Kawhi Leonard on what the Toronto Raptors could have done to keep him

“You know once I got together with my team and we put the pros and cons down, it was never about winning a championship, it was about what the future has to hold. And for me, myself and my family, that’s what type of decision I had to make. Its no discredit to Toronto, I just wanted to play at home. I wanted to do that before I got traded there, and obviously when I got there, it was a goal of mine to make history and get them a championship, and I feel like I did my job there pretty much and I should be granted to go play where I wanted to after I gave them what they needed. I just wanted to play at home. Like Paul said, our families are able to come to games. But just from my own thinking, it’s like we’re in the NBA and I played 8 years already. 8 years can fly by so fast, and we’re not able to do anything with our families 8 or 9 months of the season.

So once summer comes, you got 3 months to either go see family, train, and do your other business obligations. There’s really no time to see them, to see your family. I love my family. Over the last 5 or 6 years, I’ll go back home and see my family, my niece’s and nephew’s, and they’re talking, playing, shooting basketballs, and I’m like ‘Dang I missed all this. Y’all talking already. What? You’re doing this?’ So it’s like ‘Man, where the hell have I been?’ It feels like you been in the matrix or something.

For me it was a family situation more than a basketball decision. Basketball is going to be here long without me, so I feel like when we’re here, we just have to make sure we share it with our loved ones, and that’s one of the biggest reasons why I came to the Clippers.”