Kawhi Leonard Named AP Male Athlete of Year
Leonard becomes the fifth NBA player in history to win the award.
For Kawhi Leonard in 2019, he did everything, without talking much.
Leonard, who helped lead San Diego State University to the 2011 NCAA Sweet 16 and earned second-team All-America honors at the school, is The Associated Press' male athlete of the year for 2019, comfortably winning a vote by AP member sports editors and AP beat writers. He becomes the fifth NBA player to win the award, joining Larry Bird (1986), three-time recipient Michael Jordan (1991 through 1993), three-time recipient LeBron James (2013, 2016, 2018) and Stephen Curry (2015).
The award has been handed out annually since 1931.
Leonard was the NBA Finals MVP for the second time, leading the Toronto Raptors to their first championship – five years after he first earned both trophies with the San Antonio Spurs. He wound up leaving the Raptors in the summer for the Clippers, returning to his native Southern California and turning the franchise into one of the top teams in the league.
"The ride was fun,'' Leonard said earlier this month on his return trip to Toronto, summing up his year with the Raptors. "I had a great time.''
By now, it's no secret Leonard is a man of few words.
He is not a man of few accomplishments.
He received more than twice as many points in the balloting as any of the other 18 vote-getters. Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson was second, followed by Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, tennis star Rafael Nadal and reigning NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks.
"Kawhi's pretty steady,'' said San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich, Leonard's former coach with the Spurs. "He's not a big talker. He doesn't try to find the limelight or anything like that. He's just a good guy who wanted to be good.''
Somewhere along the way, he became great.
Leonard was the best player in last season's playoffs, after a regular season in which he missed 22 games.
He was limping at times in the playoffs, but it didn't matter. He averaged 30.5 points and 9.1 rebounds in the postseason, his 732 points in last year's playoffs ranking as the third-most in any NBA playoff year. In the biggest times, he came up the biggest – 15 points in the fourth quarter to carry Toronto past Milwaukee in the series-turning Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals, and 17 points in the fourth quarter of Game 4 of the NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors to put the Raptors on the cusp of the title.
And, of course, he made “The Shot:” the four-bounces-off-the-rim buzzer-beating jump shot from the corner to beat the Philadelphia 76ers in Game 7 of the second round.
"I'm playing to have fun and try to be the best player I can be,'' Leonard said. "I'm happy with myself and what I have done in my career and I'm just going to keep on from there. It's not about me being famous or want to have more fame than those guys. It's about me playing basketball and having fun on the floor.''
