Real Madrid have announced the signing of FC Tokyo midfielder Takefusa Kubo.

Kubo, who has been described as "the Japanese Messi," was once on Barcelona's books and made his debut for the Japan senior team earlier this month. The 18-year-old will represent his country at the Copa America in Brazil.

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In a statement, Madrid said Kubo would play for their Castilla youth team in Spain's third tier next season.

"Real Madrid will have one of the most promising young players in world football, an attacking midfielder of excellent technique and very skilled," the statement said.

Marca reported that Madrid would pay €2 million to FC Tokyo and had offered the player a five-year contract worth €1 million a year.

Kubo will train with Zinedine Zidane's senior side while playing for Castilla, following the policy set with the signings of Martin Odegaard and Vinicius Junior.

South African middle-order batsman Rassie van der Dussen was "not surprised" to hear AB de Villiers wanted to play in the 2019 World Cup but believes it would have set a "difficult precedent" if the former captain was included. It would also likely have meant van der Dussen himself would not be at the tournament.

ALSO READ: AB de Villiers revelations could bring South Africa World Cup squad closer - Faf du Plessis

"It's not necessarily the best question to ask to me because I am involved in it but had he not retired it definitely would have influenced me directly," he said. "But you can't, on the day before the announcement and a team that's been working for something for year and even longer than a year, come and say, 'I want to make a comeback now'. I am not saying he was wrong or he was right; so don't misquote me. But it would have set a difficult precedent - not necessarily a wrong one, because it's still AB, he is still one of the best players in the world - I just think it was handled maybe not in the correct way from his side."

South Africa's squad was informed of de Villiers' desire to come out of retirement at their pre-tournament team camp, which included scaling the Table Mountain and training at the High Performance Centre in Pretoria. Though some, like Kagiso Rabada, have given little away about their opinion on the matter, van der Dussen explained de Villiers had been given options to make a comeback, which he refused.

"As I believe it, Ottis [Gibson, the head coach] and Faf [du Plessis, the captain] gave him opportunities to, say, 'Let's manage your workload going into the World Cup because we want you to play a World Cup'. He had a fair chance to manage that and he said no and that he is happy to retire and that's fair enough. And Faf accepted it, Ottis accepted it and they stood by it," van der Dussen said.

ALSO READ: Did de Villiers want to have his cake and eat it too?

Zondi, Gibson and du Plessis have all confirmed they told de Villiers he could have time off but would need to play some part in the series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka which took place earlier this year to stay in contention. Van der Dussen made his ODI debut in the series against Pakistan and impressed. Van der Dussen scored five half-centuries in his first nine ODI innings to earn his place in the World Cup squad and, at the tournament, has so far been South Africa's most convincing performer with the bat.

"Do I have to replace him? I don't feel I have to. Can I play match-winning innings for my country? I believe I can"

Van der Dussen is South Africa's second-highest run-scorer with 113 runs from his three innings, one run behind Quinton de Kock. He has labelled the tournament the ultimate test of a player's ability, which is why he understood de Villiers' interest in coming back.

"I wasn't surprised [that he wanted to come back]," van der Dussen said. "The media and the press reports quite a lot on AB and the things he's said and how his last year has gone. I wasn't surprised that he would want to make a comeback on the world's biggest stage. That's the thing all the biggest players in sport have in common. They want to perform when the pressure is on and when the stage is at its biggest."

Despite knowing he may have missed out if de Villiers had been accommodated, van der Dussen does not think the situation has put extra pressure on him to put in de Villiers-esque performances but hinted that if the situation demands it, maybe he could do just that.

"In terms of did it affect me? No. I am quite happy to be mentioned in the same sentence as AB. He is obviously one of the best there has ever been," van der Dussen said. "So do I have to replace him? I don't feel I have to. Can I play match-winning innings for my country? I believe I can. Is that what he did? Yes, he did. It didn't have as big an effect as I think people would like to believe it had."

When does a cricketer feel at home in a team? Some get that sense within the minutes of their first match for a side, others may go seasons without ever quite feeling a part of it, whatever their performances or how things look in all the on-field backslapping.

