I looked it up. He worked with Hoffman on a movie called La Brava that never got made because he rewrote the script a dozen times and everytime he met with him he had a new director and changed his mind. Finally he told Hoffman that he’d been working for six months and never got paid. Hoffman told him he’d get paid later. Leonard’s agent laughed his Obama off when he heard that. That was the end of the project.
Get Shorty had a character that Hoffman thought was based on him and most certainly was.