Kawhi Leonard, who once tried to fill the shoes of legends Tim Duncan and Tony Parker in San Antonio, left in a way no one could possibly imagine. After giving seven seasons, a championship, and everything he had, the ending was brutal. While public narratives and online speculation surrounded Kawhi’s trade, his ex-teammate, Danny Green just added a new side to the story.

That Kawhi Leonard trade still might sting for Spurs fans. On July 18, 2018, Kawhi and Danny Green shipped off to Toronto, while DeMar DeRozan and Jakob Poeltl landed in San Antonio. This trade is one of the most controversial trades in recent history. And now, Danny Green’s bringing it back up. On the All The Smoke podcast, Green, who won a ring with Kawhi in 2014, finally dropped his side of the story. And guess what? Tony Parker’s name is right back in the middle of it.

Even though Danny Green never really sat down with Kawhi to unpack all that drama. But being on the same squad and getting traded right alongside him means he caught plenty. On the All The Smoke podcast, Green didn’t hold back. Green said, “Kawhi had the injury, Tony said some things in the media, then Pop said some things in the media, I think.”  He also added, “I think his uncle (Dennis Robertson) had a lot of what was going on.” 

For the sake of context, this whole trade saga didn’t just pop outta nowhere. It all started when Kawhi Leonard suffered a right quad injury back in 2017. From there, things got messy. Kawhi’s camp felt the Spurs didn’t handle his rehab right and that trust was gone. Then came the moment that poured gasoline on the fire. In the middle of all the drama, Tony Parker made a wild comment, saying his own injury was “a hundred times worse” than Kawhi’s. 

And all kinds of narratives started to fly on the internet. Behind the scenes, Kawhi’s uncle, Dennis Robertson, who was already deep in those free agency talks, took it as a straight-up sign of disrespect. That was pretty much the final push. After that, the writing was on the wall, and Kawhi was gone. Although Tony later made things clear from his end.

Tony Parker shuts down rumors of tension with Kawhi Leonard amid injury drama

Before Kawhi Leonard was traded to the Raptors, Tony Parker stepped up to shut down all those rumors claiming that he was the reason behind Kawhi’s sudden exit. Parker was clear throughout the interview: he never had any issues with Kawhi to begin with, even after Kawhi missed almost the entire 2017 season with that lingering quad injury and that so-called ‘beef’ came from comments Tony made back in March. Turns out, that whole thing got blown way out of proportion.

Tony said, “I have no problem with Kawhi Leonard. We never had an argument. When a journalist asked if my injury was worse than Kawhi’s, I said yes because it was true. But that didn’t lessen the significance of his injury.”

So yeah, there was no feud, just the media and the internet running wild with their gossip and headlines. Tony later added, “It’s very sad that the media took one quote and made it sound like I didn’t want to play with him. He was the face of the franchise.” You see, it’s a perfect example of how sometimes a single sentence, or even the way it’s reported, can twist the whole story. And that’s exactly what happened with Tony and Kawhi.