I’ve struggled with injuries myself, so I can understand not wanting to play through pain even if the injury appears to be healed. Only Leonard knows if that was bs or not. I saw David Robinson criticizing anyone who didn’t want to stick around with the club and help rebuild, but I can’t agree. Teams don’t sign up players for being loyal, you have to be able to bring wins, and I don’t feel like any US player owes their team anything, maybe it’s different with football academies.
Didn’t the Spurs play Leonard in the playoffs when he was injured, leading to a long term injury when someone put their foot under him when landed?
As far as how many minutes he should play, I think that should be handled very carefully. Look at how Brad Stevens played IT when injured and ruined his career, likely costing him a 100 million or more. I'm not sure the NBA has gotten to the point where teams are really looking after players long term interests, I think many would be happy to run a player into the ground for wins, and thus this tendency to play injured players. Leonard is thinking about his last contact and wants a long career, his current coach probably doesn't expect to be with the team when that happens. But at some point the coach does need the authority to make the decisions.
Being more a fan of football I think about Hargreaves and how United were perfectly happy to infect his knees every week to get him to play until he couldn't drive his far for knee pain, or playing Rashford injured, what's the point? Let them heal, what's this huge rush? You often hear the argument that the injury won't get worse from playing, but that doesn't preclude another injurious event happening to the injured area.
Leonard doesn't seem a warm person, rather calculating, but really I can't say I have much idea of his personality.