Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich predicts that Kawhi Leonard is “gonna be back sooner rather than later.”
San Antonio (9-6), according to Pop, has been playing as though their All-Star forward “doesn’t exist.”
Pop says #Spurs have to play without Leonard "in a sense like he doesn't exist" https://t.co/0RMbxxZxBs
— Tom Orsborn (@tom_orsborn) November 14, 2017
Leonard, 26, has yet to suit up this season as he recovers from a right quadriceps tendinopathy.
Per the Express-News:
Asked if there is “light at the end of the tunnel” for the Spurs’ linchpin player, Popovich said after shootaround Tuesday morning, “Oh, sure. He’s gonna be back sooner rather than later.”
The Spurs have been without Leonard since the start of the preseason. The club has yet to offer a timetable for his return, and Popovich said last week the star’s process toward recovery has been slower than expected.
“A team just has to play in a sense like he doesn’t exist,” Popovich said. “Nobody cares if you lost a good player, right? Everybody wants to whip you. So it doesn’t do much good to do the poor me thing or to keep wondering when he is going to be back or what are we going to do. We have to play now, and other people have to take up those minutes and we have to figure out who to go to when in a different way, and you just move on.”
