PHOENIX — His eye infections finally cured, Kawhi Leonard will see his first game action of the season when the Spurs meet the Phoenix Suns on Friday night at the U.S. Airways Center.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich ended the suspense after a Thursday practice session that preceded the team's flight to the Valley of the Sun, declaring that Leonard, out since Oct. 9 with conjunctivitis in both eyes, will suit up against Phoenix.

“He’s been working really hard,” Popovich said. “His conditioning won’t be the same as basketball conditioning, but it's decent. He's champing at the bit. He’ll be ready to go.”

What remains to be seen: if Leonard will understand and accept the reasons why the Spurs seemingly want to wait to sign him to a contract extension that figures to make him the team's highest-paid player.

The Spurs have until 11 p.m. Friday to sign Leonard to a contract extension that could add as many as five more seasons to his contract, now in its fourth year. With extension talks at a standstill as of Thursday night the likelihood of a breakthrough by Friday's deadline seemed minimal, with the Spurs beginning to take some heat from national media outlets questioning their commitment to their 23-year-old star.

Leonard is believed to be seeking a deal at, or close to, the maximum he is allowed under the NBA's collective bargaining agreement: a five-year extension totaling $90 million. He is to make $2.89 million this season.

The logjam in negotiations appears to have much more to do with timing and little to do with the value the club places on a player Popovich has called “the future face of the Spurs.”

Should the extension deadline pass Friday — as it appears it will — Leonard will become a restricted free agent July 1. That means the Spurs will have the ability to match any offer sheet he receives from another team.

It also means his salary for NBA salary cap purposes (called a “cap hold”) will remain slightly less than $7.3 million next July 1, when several high-profile players, including Marc Gasol, will become unrestricted free agents. That is an important factor for a franchise that has only five players with guaranteed money for the 2015-16 season. Team captain Tim Duncan, 38, and guard Manu Ginobili, 37, are among the players on expiring deals, at a combined $17.3 million.

By waiting to give Leonard a new deal, even for his maximum figure of $16 million, the Spurs would have an additional $9 million under the salary cap to make a run at another high-profile free agent.

There is risk for the Spurs in letting the deadline pass. Even with the ability to match any offer sheet Leonard might get, events of the past summer showed that letting the marketplace establish a player’s value can be dicey.

The Mavericks signed Rockets restricted free agent Chandler Parsons to a three-year, $48 million offer sheet that included a 15 percent trade kicker and a player option in the third season. Houston deemed it too expensive to match and lost one of its most promising young players without compensation.

Leonard's value as a potential free agent has soared since he arrived in San Antonio, via draft-night trade, as the 15th selection of the 2011 draft. Selected as Most Valuable Player of last season’s NBA Finals at age 23 — only Hall of Famer Magic Johnson was chosen Finals MVP at a younger age — he was a second-team All-NBA Defensive Team selection, and the league's general managers recently named him the second-best perimeter defender in the league behind LeBron James.

Leonard averaged 12.8 points and 6.2 rebounds last season, shooting 52.2 percent from the field and 37.9 percent from 3-point range, but it was his performance in the final three games of the Finals that earned him the MVP and drove up his asking price. He scored 29, 20 and 22 points on 69 percent shooting in the three games while also defending James.

Leonard likely will be in his usual starting spot at small forward against the Suns. Cleared on Monday to rejoin his teammates after being isolated from them while he suffered from conjunctivitis, he was a full participant in practice sessions Wednesday and Thursday.

mikemonroe@

express-news.net

Twitter: @Monroe_SA

Staff writer Jeff McDonald contributed to this report.