The Australian team can be an unforgiving place. One former opening batsman confessed some years ago that when he was first called up, days went by before any other team-mate spoke to him by way of welcome. Another called a Cricket Australia official during an early spell in the team to say he was lonely away from home, and to ask for something to do.

No-one, though, has quite had an experience quite like that of David Warner, banished from the Australia side in the wake of the Newlands scandal last year and, unlike the former captain Steven Smith, left very much isolated by his identification as the ringleader of the ball tampering plot, if not its subsequent cover-up.

In those desperate hours and days following Warner's ban, accompanied by a lifetime suspension from ever holding a formal leadership position in the team, he was seen to be at odds with the rest, even more so than Smith or Cameron Bancroft. There was, in the game's highest circles, widespread acknowledgement that he may never be selected again. Warner, for his part, said as much in an otherwise legally constrained return home press conference at the SCG.

A little more than a year on, it should be noted that the first leadership figure in Australian cricket to offer a more welcoming word to Warner was Justin Langer, when he was appointed national team coach in May 2018. While Langer was not without his own reservations, wanting to get a stronger sense of where Warner and the team were at before a lengthy reintegration process began, he offered far more carrot than stick to the ex-vice-captain.

"He's a really good young bloke and he made a mistake," Langer said at the time. "I love the way he plays his cricket. The way he runs between the wickets, the way he fields, the way he bats - they're things that for the less-trained eye, you might not respect as much."

So it was that Warner and Smith were reintegrated, by way of net sessions in Australia, a team visit in the UAE, a World Cup preparation camp in Brisbane, and innumerable phone calls, text exchanges and coffee catch-ups. Warner all the while kept a commendable silence, not seeking any platform for self-justification, and grinding out runs wherever he was permitted to play.

Even so, his return to Australian ranks had been halting prior to the century against Pakistan that underlined his exceedingly rare ability, turning a bowler-friendly day into a head start of 146 without loss that was still standing when Australia finally secured victory in the Taunton twilight. A pair of scratchy innings against Afghanistan and India, either side of a brief one against the West Indies, suggested he was not yet at home. The hundred, Langer now reckons, will be remembered as the knock that sealed his return.

"You can see in his eyes how determined he is to be back playing for Australia," Langer said. "When you score a hundred, it is almost like there is no better feeling in the world. I listened to the press conference you had with him, he can only explain how he felt, but for us if you score a hundred it's almost like, 'righto, I am back, I am back'. And that's a good thing.

"That's a nice feeling I am sure for him and it's a nice feeling for us that you can score some runs. Hundreds, they are the milestone, they are the reward. In a lot of ways, that's a really great reward for him."

Recognition, both for Warner and team-mates, that his singular match-winning skills remain very much intact, was distinct from regaining respect. This, Langer argued, had been generated long ago by the way Warner set about the time he had away from international cricket.

"Honestly, when you pay the price that he has paid for 12 months, and see him come back with a smile on his face and super fit, he didn't have to earn back any respect," Langer said. "Everyone knew what he has been through the last 12 months. They also know what a great player he is. He has always had the respect as a player. He is a really good young bloke and he has come back with a smile on his face, he is fit, he had respect as soon as he came in."

Langer has observed Warner's batting with optimism but also realism. He is looking for Warner the batsman, not Warner the hitter, perhaps with half an eye towards the Ashes. The Taunton century was Warner's first international hundred in England or Wales after also touring in 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2017. He has some ground to make up in the UK.

"There is a bit of talk about how he was going. He has done an unbelievable job for the team in all games we have played so far," Langer said. "You saw how emotional he was and how much it meant to him. It meant a lot to all of us as well."

If there was a criticism of Warner from Langer it was this: from where he set the team's platform, a far bigger score was in the offing against Pakistan, and Australia's subsequent decline needed to be seen as falling at least somewhat in his lap.

"I think we probably left 50 or 60 runs. It was a really very frustrating last 15 overs for us with the bat with the way Aaron and Davey started. We had a perfect platform and went a bit away from our game plan there," Langer said. "I remember Brian Lara used to always say, if you have a good day, have a great day because you have a lot of bad days in cricket. As very, very good as it was for Davey, he probably missed out on having a great day for himself and for the team and great players are frustrated about that."

