Imagine this…. travel back in your mind to the bygone, sparkling summer of 2019. Think of the media you consumed in the last glorious months before the world changed forever.

If you’re a fan of basketball, you were most certainly watching something that at one time seemed inconceivable: a team from Toronto, Canada, reveling in an NBA championship. And at the center of it all, cradling the Finals MVP trophy, was the iconic Kawhi Leonard.

The enigmatic superstar had just come off the best gun-for-hire season the league had ever seen, leading the Raptors to their only world championship in his lone year with the franchise. Having secured his first Finals MVP award a few seasons prior with the Spurs, he was regarded by many as the best basketball player in the world.  

But for the incredible assortment of players who can say they’ve worn that crown, none have ever been as shrouded in mystery as Kawhi Leonard. Many have assumed that the quiet champ’s life revolves entirely around that proverbial ring in which he battles. It is easy to see why if you’re familiar with Leonard’s methodical, unflappable two-way greatness from buzzer to buzzer. 

Leonard—a Southern California native—is currently in his 14th NBA season enjoying a three-year $150 million contract with the LA Clippers. This follows the aforementioned stops in San Antonio where his star rose, and his championship hiatus in the frozen north. But like the truest ring generals, Leonard’s greatest victories weren’t free from adversity. Injuries are, unfortunately, a recurring theme in the Kawhi Leonard narrative (Exhibit A: the one that occurred in the weeks following this interview and photoshoot). More unique is how those setbacks have been handled, both publicly and privately. In a league where teams almost always lead player rehabs and distribute injury updates accordingly, Leonard prefers to work with his own team and his own doctors. What’s followed has indeed been some confusion around injury specifics, timetables for his returns etc., because as one might imagine, Leonard is not keen to jump in front of a microphone and discuss such matters with local team reporters. 

In fact, you might say Kawhi Leonard prefers to speak as little as possible in the public sphere full stop. Abrupt, few word sideline interviews with that infamously monotone inflection have always been the norm. “I don’t do interviews but I also don’t look at [the media] for guidance” Leonard says. “Last time I checked in ’08, they said I wouldn’t be a pro. Then again in 2011 they said I wasn’t going to average 12 points in the league; after that I put my head up and focused on what’s in front of me.”

The rarest of celebrities, he has hardly any social media presence at all to speak of, and magazine profiles like these are the farthest thing from typical. When it comes to Kawhi Leonard the man, does the lack of a tightly crafted public persona mean that he does not contain multitudes? Quite the opposite. 

That looming existential threat that hangs over all of us must be considered early for athletes, as least as far as careers are concerned. And like many in his field, Leonard has begun to immerse himself into other ventures as he imagines a post-basketball future – ventures that help reveal the methodology, mindset and spirit behind a notoriously enigmatic star. [MORE at FLAUNT]