( ESPN ) – SAN ANTONIO — San Antonio Spurs star forward Kawhi Leonard will likely be pondering a supermax contract extension over the summer, but off the court, talks between he and Jordan Brand on a new shoe deal have stalled, multiple sources with knowledge of the situation told ESPN.

Jordan Brand, which is a division of Nike, and Leonard’s representatives came “very close” to completion on a new four-year extension worth more than $20 million. But discussions broke down abruptly because representatives for Leonard didn’t feel that the new deal reflected the forward’s accomplishments and standing within the league, sources said.

Leonard has finished second and third in voting for the NBA’s Most Valuable Player award over the last two seasons, but he’s played in just a handful of games this season because of injury.

A two-time Defensive Player of the Year, two-time All-NBA first team selection and Finals MVP, Leonard earns less than $500,000 per year in his current endorsement contract with Jordan Brand, which is worth significantly less than the deal currently on the table from the shoe company.

Look where there’s smoke there is usually fire, and the entire Kawhi Leonard situation starting with his team issues to now this potential shoe deal issue is just so weird. All these “reports” and “rumors” simply don’t sound like Kawhi Leonard. Upset at his team? Demanding more money? All very very weird. The Kawhi we knew seemed like a guy who didn’t really care about all the off the court stuff, the Spurs programmed him to care about basketball and basketball only. Now for some reason things have changed? I don’t know if all of the sudden Kawhi has new people in his ear driving these issues or what, but for the prototypical Spur this has been anything but Spurs-like.

First off, $20M is a shit ton of money, and a substantial raise from his 500k current deal. So right off the bat that seems weird. I did a little research and the only people who wear Nike who earn more are

Michael Jordan – $110M a year (duh)

Lebron James – $32M

Kevin Durant – $25M

Based on the those numbers, Kawhi’s $20M seems about fair. Remember this is the Jordan brand and not Nike, where no player currently makes more than $10M. Lebron and KD are the top 2 best players in the NBA, and while Kawhi is accomplished I think it’s fair to say not quite at the level of those two guys (yet). Not only are they more productive on the court, but the truth is they are more marketable for Nike the brand at the moment. The hangup apparently is around not developing a signature shoe for Kawhi which other guys like Melo, CP3, Wade and Westbrook have with Jordan. I can understand why Kawhi would be frustrated with that because he’s a better player than most of those guys, but Jordan probably cares more about marketability than on court performance, and Kawhi isn’t exactly all over our TVs in commercials.

I think the real reason for concern here is something people are not really talking about. We know that every offseason the Spurs give Kawhi a software update to give him some sort of new attribute to make him appear more human. For example this summer they figured out how to give him emotions

It appeared that Kawhi Leonard Version 7.0 was going to be the most advanced, devastating basketball robot ever created. But did the Spurs go too far? Before this summer Kawhi seemed to just go with whatever SA wanted, but now it appears he’s learned how to think for himself and that deep down fear we all have about machine learning is turning into the Spurs’ nightmare. It seems as though this version of Kawhi has learned how to be self aware and that’s proving to be a tricky spot for SA. They thought they were just going to make a slight tweak and instead they created dare I say it…..a diva?

There are going to be a lot of big time storylines this summer, but Kawhi is near the top of the list for me. The Spurs have to decide if they want to give him the supermax extension and if not most likely have to move him. It’s not often a player of his caliber hits the potential trade market, where if healthy he is absolutely a franchise changer. Add in all this shoe contract drama and the whole thing just feels off. I largely thought the appeal of Kawhi was not just that he is a ridiculous basketball player, but he didn’t really involve himself in the bullshit. He just showed up and killed you on the basketball court without a sliver of emotion. Now we have him beefing with his coach and turning down $20M a year? Something doesn’t pass the smell test.

UPDATE:

So I read this quickly while at work and thought this was $20M over 4yr and not $5M. Of course he turns down $5M with no signature shoe. Point remains though, this shit is getting weird.