Had he stuck to his oft-cited timetable, Gregg Popovich could have dodged the whole Kawhi Leonard commotion. The escape path had been established long before this summer’s trade saga that dragged the previously drama-proof San Antonio Spurs into the N.B.A.’s ever-spinning reality show blender at last.
How many times over the years did Popovich tell us he would be walking right out the exit door behind Tim Duncan when the greatest Spur of them all decided to stop playing?
“I kind of believed that,” Popovich said the other day in a telephone interview, harkening back to what became one of his go-to proclamations.