Nurse: ‘Cannot blame’ Kawhi for leaving for Clips

LAS VEGAS — Raptors head coach Nick Nurse stated he understood why Kawhi Leonard determined to depart the staff after successful an NBA championship, however admitted being disillusioned that Leonard and the remainder of Toronto’s 2018-19 roster will not have the ability to attempt to defend their crown collectively subsequent season.

Leonard will be a part of the LA Clippers on a four-year, $141 million contract, league sources advised ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

“I believe you may’t blame a man for desirous to go house,” Nurse stated Saturday evening on the Las Vegas Summer season League. “That is what he texted me at present. ‘I am going house.’ And I simply stated, ‘You’ve got modified plenty of lives, man, by what you’ve got completed in Toronto. Mine particularly.’ And thanked him for what he did, and we’ll look to the long run, and we’ll look to [win a title] once more.”

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Nurse stated the potential of Leonard leaving was at all times one thing the group was conscious of from the second it acquired him from the San Antonio Spurs final summer time. Nurse stated he was hanging out with a few members of his workers when he bought the information that Leonard, who grew up in Southern California, was leaving Toronto to play for the Clippers.

“I used to be simply hanging out with a few the assistants,” Nurse stated. “Received the textual content message after which bought the information report shortly afterward. I am not completely stunned. I believe all of us knew that [Leonard leaving] was a scenario that might occur. He delivered massive time, performed his coronary heart out for us. We definitely are going to relish this championship for a very long time. And we will cease celebrating it fairly quickly. Not fairly but, however then we’ll get again to work. I imply we bought an incredible problem forward of us, however I at all times say that the problem is our gas and the tank is definitely full. So we bought a change for some guys to increase their roles perhaps that would not have had expanded roles within the scenario, and I believe we bought some guys able to doing that. So I look ahead to the problem as I stated, and let’s go get after it.”

Nurse acknowledged that Leonard’s departure left some comprehensible disappointment inside the group.

“It is definitely disappointing,” Nurse stated. “I believe, to start with, he is an important particular person. He was unbelievably enjoyable to educate, simply locked in and loaded and able to go. Folks would ask me, ‘What was it like teaching him?’ And I at all times stated one of the best factor was I bought to face there on the courtside and watch this man go to work. That was one thing that I am going to always remember. Now we bought to go kick his ass.”

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Ultimately, Nurse stated that he did not assume there was something the Raptors might have carried out otherwise to get Leonard to remain. In the end, the will to play in Los Angeles alongside Paul George was too robust to cross up.

“I believe after we first bought him there have been plenty of questions thrown at me like, ‘What are you going to do to maintain him?’ And we stated, ‘We’ll take nice care of him health-wise.’ We did an unbelievable job, Alex McKechnie and his workers. I believed we managed that to a T. We stated we had been going to have a superb staff … and we did that as nicely. We knew we might give him great help from our fan base, and we definitely did that. That was wonderful, the response and help that the entire nation gave our staff and him.”

Nurse stated he had been in contact with Raptors staff president Masai Ujiri since Leonard made his determination and was assured the Raptors would have the ability to get again on monitor this coming season.

“Look to the long run and attempt to do it once more subsequent yr,” Nurse stated. “I do not know at this explicit time how we do it, however it’s not in contrast to going right into a playoff sequence. I might take a look at these groups and I might say, ‘I do not understand how within the hell we will beat them,’ and then you definitely go to work and put a plan collectively. So proper now I am undecided how we’re going to have the ability to do it, apart from we will come out and guard you, and we will transfer the ball, and we will play with vitality, and we will attempt to play lots of people, and we will maintain creating our guys. And Masai and [general manager] Bobby [Webster] will maintain buying expertise. And I am going to coach the staff that they offer me, and I am going to try this to one of the best of my means.”

Nurse additionally dismissed the suggestion that tampering by the Clippers may need performed an element in Leonard’s determination. He stated the Raptors should not pursuing a tampering declare with the league workplace.

“From my standpoint, I did not sense it or haven’t any of these emotions in any respect,” Nurse stated. “I once more state that he is going house, and that is a coronary heart draw for any of us. In case you guys had been all enjoying some other place and bought an opportunity to return and take advantage of cash you make in your hometown … are you going to go house and do it? Once more, we’ll want him nicely and one of the best of luck till we’ve to go towards him.”