But like Australia, with three wins from four games without having played particularly well, there is plenty more to come from Warner's bat. "It's a fickle game. You never want to mess with mother cricket," Langer said. "He will just keep preparing well and we'll make sure he stays nice and relaxed and enjoying his cricket because people with talent like that, when they are relaxed and well prepared, they perform. He has done that his whole career and hopefully he continues to do that."

Warner, having messed up before, is unlikely ever to do so again.

Chatter, analysis and some silliness from the World Cup 2019. If the blog doesn't load, please refresh the page. Also, ball-by-ball commentary can be found here.

The Papua New Guinea cricket board has suspended 10 of its Under-19 players for a year for bringing the game into disrepute. The sanction is in relation to their conduct in Japan, where they were favourites to win a qualifying tournament for the Under-19 World Cup in 2020; however, 10 players missed a crucial game against Japan and the team had to forfeit the game because they didn't have enough players to field an XI.

Cricket PNG chief executive Greg Campbell said: "The behaviour of our players is not what we would expect from international cricketers of any age. The players have expressed sincere regret at their actions and in addition to their suspension from cricket, they will undertake a comprehensive rehabilitation programme over the next 12 months."

ICC General Counsel and COO Iain Higgins added: "This has been a highly unusual incident by a group of young players and I would like to thank Cricket PNG for acting swiftly and decisively. It sends out a clear message that the sport will not tolerate this sort of behaviour at ICC events.

"We are obviously extremely disappointed with the behavior of the players, but we are satisfied that Cricket PNG has delivered a suitable and proportionate sanction and programme for rehabilitation. Therefore, the ICC will not take any further action against any of the players."

In addition to being suspended, the 10 players will take part in 60 hours of community service and also attend a counselling programme.

Sri Lanka team manager Ashantha de Mel has complained to the ICC about the "unfair" pitches he feels Sri Lanka have had to play their matches on, as well as the less-than-ideal training facilities and accommodation.

Although their two most-recent matches were washouts in Bristol, Sri Lanka had begun the tournament on two green decks in Cardiff, where they lost to New Zealand and narrowly beat Afghanistan. In the approach to their match against Australia at The Oval - a venue that has seen high-scoring games thus far - de Mel believes Sri Lanka have been saddled with another green track. As seaming conditions will ostensibly aid Australia, de Mel is unhappy.

"What we have found out is that for the four matches we have played so far at Cardiff and Bristol, the ICC has prepared a green pitch," he told Daily News. "At the same venues, the other countries have played on pitches are brown and favourable for high scoring.

"The pitch being prepared for our match against Australia on Saturday here at The Oval is green. It is not sour grapes that we are complaining. But it is very unfair on the part of the ICC that they prepare one type of wicket for certain teams and another type for others."

There have been other inconveniences too, according to de Mel, which he said he has officially brought to the ICC's notice.

"Even the practice facilities provided at Cardiff were unsatisfactory. Instead of three nets they gave us only two, and the hotel we were put up at Bristol did not have a swimming pool, which is very essential for every team - for the fast bowlers, especially, to relax their muscles after practice," he said. "The hotels that Pakistan and Bangladesh were put up at Bristol had swimming pools.

"We wrote to the ICC listing all these shortcomings four days ago but so far we have not had any response from them. We will continue to write to them until we get a reply."

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Golden State Warriors stars Stephen Curry and Draymond Green remain confident that the team's five-year run of dominance is not ready to end after it fell to the Toronto Raptors in the NBA Finals.

"We'll be thinking about this one. it's tough," Curry said after Thursday night's 114-110 loss in Game 6. "But our DNA and who we are and the character that we have on this team, I wouldn't bet against us being back on this stage next year and going forward. So really proud of the way that we fought until the end and this five-year run's been awesome, but definitely don't think it's over."

Curry's remarks came before the team announced that Warriors swingman Klay Thompson had torn the ACL in his left knee. That emotional blow comes just three days after Warriors star forward Kevin Durant ruptured the Achilles tendon in his right foot.

