There's more to it than that. The Spurs have historically erred on the side of caution when player injuries are concerned. They have held players out and sacrificed the short term to make sure the players were ready. The Spurs have a solid track record where player injuries are concerned. They have done it with Tim, Manu and Tony and why would they now have taken that chance with their new face of the franchise? The Spurs have been ahead of the curve to make sure their players are healthy and stay that way from training, diet to resting players. The Spurs were the first and continued to be willing to rest players even when they knew it would cost them games or playoff seeding, they even got a hefty penalty for doing it. That's not the history of a team willing to risk the franchise player.
The Spurs turned over Kawhi's diagnosis and rehab from their own medical staff to Kawhi's last August and Kawhi and his camp interviewed and went through several doctor's as Kawhi's side weren't pleased with the diagnosis or treatment from most of the doctor's they selected.
The frustration from the Spur's side was that Kawhi never spoke with them directly through this progress and the Spur's medical staff never had access to the doctor that Kawhi's side finally chose. All the communication was thru his "agent", Uncle Dennis. Kawhi wasn't even willing to talk to his own teammates. There isn't another team in the league that would have shielded Kawhi for as long as they did, especially when the player wasn't communicating with them. If this situation had happened in a place like LA, he would have been torn up by the media, fans, probably some of his teammates, surely by loud mouth LaVar long before any of the cracks shown in SA.
Was there a misdiagnosis? Probably, maybe, maybe not, who knows, since it hasn't been verified by the actual doctors, only by Kawhi's agent, that quite possibly has his own agenda for Kawhi. Kawhi has said next to nothing through all this, all these reports are either from "sources" or speculation, but precious little from Kawhi's own mouth. Maybe he was misdiagnosed by the Spurs staff, they had the leading doctor's in that field diagnose him, it's wasn't like they used some quack mall doctor, but misdiagnosis do happen. This is a player they were prepared to give $230 million, you can dang well believe they were going to do everything to make sure this guy got healthy. Jeopardizing his health would be jeopardizing their own future.
