Enzo The Baker said:

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Damn. That's incredibly sad. Feel bad he wasted his last years in SA.

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Quote:

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Then you go to the Spurs, have back-to-back 60-plus win seasons and reach the Western Conference finals in 2017. How do you reflect upon your five and a half seasons in San Antonio? (The Spurs were up as much as 25 points against the Warriors in Game 1 of the West finals before losing Kawhi Leonard to an ankle injury. Golden State went on to win the series.)

I had fun. You join a family when you go to the Spurs. When they bring you in there, they bring you into the family.

They take good care of you, and once you're in, you're in. I had fun playing with Hall of Famers. Tim (Duncan), Manu (Ginobili), Tony (Parker). Those guys make the game easier for you and being a part of their story is cool for me because we had those back-to-back 60-win seasons. It was fun for me being from Dallas. I always thought of playing for the Mavericks or the Spurs so to actually get to the Spurs and be a part of that dynasty of those three guys, I definitely enjoyed my time. We were right there if Kawhi doesn't go down. You don't know what can happen. That series still wakes me up at night sometimes. We're up (25) points in the first quarter and the first half we're up and in control, then Kawhi goes down. They double me and it's easier to take me out of the block when I'm by myself. We end up losing that day, but if Kawhi stayed healthy and we finished that game off, anything was possible that year. So that year was definitely a tough year to walk away from. I never won a ring, but this was definitely my chance. It just slipped away. The run to get there was fun, you had great seasons, guys had fun.

We left it good on both sides. Pop (Gregg Popovich) and I talked a lot in the end, and he called me after I retired. And he said, 'Are you OK? If you need anything, let me know.' Pop and I talked the whole time through. He wanted to play Jakob Poeltl and go young, and I wasn't ready to like take a big drop in minutes as far as not playing as much anymore. We both agreed it was better for him and the organization if they went with the young guys. We were on the same page with that, and we communicated and we had a bunch of great discussions about it. I feel like I had a great run there. I enjoyed my time there. We had some unbelievable seasons. Toward the end, it wasn't ideal, but we had some great moments and great times. I feel it's no hard feelings on either side. Every team has to pick at times to go young. That was kind of their time. And I ended up joining a team that was kind of more fitted for my stage of my career. So nothing but love and respect from me.

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