Green echoed Curry's sentiments, remaining buoyed by the fact the Warriors have dealt with so many emotional highs and lows over the past five years.

"I think everybody thinks it's kind of the end of us," Green said. "But that's just not smart. We're not done yet. We lost this year. Clearly just wasn't our year, but that's how the cookie crumbles sometimes. But, yeah, I hear a lot of that noise, it's the end of a run and all that jazz. I don't see it happening though. We'll be back."

Before the Thompson news, Green was one of several teammates to praise Thompson for the way he competed before leaving Thursday night's game in the third quarter with the injury. Thompson injured his left hamstring in Game 2 and had to sit out Game 3 before returning to help the Warriors the rest of the series.

"Probably the guy that got the most heart on this team," Green said of Thompson. "It's not really the most popular opinion, but as a guy who's been with Klay for seven years, I don't know many people with as much heart as Klay. So the way he was playing, as aggressive as he was, he was carrying us, and when he went down, obviously we lose a lot."

The Warriors now face the strong possibility that even if they are able to retain both Durant and Thompson this summer in free agency, they will miss both All-Stars for most -- if not all -- of next season.

Warriors head coach Steve Kerr spoke with pride about the way his team battled until the end of this series, as it dealt with multiple injuries along the way, including Kevon Looney playing through a nondisplaced first costal cartilage fracture on his right side.

"It's hard to put into words how I feel about our team," Kerr said. "What I've witnessed as their coach over the last five years is just an incredible combination of talent and character and commitment to each other. This just doesn't happen. A group of guys like this doesn't come around together and do what they did over the last five years. And I've been lucky enough to be their coach. That's what I told them in the locker room.

"I can't tell you my gratitude in terms of just being put in this position to be with this group and to coach them and to help them. But I could not be any luckier as a coach to be with these guys every day and to watch them compete and, boy, do they compete. I think they showed that throughout this series and throughout the playoffs."

As sad as the Warriors felt about losing the series, Green admitted there was some solace to be taken in the way in which the group played and fought until the end.

"Obviously, you feel good about it, but it's no shocker to us," Green said. "We know what this team has been made of all along. I said it over and over again, the pretty offense will always be the storyline, but this team, a ton of heart. Everybody that steps on that floor displayed a ton of heart. So it's no shocker to us that we continue to fight, but we came up a little short and that's just it."

OAKLAND, Calif. -- The Toronto Raptors are NBA champions.

With a 114-110 victory over the Golden State Warriors in Game 6 of the NBA Finals on Thursday night, the Raptors capped a dramatic series filled with twists and turns, lifting the Larry O'Brien Trophy for the first time in franchise history.

In a game totally in keeping with the tense, taut nature of this best-of-seven affair, the Raptors stormed out to an early lead, thanks to the play of embattled point guard Kyle Lowry, who scored Toronto's first 11 points of the game. But the Warriors quickly responded and the teams went back and forth, racking up 14 lead changes in the first half alone.

Eventually, the Raptors managed to pull ahead, thanks to some clutch shotmaking by Fred VanVleet, whose 3-pointer from the top of the key with 3 minutes, 44 seconds left put Toronto ahead for good and sent the Raptors on their way to the title so many thought this team would never win.

Just a year ago, Toronto was reeling from being ousted from the playoffs for a third straight time by LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Raptors had fired their coach and were contemplating blowing up the roster. They traded for Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green in the summer, then added Marc Gasol at the trade deadline.

"It was a heck of a 12 months," Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. "I just try to take things as they come. Didn't look too far ahead. Obviously when we made some additions to the team, we thought we could be good, but we had no idea what the health status was and all those things.

"You just got to go take the guys you got and go play and manage it the best you can."

The Raptors -- through a combination of timing and circumstance -- formed the best defensive unit Golden State has seen during its run to five straight NBA Finals. They thwarted the Warriors, blunted their runs, stymied the kinds of surges that have overwhelmed opponents in so many games.

