Kawhi Leonard is going back to Toronto, and the deal that has been frozen since June is finally about to thaw.
The Raptors and Clippers agreed to the trade on June 30. It was immediately put on hold while the NBA finished investigating whether Los Angeles circumvented the salary cap to pay Leonard through no-show endorsement arrangements. With that investigation closed and the penalties handed down, the league is waiting for both teams to formally submit the deal.
ESPN’s Shams Charania reports it should be finalized within days.
The package
Toronto sends Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, two future first-round picks, two second-round picks and one first-round pick swap to Los Angeles in exchange for Leonard.
That is a substantial haul, and it is worth noting the terms did not change despite everything that happened in between. The Clippers had no leverage to renegotiate and the Raptors had no reason to walk. The deal that was agreed in June is the deal that gets processed.
Toronto is chasing a memory, and that is fine
Leonard won a championship in Toronto in 2019 and left immediately after. Seven years later, the Raptors are bringing him back at 35, on a body that has spent most of the last five seasons in rehab.
The basketball case is thin if you are being honest. Leonard has not played a full season since 2017. The Raptors are giving up Ingram, a young shooter in Dick, and meaningful draft capital for a player whose availability is the least reliable thing about him.
The case that makes sense is the one nobody says out loud. Toronto has been stuck in the middle for four years, drawing modest crowds and no national attention. Leonard is the only player alive who can make that arena feel like 2019 again, and Masai Ujiri’s successors clearly decided that mattered.
What the Clippers get
Ingram is a legitimate scorer who was misused in Toronto’s system. Dick is a shooter on a rookie deal, which is precisely the asset type the Clippers can no longer draft for themselves. And the picks are the whole point given the five-year first-round blackout.
For a franchise with nothing but bad options, this is a decent outcome. They turned a player who was at the center of a league investigation into the beginning of a rebuild.
The verdict
Toronto is taking the bigger risk and will have the more entertaining season. Los Angeles is taking the sensible medicine and will be unwatchable.
Both teams got what they wanted. Only one of them will enjoy it.
Sources
- https://www.nba.com/news/raptors-clippers-kawhi-leonard-trade
- https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/raptors-clippers-official-kawhi-leonard-154051586.html
- https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/nba-insider-reveals-timeline-kawhi-135510184.html
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
