I think this just goes to show you that one big star can make so much differences. Demar derozan is a great player, he is an all-star and he is seen as one of the best players in our league. However kawhi is literally top 3 in the league right now, he is the best player with great offense and defense at the same time, nobody has better offense AND defense than him, just one of them could be better on other players. He is THAT good. So what happened? When spurs got demar they got eliminated by nuggets in first round with him and said bye bye to the playoffs. Look at Kawhi, dude managed to bring Raptors to finals in his first ever season after demar failed to do so in the past 4-5 years. Difference between "great player" and "top 3 player" is literally worlds apart.
Maybe spurs knocking off their head why they do let Kawhi left the team and said to themselves that if they weren't able to make such changes
then they might be the one on the playoffs or even on the finals but yet it isn't guaranteed though but I agree on your point that
there's really a different between top player and a great player and Kawhi do proves it.
Kawahi clearly didnt want to play with Spurs anymore. The doctors had deemed him to be fit to play but he opted out of games claiming he was still "injured". Surely he had created a rift with the management was wanted to be traded. He is a great player and helped Spurs in their playoff run the previous years but Kawahi didnt want to play for them anymore and what can a franchise do when a star player clearly does not intend to play for them. So, they did what anyone else would have done and traded him. They got DeRozen and Jakob Poeltl in exchange, which isnt a bad deal to be honest but clearly not a game changer that Kawai is.