No one is universally loved, especially athletes.
It doesn’t matter who they play for, how great they are, or how they act on and off the court. You’re not going to get everybody to like you.
That being said, Kawhi Leonard is a pretty great player who seems to have done everything right to get people to like him.
Apparently, this isn’t so, especially among fellow NBA stars.
Reporter Brian Windhorst appeared on an episode of ESPN’s TrueHoop podcast last week and broke the story about how other NBA players can’t stand the near universal praise Kawhi gets:
Not everybody in the NBA feels the same about Kawhi… There’s some people who are frustrated Kawhi has gotten as much love as he has… It’s not just LeBron, actually. There’s other top players that feel the same way.
So there are two big takeaways from this:
1. It’s not that they don’t like Kawhi, it’s that they hate that he’s somehow risen above scrutiny.
2. LeBron is leading the way.
I can’t say that I blame these players for professional jealousy. Kawhi’s done everything right to get people to love him. Just look at the big accolades that have kept the scrutiny that other players have suffered away:
1. He won early and he won often.
2. He’s already won a championship (against LeBron) and was the NBA Finals MVP that year.
3. His calling card is defense, but he’s improved offensively every year and is now an MVP candidate.
4. You could never say he cares about anything else but basketball, to a fault.
That last point is the most important.
Kawhi Leonard’s media presence off the court is from the Tim Duncan model. He just doesn’t talk. To anyone. Except, you could never accuse him of being boring. Because he does stuff like this.
And it’s not like he’s saving his media presence for his commercials. Unless you live in Texas and get the HEB commercials, you’re not seeing him in anything else outside of mandated appearances before and after games.
I, personally, would never criticize a player for doing what they want with their free time. Whether it’s taking a quick vacation or working on their brand, it’s beyond reproach to claim that something a player does at their leisure is a distraction that hurts their game.
And Kawhi’s lack of media presence (no public Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram account that we know of) keeps people from criticizing him for stories like that one.
It’s not like it matters anyway. The guy just keeps getting better. Right now, he’s on a career-best streak of six straight games scoring 30+ points.
So my advice to NBA players that don’t like all the praise he’s getting? Concentrate on basketball and go full media blackout, which would be nearly impossible for most players. My other piece of advice that don’t want to do that:
Get over it.