That was always especially true at Oracle Arena, where Golden State has been so dominant during this dynasty. And yet, with Thursday night's win, Toronto swept all four games it played in this building this season -- the most obvious example of just how different this Raptors team is from the ones that came before it.

"They're a fantastic basketball team," Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. "Great defensively, share the ball, play a beautiful style, a lot of great two-way players and a lot of veteran players who have been in this league contributing for a long time, so I'm very happy for them.

"Winning a championship is the ultimate in this league, and they have got a lot of guys who have earned this. ... They are a worthy champion."

Of course, the story of Toronto's defense, and its triumph in this series, can't be told without including Kevin Durant's presence for just 11 minutes, 57 seconds in it.

After sitting out the first four games, Durant returned for Game 5. When he planted his right foot to drive past Raptors big man Serge Ibaka on the right wing at the 9:51 mark of the second quarter, he crumpled to the floor, having ruptured his Achilles tendon.

Then Klay Thompson, who had missed Game 3 because of a hamstring strain, suffered a torn ACL in his left knee late in the third quarter of Game 6. While the Warriors maintained the lead for a while -- and were ahead at multiple points in the fourth quarter -- eventually the battle of attrition became too much to overcome.

But it isn't fair to Toronto, and its accomplishments, to label this as the Raptors winning because Durant and Thompson were hurt. Toronto was battle-tested and deep, filled with veteran players who knew their roles, and a team that knew what it was fighting for. The Raptors emerged from two knock-down, drag-out fights in the previous two rounds, better for the experience and fully formed into the team they knew they could be. They were fresher, deeper, hungrier and, yes, better.

And, after being tied 101-101 with the hobbled Warriors with four minutes left, Toronto outscored Golden State 13-9 the rest of the way to ensure this series didn't have to go back to Scotiabank Arena for a Game 7 on Sunday night.

The Raptors earned every bit of this. When they got blown out by the Philadelphia 76ers in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, they were declared extinct. The same thing happened when they were blown out by the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals. And again when Toronto failed to close out both Game 2 and Game 5 of these NBA Finals at Scotiabank Arena -- both games the Raptors could have easily won.

Each time, though, Toronto refused to return to the "same old Raptors" they had always been. Part of that comes from the fact these are not the same old Raptors. Leonard is not DeMar DeRozan. Green is not Terrence Ross. Gasol is not Jonas Valanciunas. Nurse is not Dwane Casey.

Part of it, though, comes from experience. The players who have been in Toronto for the past few seasons -- Lowry, Pascal Siakam, Ibaka, VanVleet and Norman Powell -- have tasted playoff disappointment. Lowry, in particular, had been one of the pillars -- alongside Casey and DeRozan -- of both the good and bad parts of the past few years north of the border. So it was fitting that, on this night, he had the game of his life, scoring Toronto's first 11 points of the game, finishing the first half with 21 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists and going on to post totals of 26, 7 and 10.

"I wanted to be aggressive," Lowry said. "I look back at every game we've played and that we've won I've shot double-figure times. And I was more aggressive. The games, I think besides Game 1, but other games, all the other games we won, I was more aggressive offensively, makes or misses. But people thought that we were kind of going to be like, 'Man, we gave away Game 5.' But the group of guys that we have, we have been able to stay level-headed the whole time and understanding that we had a team that was going to come out here and play extremely hard, fans were going to be loud, and they were going to fight to the death.

"That's the one thing about that group, they fought to the death. And they got some great guys down there, great coaches, and we tip our hats to those guys because they, they're the definition of champions."

Before this series began, Ibaka said he still felt bitter about letting the Warriors come back from down 3-1 in the 2016 Western Conference finals when he was still with the Oklahoma City Thunder -- robbing him of a chance to return to the NBA Finals. Gasol, meanwhile, became the face of the "Grit 'n' Grind" Grizzlies in Memphis, but that team, too, could never quite measure up to the elite teams in the West. Leonard saw his brilliant run in San Antonio end in confusion and anger on both sides last season. Green was used as salary filler to make Leonard's exit from San Antonio take place.

Throughout these playoffs, all of them, at different times, stepped up and helped propel these Raptors along, and helped lift this franchise to a place that it never seemed it could reach.

