does know Leonard, though (duh). And according to him, our perception of the two-time All-Star and 2014 NBA Finals MVP is all wrong.
“Dude’s a clown,” said Handy during a recent episode of ‘Inside the Green Room’ with Danny Green, who was traded with Leonard to the Raptors from the San Antonio Spurs last summer. “And people are like, ‘nah, come on’. But no, he is a bonafide clown. He’s funny, he’s got a sense of humour… He’s just a private person.”
(Personally, hearing that wasn’t surprising at all. Did you not remember his side-splitting Christmas joke from about a month ago? It was comedic gold!)
Whether he’s quiet and private or outspoken and open shouldn’t be what fans focus on, though. Plain and simple, he’s a superstar that has the potential to take the franchise to new heights.
The two-time Defensive Player of the Year has scored 20 or more points in 19 straight games. The franchise record, held by Vince Carter, is 23. On top of that, his 27.5 points per game currently places him fifth in the NBA and his 1.9 steals per game puts him sixth.
Most importantly, though, is the fact that he’s helped lead the Raptors to a league-best record of 33-12.
“The thing I thought the first workout I had with him was… ‘oh my goodness’,” said Handy. “I had never had any interaction with him and he was always a guy that I looked at from afar saying, ‘man, if I could spend some time with him’.”
Now that he has had that time to work with the one that they call ‘The Claw’, he wants to make it abundantly clear how special it is to have someone like him with the franchise, no matter how long he stays.
“Being around LeBron (James), and being around Kobe (Bryant), and being around guys like Kyrie (Irving) and those guys, there’s a certain level,” Handy explained. “You see it, he has it… His ceiling is whatever he wants it to be. It really is.”
If that isn’t music to the ears of Raptors’ fans, then I don’t know what is.
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