In the name of father: He grew from 15th to the dynasty terminator step by step, the coldest killer in the NBA

The morning light is dim, and in a car wash shop in Riverside City, California, USA, water splashes on the concrete floor.

The young Kawhi Leonard was tiptoed and was wiping the wheels of a car hard. His father Mark stood not far away to wash the car body. The sound of water flow and the collision of metal buckets formed the clearest background sound of his childhood. The car wash room was his first life school - here, my father taught him not only how to wash away stains, but how to create value with his hands, and what is diligence to never retreat.

"Mark is not just a father, but also a mentor. He taught Kawhi to shoot, urge Kawhi to run and maintain shape, pay attention to studying, and even whether to wash his hands clean enough before eating. Mark always said that he never wanted to wash the car for others, but the next day he went out to work early," said his mother Robertson. "He is such a hard worker. It was he who made Kawhi understand how to work hard."

Mark and his son were very close, but their fate suddenly changed on January 18, 2008 - Mark was shot and killed in a car wash shop.

16-year-old Leonard learned the bad news after the game and threw himself into his mother's arms and cried bitterly. The figure who once cheered for him loudly on the side of the basketball court disappeared forever. From then on, the basketball court became his only refuge. Under the stadium light at 11 o'clock late at night, the boy jumped up and shot again and again, and sweat and tears fell on the floor. The sound of basketball hitting the ground was his conversation with his father across life and death.

Leonard's basketball journey is not smooth. Before grade nine, he was a wide receiver on the American football field and did not devote all his enthusiasm to basketball until high school. At Martin Luther King High School, this tall and long-armed teenager gradually showed his talent. By the time he graduated in 2009, he had already won the trophy of "Mr. California Basketball".

"I did it, but...", Leonard said and shed tears, and his mother hugged him in her arms.

San Diego State University's training hall witnessed Leonard's transformation in silence. At five o'clock in the morning, while the campus was still immersed in sleep, Leonard was already running alone on the court, and the sound of sneakers rubbing against the floor was like his silent oath. In his sophomore year, he averaged 15.7 points and 10.4 rebounds per game, leading the team to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen like a sharp sword. The boy who once collided in the football field is now a "quiet assassin" who has both offense and defense on the basketball court.

On the 2011 NBA draft night, the scout report carefully evaluated the young man: "Laboring explosive power and mediocre ability to pass through." The Pacers took him off in the 15th pick, but quickly sent him to San Antonio - the Spurs exchanged the beloved defender George Hill for this untreaded piece of jade. Ginobili was very angry about this, but Popovich saw a possibility from Leonard: the amazing 2.21-meter arm span and the palm that was 52% larger than ordinary people may be able to create a new generation of defensive iron gates.

Leonard, who has just entered the league, is as low-key as if invisible. He averaged only 7.9 points per game in the rookie season, but he quietly woves the defensive network with 5.1 rebounds and 1.3 steals.

San Antonio fans quickly discovered that the extra training of this young man after training was more shocking than the game itself. "Many times, I have to let the assistant coach kick him out of the training hall," Popovich shook his head and sighed, "He always feels that he has not practiced enough."

The tempering of destiny came in the 2013 finals. At the end of the sixth game, Leonard stood on the free throw line, making one of two free throws that the Spurs missed the championship. Ray Allen's three-pointer that rewrites history has become the deepest mark of his career. But the real warrior never sinks in failure - the Heat will be in the finals the next year, and Leonard's "death entanglement" made James difficult. When the final whistle sounded, the 22-year-old picked up the FMVP trophy and looked up at the clear sky in June. That day was Father's Day. After seven years of watch, I finally told you in a golden cup.

What he took from GDP was not only the leader's scepter, but also a basketball philosophy. In 2017, Leonard averaged 25.5 points per game and stayed firmly at the core, and the Spurs' future has never been so bright. But the accidental fall in the first game of the Western Conference Finals became the abrupt end of the Holy City era - an ankle injury not only ended the season, but also ended his fate with the Silver and Black Legion.

In the cold wind in Toronto, North, Leonard was reborn in a Raptors' robe. In the 2019 Eastern Conference Semi-Finals tiebreak, the whole of Philadelphia held its breath when the basketball bounced around the basket. The final whistle sounded and the ball came into the net! The first tiebreaker in NBA history was born. Embiid's figure crying in the player passage and Leonard's roar in the arena became the most classic montage in the playoffs.

In the desperate situation of falling behind the Bucks 0-2 in the Eastern Conference Finals, he volunteered to defend Antetokounmpo. The epic of the four-game winning streak is his declaration to basketball: the real king does not need to be hustle and bustle. In the finals, he faced the Warriors with wounded soldiers. His average of 28.5 points and 9.8 rebounds per game made the Raptors' first championship in history rise slowly. When he won the FMVP trophy for the second time and became the first player in the NBA to win this honor in both the east and west, people were surprised: "This person has personally ended the Heat and the Warriors dynasties."

In January 2024, the Los Angeles Clippers renewed Leonard's contract for 3 years and $152.4 million. This contract that took the initiative to cut his salary by 8.5 million carries his promise to the new throne. When teammates drove into Staples Center in luxury supercars, Leonard still drove the college-age Chevrolet Malibu, "fuel-saving", he explained shyly.

Life with an annual salary of tens of millions is still as simple as before, without famous watches and jewelry, the training hall and home are two points and one line. The scene where Popovich had to send someone to "drive him away" from the stadium, but now it is still repeated every day at the Clippers Training Base..

Years later, when Leonard stood outside the Intelen Arena and looked up at the stars, he might remember the dusk when his father closed the car wash shutters for the last time. Fate took away the man who taught him to shoot step by step, but it also left a deeper mark on his palm. From the FMVP in San Antonio to the winning legend of Toronto, from the silent defensive engineers to the king of the North that ended the two dynasties - every echo of the basketball hit the ground is a father-son dialogue that spans time and space.

When the sweat-soaked jersey fell gently in the locker room, he was still the teenager in the car wash room who believed that his hands could create everything. In the corners that were out of the spotlight, he polished every ordinary daily life into stars.