It is Golden State that, during this Steve Kerr era, has proclaimed "Strength In Numbers" as its mantra. In this series, though, it was Toronto that had the deeper, stronger, more versatile roster -- and it was that which ultimately pushed the Raptors over the finish line.

But it was Siakam who couldn't handle a pass from Green -- after a pair of Stephen Curry free throws -- that gave Golden State the ball back with 9.6 seconds left, and a chance to win the game with any basket.

In the end, it wasn't meant to be. Andre Iguodala's heave to Draymond Green set up a shovel pass to Curry, who got a clean look for what would have been an incredible turnaround. But rather than dropping through the net, like the sellout crowd was hoping for, it clanged off the back iron, and bounded away as one player after another dove on the floor in pursuit.

"The shot was one I take 10 out of 10 times," Curry said. "And we ran a play that was kind of, we got a decent look off of kind of a bobbled catch, and I could see the rim, so I shot it. I'll live with that. We always talk about that, myself and Klay, in terms of shots that we take, you live with it.

"I would shoot that shot every day of the week."

Ultimately, Golden State was called for a technical for attempting to call a timeout when it had none. And, after the final formalities were dispensed with, Toronto found itself with the championship it has waited more than two decades to get.

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Five years ago, he slayed a giant when he won Finals MVP in leading the San Antonio Spurs over the two-time champ Miami Heat. On Thursday night, Kawhi Leonard became a superteam killer again when he finished off the Golden State Warriors' two-year run as champions and again earned the Bill Russell Trophy.

The Toronto Raptors star capped an historic postseason by reaching an historic achievement: the first player in history to win Finals MVP with a team from each conference. Leonard earned the honor following the Raptors' 114-110 Game 6 victory to close out a 4-2 series win.

"This is what I play basketball for,'' Leonard said. "This is what I work out for.''

Leonard averaged 28.5 points per game on 43 percent shooting in the Finals, but he had probably his least impact in the clincher, scoring 22 points with six rebounds on a night when he got great help from his supporting cast.

But if there were an award to honor the best player of the entire postseason, Leonard likely would have captured that as well as he led everyone in points, rebounds and steals over the last two months. He's the first player to lead in all three of those statistical categories since Larry Bird in 1984.

"I think he's the best two-way basketball player in the NBA," Raptors guard Kyle Lowry said. "He just goes. You know, I've seen some stuff from him this year that you just say, 'Wow.' You do. You say, 'Wow.' You appreciate the work that he's put in. He works extremely hard at his game and works extremely hard on his body. And he loves this basketball thing. Loves it."

Leonard won his first Finals MVP in 2014 with the San Antonio Spurs, a series in which he averaged 17.4 points and 6.2 rebounds and won the honor largely for his defense on James.

This performance was even more dominating, especially in Games 3 and 4 at Golden State when he delivered back-to-back power performances that enabled the Raptors to take control of the series. His 15-point third quarter in Game 3 got the Raptors leverage to take the lead in the series. Then his 17-point third quarter in Game 4 was perhaps the most command performance of the playoffs.

In Game 5, he scored 10 points in a two-minute span in the fourth quarter that nearly was the exclamation point on the title before the Warriors' late run to take the game.

"Without a doubt, the best thing about this thing is that somehow I wound up on the sideline getting to watch this guy play up close,'' said Raptors coach Nick Nurse, who won an NBA title in his first season as a head coach in the league. "It's really cool.''

The lists Leonard joins with this performance are the elite of the elite. He's just the third player to win the Russell Trophy with two teams, the others being Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Bucks and Lakers) and LeBron James (Cavaliers and Heat). He's the fourth player to win Finals MVP in his first season with a team, joining Magic Johnson with the Lakers in 1980, Moses Malone with the Philadelphia 76ers in 1983 and Kevin Durant with the Warriors in 2017.

This MVP came after Leonard missed most of the 2017-18 season with the Spurs due to injury.

"I just kept working hard, working hard, and had my mind set on this goal right here," Leonard said. "I came to a team, a new coast -- that mindset was the same as mine, trying to get that Larry [O'Brien championship] trophy there. And this is what I play basketball for; this is what I work out for all summer [and] during the season. And I'm happy that my hard work paid off."

