By Marilyn Dubinski | Pounding The Rock (PtR), 2024-10-26 03:00:00
由生成式人工智能翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
这对任何马刺球迷来说可能都不足为奇，但现在一位前快船队员工站出来发声了。
即使过去了六年，进入了一个新的时代，马刺队仍然无法完全摆脱科怀·莱昂纳德（Kawhi Leonard）在 2017-18 赛季大部分时间缺阵后给球队带来的闹剧。当时，他任由自己的团队指责和贬低马刺队的医疗团队，而最终证明马刺队的诊断是准确的。最终，在 2018 年夏天，他逼迫球队将他交易。这导致马刺队经历了一段缓慢而痛苦的重建期，但他们最终得到了心仪的维克多·文班亚马（Victor Wembanyama），并继续前进——或者说我们以为他们已经翻篇了。
据雅虎体育的克里斯·海恩斯（Chris Haynes）报道，一位与莱昂纳德渊源颇深的训练师，这段关系可以追溯到他在圣迭戈州立大学打球的时候，这位训练师对洛杉矶快船队提起诉讼，指控快船队非法解雇了他，并威胁要曝光快船队让莱昂纳德“接受不安全和非法的治疗，无视莱昂纳德的健康、安全以及已知的医疗限制”。不出所料，快船队否认了这些指控，并表示：
“谢尔顿先生的指控已经过调查，我们发现这些指控毫无根据。我们履行了谢尔顿先生的雇佣合同，并全额支付了他的工资。这起诉讼是事后诸葛亮，企图利用谢尔顿先生自己也知道是虚假指控来敲诈快船队。”
谢尔顿在莱昂纳德离开圣迭戈州立大学后，一直与其在休赛期保持合作关系，直到 2019 年被快船队聘用，2023 年被解雇。谢尔顿可能只是一位心怀不满的前雇员。然而，虽然关于可能存在医疗不当行为的指控可能会让马刺球迷有些似曾相识的感觉（尽管这次不是球员提出的），但这并不是与马刺队最相关的部分。为了支持自己的指控，谢尔顿表示，他愿意与联盟会面，讨论快船队在莱昂纳德与马刺队还有合同在身的情况下是如何违规接触的。据 ESPN 报道：
在诉讼中，谢尔顿表示，快船队在 2017 年首次联系了他，当时莱昂纳德与马刺队还有合同在身，在 2017 年西部决赛第一场对阵金州勇士队的比赛中，莱昂纳德脚踝严重受伤。
那次受伤结束了莱昂纳德的季后赛之旅，他也因此缺席了下一个赛季的前 27 场比赛，原因是右股四头肌受伤。莱昂纳德的伤病以及随后的康复过程导致他与马刺队之间产生了裂痕，这让他寻求球队以外的第二意见。
从 2017 年开始，在莱昂纳德与马刺队还有合同在身的情况下，谢尔顿表示，一位快船队高管联系了他，以获取有关莱昂纳德的“私人健康信息”，并表示需要“谨慎行事”。根据诉讼文件，双方通了大约 15 次电话，并至少进行了 7 次会面，因为快船队试图了解更多关于莱昂纳德与马刺队的合同义务以及他的医疗状况……
谢尔顿表示，在这几次谈话中，这位快船队高管“讨论了让谢尔顿加入快船队担任体能教练的事宜，因为莱昂纳德和谢尔顿之间存在着私人关系和信任”……
谢尔顿指控快船队的招募行为“无视 NBA 禁止违规接触的规定”。NBA 章程第 35 条禁止球队“直接或间接”地试图引诱与其他球队有合同在身的球员加入自己的球队。
再次强调，考虑到丹尼斯叔叔（原名罗伯逊）据称在莱昂纳德编造针对马刺队医疗团队的虚假说法，以便为其离开看似完美的马刺队寻找借口一事中发挥了多么大的作用，这对马刺球迷来说可能并不奇怪。但如果谢尔顿诉讼中关于违规接触的任何内容最终被证明是 remotely true，那么快船队可能会面临处罚。有时处罚方式是罚款或剥夺球队的选秀权（尽管快船队甚至要到 2030 年才能拥有自己的首轮选秀权——他们麻烦大了）。
马刺队可能更乐意接受莱昂纳德身边任何人公开承认他们遭到了诬告，因为这起事件损害了他们在许多人心目中曾经的良好声誉。这可能会发生，也可能不会发生，最终结果也可能是，这只是一位心怀怨恨的人小题大做，但至少，这件事再次让人们质疑莱昂纳德在 2018 年的动机，并希望让那些仍然因为这件事而批评马刺队的人重新思考。（因为很明显，他目前与马刺队诊断出的慢性膝盖疾病作斗争的事实还不够说明问题。）
哦，这件事可能也无助于格雷格·波波维奇（Gregg Popovich）让嘘声消失的愿望。
点击查看原文：The Clippers were tampering with Kawhi Leonard while he was still with the Spurs, per lawsuit
The Clippers were tampering with Kawhi Leonard while he was still with the Spurs, per lawsuit
This may not be a surprise to any Spurs fans, but a former Clippers employee is now coming forward.
