Goodbye, Kawhi

We thought you were worthy.

Really, we did. Spurs fans believed that you, Kawhi, were going to be the Chosen One to lift Tim Duncan’s mighty mantle and keep San Antonio contending for another 20 years.

After all, on the surface you shared so many traits with the legend that came before you: dominance on the defensive end, sure-handed excellence on offense, polite avoidance of any sort of media attention, a willingness to sweat alone in the gym for hours in pursuit of individual greatness.

But, somewhere along the line, you decided that San Antonio wasn’t the place for you. Or maybe you didn’t decide — it’s so hard to believe, but perhaps the rumors about you allowing family members to dictate your contact, your career path, hell even your shoe deal as they seek avenues for their own personal profit really are true. It’s so hard to tell, since you’ve sat silently and allowed the distrust and ill will around first your injury and now your looming departure to slowly build, a poison that’s finally killed off the faith and hope a franchise and its fan base placed in you. It’s so hard to accept, since the Spurs family crowned you heir apparent and then handed you the keys to one of the greatest and most consistent teams in sports, only to be left standing at the altar as you and your group force your way to greener pastures.

Was that mantle of Duncan too heavy? Following in such footsteps can be daunting, even for All-Stars. Maybe Pop was too harsh? Egos in the modern-day NBA are fragile, brittle things, not built for the tough coaching and demand for excellence that transformed Duncan, Parker and Ginobili into a dynasty. Or maybe those veterans ignited your desires to leave, Kawhi — some well-chosen critical words during your saga of injury might have been the difference between staying and leaving. Distrust could have been another reason for this painstaking breakup: maybe the Spurs doctors expected you to want to play through the pain rather than allow you time to reach 100 percent. Chances are, we’ll never know.

One thing I do know, however: The San Antonio Spurs will forge ahead. Rid of the first real distraction in the Popovich era, the team will build for a new future. It doesn’t matter if it’s around you, Kawhi, or around Aldridge or maybe even around some young players not even wearing the Black and Silver just yet. The Spurs are patient. The franchise has won five rings since a program-changing draft back in 1997 — the selection of a man who altered a team and a city’s history. A man that for so long, many thought you resembled.

Maybe, just maybe, we should have looked at the differences between you and Duncan, not the similarities. Perhaps we wouldn’t have been blindsided if we’d keyed on your refusal to stand (or rather, sit) by your teammates during the playoffs as they battled against Golden State, or focused on the lack of communication between you and your coach and brothers in arms as your injury slipped from weeks to months past the projected recovery date. Maybe the betrayal wouldn’t have cut so deep if we’d been more suspicious of your decision not to release your latest signature shoe in San Antonio, the evolution of your uncle from caring family member to power-hungry future agent, your disappearance to New York for “rehab.”

The biggest difference, though? Selflessness. Tim Duncan always, always placed the name on the front of the jersey ahead of the name on the back of it. Those hours in the gym, fighting for individual greatness? They were eclipsed only be the time he put into making his teammates better. That polite desire to not talk to the media? It would temporarily wane when he was given a chance to uplift one of his fellow Spurs. Duncan wasn’t concerned with personal brands or the bright lights of bigger markets. He was here to do one thing: win. But as a collective, not as an individual.

Maybe one day I’ll be able to wish you luck, as you play for the Lakers or the Celtics, the Clippers or the Sixers — whichever franchise can give you whatever short-term satisfaction you crave. But for now, I’m filled with anger and sadness. The next era is ending before it ever really began, all because of reasons that seem more and more trivial the further down this road we go.The house that Tim built will have to stand empty for a little longer.

Goodbye, Kawhi. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.