The longer Kawhi Leonard makes the winner wait, the more he dooms the runner-up. This is growing more apparent by the minute.

Three days ago, the Raptors, Lakers and Clippers had workable backup plans. But within the first few hours of free agency, when NBA role players were scooped up like video game consoles on Black Friday, those backup plans were rendered obsolete.

Now, for a trio of would-be championship contenders, it’s “Board Man” or bust.

Such was the gamble each of those franchises had to take, and it’s the same risk 26 other franchises (we will not presume anything about the Knicks) gladly would have accepted for a fighting chance at one of the best basketball players on the planet. You’d be crazy not to take that shot.

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But you’d also be crazy to carve out plans for someone if he never had any intentions of being a part of them. And if we’ve learned anything about the NBA’s most reclusive star this week, it is this:

The longer Leonard makes everybody wait, the clearer it becomes that the Spurs never had much hope in the first place.

Think about what Toronto is offering him now, and how it compares to what San Antonio might have dangled in the alternate universe where he didn’t leave town.

The Raptors can give him more money than anybody else, just like the Spurs could have. They can give him an adoring fan base forever grateful to him for bringing them a championship, and an environment in which he is allowed to avoid the spotlight if he wishes, even while asserting himself as the alpha dog of the organization. The team will be his for as long as he wants it, just like it would have been in South Texas.

Even more, the Raptors have proven they will do whatever it takes to ensure he’s comfortable, whether that is giving him all the rest he needs during the season, or hiring his long-time friend to be part of the staff, or making his family feel like part of the team. And they are making this pitch not merely while pitching the idea they can compete for a theoretical championship - they’re making the pitch having already proven he can win with them.

If Leonard sees all of that, and still wants to meet with the Lakers and Clippers first?

Why would anyone imagine that the Spurs’ pitch this summer would have gone any better?

There always will be two plausible explanations for what drove Leonard away from San Antonio, and they are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The first is that Leonard always wanted to end up in Los Angeles. The second is that the trust between him and the Spurs broke down when he felt - rightly or wrongly - that his quadriceps injury had been misdiagnosed.

The latter explanation unquestionably played a factor. But the longer his courtship with the Lakers and Clippers goes on this week, the more it might suggest that the first explanation played a role, too.

After all, Leonard likes the medical staff in Toronto. He likes the general manager, and the coach, and his teammates. He just won a ring with them, and would be one of the favorites to win another if he stays.

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And is at least seriously considering leaving anyway.

This, obviously, does not make the Spurs any happier about losing him. They were forced to deal him for quarters on the dollar, because there was no way anyone would grant them anything close to full value with Leonard’s health still uncertain, and then they were forced to watch him hoist a trophy 11 months later.

There is no way they ever will be able to say they won that trade.

But let’s say they didn’t make it. Let’s say they called Leonard’s bluff last summer, and forced him to report to training camp, and tried to make it work. Let’s say they somehow patched up the relationship enough to win a dozen or so more games, and a couple of playoff series.

In that case, they’d have no DeMar DeRozan, and no Jakob Poeltl, and no Keldon Johnson, who they took with Toronto’s first-round draft pick. They probably wouldn’t have an extra championship, either.

Instead, they’d have hope Leonard might pick them this week.

Here’s betting he would have kept them waiting, too.

mfinger@express-news.net

Twitter: @mikefinger