There were thanks for the health care professionals who assisted in the birth of his and his partner’s child a couple of months ago and a shoutout for the free meals he got while playing the Toronto Raptors off against the Los Angeles Clippers, and perhaps that’s enough to satisfy fans in Toronto.

But Kawhi Leonard, who forsook the Raptors to return to his home in California once he got another NBA all-star to join him with the Clippers, stopped well short of offering any praise to the franchise that helped him resurrect a wonderful career.

It is not Leonard’s nature to be effusive or gushing, so his first public utterances since joining the Clippers along with Paul George earlier this month should not have taken anyone by surprise.

He did not mention a single Raptors teammate by name, he did not talk about coach Nick Nurse or team president Masai Ujiri or minority owner Larry Tanenbaum, nor did he single out the work of director of sports science Alex McKechnie, whose vision of load management helped Leonard become the NBA Finals most valuable player for the second time in his career.

It’s not Leonard’s style, apparently.

“I want to thank the Toronto Raptors fans,” he said during an introductory news conference in Los Angeles on Wednesday. “I don’t have social media so I’m not able to put out a paragraph or whatever. Thank all of Toronto, the city, the country. It was amazing season.”

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Whether that is satisfactory closure to such a magical season for Raptors fans is impossible to tell. Leonard will make one regular-season appearance at the Scotiabank Arena next year and is sure to be greeted as he should be — as the returning hero who helped deliver a championship fans could only have dreamed about a year ago.

There is no denying the impact Leonard had on the team in his one season in Toronto, and interest in basketball he helped generate across the country during the run to an NBA championship.

“Best parade ever,” he said of the five-hour waltz through the city core that drew somewhere in the neighbourhood of two million people in an unprecedented outpouring of love for Leonard and his teammates, coaches, management and ownership.

The other benefits? Well, thanks for those, too.

“I also just want to thank the city as far as the restaurants, giving up that Ka’wine-and-Dine throughout the playoffs. I took advantage of that,” he said.

The central league-wide issue to how Leonard and George ended up in Los Angeles together was not fully addressed in the public portion of what was predictably a love-in involving the players and the franchise, a “landmark moment” in team history according to Clippers president Lawrence Frank. “We’ve done some winning but we want to be the winners,” coach Doc Rivers said.

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In part because of the way Leonard negotiated with the Raptors, the Clippers and the Los Angeles Lakers — and the way George ultimately ended up alongside the ex-Raptor in Los Angeles — the league has launched an investigation into benefits the family members of players or those close to them may demand, according to reports from both The New York Times and ESPN.com.

Whether that’s centred solely on Leonard is unknown. It may be a greater question to be addressed but it was glossed over Wednesday.

Asked about the current power that players have to dictate where they go, when they go and what ancillary benefits others might accrue, Leonard played it straight.

“I was a free agent so I got to choose anywhere I wanted to go, so I really don’t have anything to say on that,” he told the nationally broadcast news conference.