There are some NBA trades that, if you had brought the idea up six months earlier, it would have gotten you laughed out of the room.
Trade ideas like Kawhi Leonard returning to Toronto. If someone had said that to you at your work Christmas party last year, you would have said “sure, buddy” as you slowly started to back away. Yet here we are. Kawhi Leonard is returning to Toronto in a blockbuster trade that sends an All-NBA wing back to the place he last won a ring.
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Who were the winners and losers in the Leonard trade? Actually, I’m not sure there were any losers — not everyone is a winner, and there is some “meh,” but trying to find a real loser was a stretch. Let’s break it all down, and we’ll start with a reminder of what this trade entails.
Toronto receives: Kawhi Leonard
The LA Clippers receive: Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, two unprotected first-round picks (2031 and 2033), a 2027 first-round pick swap, two second-rounder picks (2030 and 2033).
Winner: Kawhi Leonard
More than staying home in Southern California, what Kawhi Leonard really wanted was to get paid. The Los Angeles Clippers would not give the 35-year-old with a lengthy injury history the extension he wanted. Part of that was the Clippers were looking to pivot to a younger team, James Harden and Ivica Zubac were traded at the deadline. So if Leonard wanted to stay with the Clippers, he was going to do it on their terms. The sides were well apart.
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Leonard went out and found someone who wanted to pay him. The Raptors and Leonard will work out a two-year contract extension, but at a number he likes a lot more than what the Clippers offered.
Toronto also is somewhere he can compete at a high level — if he stays healthy and everything goes right.
* = Leonard is healthy.
On paper, there’s a lot to like about the Raptors’ roll of the dice on Leonard.
Defensively, pairing Leonard and Scottie Barnes gives the Raptors two perimeter players who can match up with nearly anyone in the league. On offense, the Raptors struggled with consistent shot creation last season, especially in the halfcourt, which was particularly evident when they ran into the Cavaliers in the playoffs. Leonard fixes that. He is almost impossible to keep off his spots and never seems to miss once he gets there. He is a genuine three-level scorer. Last season, he averaged a career-best 27.9 points per game, shooting 38.7% from beyond the arc. As he draws defenders to him, shooting space and driving lanes open up for Barnes, RJ Barrett and everyone else. Leonard fits with what the Raptors need.
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But there is the asterisk.
This only works if Kawhi Leonard is healthy, and that has been very hit-and-miss in recent years. He played 65 games last season, but in his seven seasons in Los Angeles, he reached that number twice. That is the big risk the Raptors are taking, that he will stay healthy and play, making everything else worth it.
If Leonard can’t stay healthy, the Raptors’ big swing misses, and they strike out as losers in the deal.
It’s a risk, but one worth taking for a good but not great Raptors team that needs what Leonard can offer.
Beige Flag: LA Clippers
How I feel about the Clippers in this trade is how I felt about Memphis in the Ja Morant deal: It’s not a great haul in return, but it was a move that needed to be made. It was time for the Clippers to move on from the Leonard/Paul George era.
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The reason I almost made this a win for the Clippers is the draft pick haul. Two unprotected firsts are a very good return for a 35-year-old (although part of it was for taking on those contracts the Raptors wanted off their books). Those picks especially matter to a team that very well may lose some of their own future draft picks as part of the punishment in the Aspiration/cap circumvention investigation, whenever that lands (the Clippers deny any wrongdoing, but in league circles the sense is the investigators found something and Adam Silver will bring the hammer down, although on the team, not really Leonard).
On the court, Ingram, paired with Darius Garland, gives the team some shot creation and will make the Clippers respectable, even in the deep West.
(As a side note, I am not tagging the Clippers as losers in this because the Leonard/George era didn’t result in a ring or even a trip to the Finals — you take that swing 10 times out of 10. Bringing in Leonard and George made a former laughing stock franchise relevant. The Clippers made good moves, it just did not work out.)
Winner: Sam Presti and the Thunder
Guess who controls the Clippers’ first-round pick next year? You guessed it, the team that seems to own every pick, the OKC Thunder.
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With a solid Clippers’ roster in a deep West, there is a reasonable chance the Clippers are headed to the lottery, but not likely the bottom three — they have too much talent — and so Oklahoma City could well have an 8.1% chance of getting the No. 1 pick next year, the best odds any team can get under the new lottery system. You know, the system that is supposed to keep the rich from getting richer.