Even six years and an era later, the Spurs still can’t quite escape the drama that Kawhi Leonard brought on the organization when he sat out most of the 2017-18 season, allowed his entourage to blame and disparage the Spurs’ medical staff for what turned out to be an accurate diagnosis, and finally forced a trade in the summer of 2018. This led the Spurs into a slow and at times painful rebuild, but they got their guy in Victor Wembanyama and have moved on — or so we thought.
Per Chris Haynes of Yahoo, a former trainer whose ties to Leonard date all the way back to his time at San Diego State has filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Clippers organization for wrongful termination and is threatening to expose the team for subjecting Leonard “to unsafe and illegal treatment, in disregard for Leonard’s health and safety and known medical restrictions.” The Clippers have unsurprisingly denied those allegations, saying:
“Mr. Shelton’s claims were investigated and found to be without merit. We honored Mr. Shelton’s employment contract and paid him in full. This lawsuit is a belated attempt to shake down the Clippers based on accusations that Mr. Shelton should know are false.”
It is possible that Shelton — who continued to work with Leonard in the offseasons after he left SDSU all they way until he was hired by the Clippers from 2019-2023 — is just a bitter former employee. However, while allegations of possible medical mistreatment may give Spurs fans a bit of deja vu (although in this case, it’s not coming from the player), that’s not the most notable part as it relates to Spurs. To back up his allegations, Shelton has said he is willing to sit down with the league discuss how the Clippers tampered with Leonard while he was still under contract with the Spurs. Per ESPN:
In the lawsuit, Shelton said the Clippers first contacted him in 2017 after Leonard, who was then under contract with the Spurs, suffered a severe ankle injury in Game 1 of the 2017 Western Conference finals against the Golden State Warriors.
That injury ended Leonard’s postseason, and he missed the first 27 games of the next season with a right quadriceps injury. Leonard’s injury and subsequent rehab created a rift with the Spurs, leading him to seek a second opinion outside of the organization.
Beginning in 2017, while Leonard remained under contract with the Spurs, Shelton said a Clippers executive contacted him to seek “private health information” about Leonard and expressed the need for “discretion.” The two sides spoke approximately 15 times on the phone and had at least seven meetings, according to the lawsuit, as the Clippers sought to learn more about Leonard’s contractual obligations with the Spurs and his medical situation…
In his conversations, Shelton said the Clippers executive “discussed bringing Shelton into the Clippers’ organization as a strength and conditioning coach, given the personal relationship and trust that Leonard had in Shelton.”…
Shelton alleges that the Clippers’ recruiting efforts were in “disregard for the NBA’s prohibitions on tampering.” Article 35 of the NBA’s constitution prohibits teams from “directly or indirectly” attempting to entice players under contract with one team to join a different team.
Again, this probably isn’t all that surprising to Spurs fans considering how big of a hand Uncle Dennis (nee Robertson) reportedly had in forcing the false narratives against the Spurs’ medical staff to justify asking for a trade from a seemingly perfect situation, but if anything coming from Shelton’s lawsuit ends up being remotely true regarding the tampering, there could be penalties to pay. Sometimes that is done via fines or a team losing draft picks (although the Clippers even don’t own their own first round pick until 2030 — they’re in trouble).
The Spurs would probably just as happily accept a public acknowledgement from anyone in Leonard’s hemisphere that they were wrongfully accused, leading to a dent in their once sterling reputation in the eyes of many. That may or may not happen, and it could turn out that this is a big nothing-burger brought on by someone with an axe to grind, but if nothing else, it’s yet another reason to question Leonard’s motivations back in 2018 and will hopefully make those who still criticize the Spurs for the saga to reconsider. (Because apparently his ongoing issues with a CHRONIC knee condition — which the Spurs diagnosed — hasn’t been proof enough.)
Oh, and it probably won’t help with Gregg Popovich’s desire to silence the boo birds.
By Marilyn Dubinski, via Pounding The Rock