Leonard scored 732 points in the postseason, third-most in NBA history behind Michael Jordan (759 in 1992) and LeBron James (748 in 2018).

Leonard will now turn his focus toward free agency. He has until June 26 to exercise a $21.3 million player option for next season, which he is expected to decline and become an unrestricted free agent on June 30.

A maximum contract for Leonard with the Raptors would be $190 million over five years. If he were to sign with another team, he could sign for $140 million over four years. He would also have the options to sign shorter-term deals. Because he has eight years of experience, one strategy would be to return to free agency in 2021 when, as a 10-year free agent, he could sign for significantly more.

"I'm 'bout to enjoy this with my teammates and coaches, and I'll think about that later," Leonard said.

No matter what Leonard chooses, next season his max salary would start at roughly $33 million, which explains why he'd opt out of his deal no matter his team preference.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Golden State Warriors swingman Klay Thompson suffered a torn ACL in his left knee in Thursday night's Game 6 of the NBA Finals, the team announced.

Thompson was hurt with 2 minutes, 22 seconds left in the third quarter after he went up for a breakaway dunk and was fouled by Toronto Raptors guard Danny Green with Golden State leading 83-80. Thompson came down hard and immediately grabbed the knee while writhing on the floor in pain.

The Warriors ruled Thompson out for the rest of the game, and he left the building on crutches, much the same way Kevin Durant did after rupturing an Achilles tendon in Game 5.

Thompson left the game in the midst of another great performance in the Finals. He had 30 points in 32 minutes, going 8-for-12 from the field and pulling down five rebounds. But it wasn't enough -- the Raptors won 114-110 to finish off a 4-2 series victory and capture their first NBA championship.

Asked what went through his head when Thompson went down, Warriors coach Steve Kerr said, "It's amazement that we're sitting in this position with -- during the game, we have a chance to win the game and force a Game 7, go back to Toronto -- you just think, 'How? How has this group of guys put themselves in position to do it?' And then, as I said, when Klay goes down and is out for the game, it's just sort of a, 'You gotta be kidding me. This has to stop.'

"But it's just -- the way it's gone, I don't know if it's related to five straight seasons of playing 100-plus games and just all the wear and tear, but it's devastating."

Moments after he was injured, Thompson got up to his feet and was taken toward the locker room with the help of Warriors big men Jonas Jerebko and Jordan Bell on either side of him.

After making it about halfway to the locker room, Thompson turned around and headed back to the floor to take his free throws. If another player had taken the free throws, Thompson wouldn't have been allowed to return to the game.

Thompson's re-emergence on the floor received a raucous standing ovation from the crowd inside sold-out Oracle Arena.

Thompson proceeded to knock down both free throws, giving Golden State an 85-80 lead as Warriors fans chanted "MVP! MVP!" The Warriors fouled on the ensuing possession to get him back to the locker room to be checked out by the team's medical staff.

"It's just tough in terms of a guy like Klay that left it all out there," Warriors guard Stephen Curry said. "He was playing amazing tonight. And to see a freak play like that where he lands awkwardly. I don't know the diagnosis yet, but you think about the person and the guy and how much he loves to play the game and that's the only thoughts you have. It's really not about what it means in terms of playing basketball. It's just I'm more concerned about him as an individual."

Thursday night's scene was eerily reminiscent of the scene surrounding Durant's injury.

Warriors general manager Bob Myers and Warriors director of sports medicine and performance Rick Celebrini walked behind Thompson as he made his way back to the locker room, much like they did with Durant on Monday night.

Thompson suffered a left hamstring injury in Game 2 of the series and was forced to miss Game 3, despite pushing to play. He returned and was a stalwart for the beleaguered Warriors group throughout the series.

"Obviously he's a warrior," Warriors center DeMarcus Cousins said. "He's a true definition of a warrior. Dude [was] basically on one leg, and he's still trying to come out to play. To have a teammate like that, that's all you can ever ask for. Love that dude to death. I'd go to battle with him any night."