Kawhi Leonard says his stoicism comes from playing with the Spurs

The stoicism, it turns out, has an origin story. “I think it started off just being on the Spurs,” he says, “just seeing the older vets and how they carried themselves and what they wanted their players to act like on the floor.” The Spurs, under Gregg Popovich, famously ran one of the most understated franchises in professional sports — a culture shaped in no small part by Tim Duncan, who won five championships and retired without ever seeming particularly interested in being celebrated for it. Leonard was young and paying close attention. “Once I started doing that, they kind of put me in the Tim Duncan thing because they wanted me to be the face of the franchise,” he says. “And I don’t know, it just kind of carried on from there.”

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This article originally appeared on Hoops Hype: Kawhi Leonard says his stoicism comes from playing with the Spurs