The Clippers will among the teams ready to pounce if the Spurs decide to trade Kawhi Leonard this summer, reports Sam Amick of USA Today.
Leonard would offer L.A. a chance to rebuild quickly after missing the playoffs for the first time in seven seasons. Clippers consultant Jerry West is known to be a huge fan of Leonard, who grew up in Moreno Valley near Los Angeles. Amick speculates that the team would be willing to part with both first rounders in this year’s draft (its own, plus the Pistons’ pick if it falls outside the top four), along with whatever else is necessary to land Leonard.
Speculation about Leonard’s future in San Antonio increased today when he didn’t join the team for its playoff opener at Golden State. Leonard recently made his second trip of the season to New York to consult with his personal physicians about a lingering quad injury, and Pau Gasol said Spurs players haven’t seen their teammate for several weeks.
Leonard has remained in contact with several players and texted at least one of them this morning, Amick notes, but his absence enforced the idea that his behind-the-scenes relationship with the organization isn’t good, especially when contrasted with injured Warriors’ star Stephen Curry sitting alongside his teammates and supporting them throughout the game.
Twitter was filled with comments from media members and Spurs fans blasting Leonard for his absence, relays Chris Quinn of The San Antonio Express-News.
Leonard, who played just nine games this season, will be eligible for a Designated Veteran Extension this summer that would pay him $219MM over five seasons. He can opt out of his current deal and become a free agent in 2019, so the Spurs may decide to move him if they can’t work out an extension.
Prob both picks this year and Harris
That’s hardly worth Leonard, I hope they could have better offer than that. Though I don’t know if they can anymore, looking back on the Irving and griffin trades.
Throw in Avery Bradley as well. Spurs wanted him at the trade deadline.
Bradley can’t be included as a free agent. A Harris and two middling picks seems very thin compared to what others like BOS and even CLE might be able to offer. Maybe if they also agree to take on Mills and/or Pau’s long-term money too? If I’m the Spurs, I say OK LAC first show us you can use those two picks to move up in the draft order.
He’s a great player but he quit on his team. Just my opinion
As a spurs fan I’m really disappointed in kawhi. I am all for him healing if he needs to, but say something. Let the fans and your team know what the heck is going on with the injury. And if you’re not going to support your team at the game court side like curry, then actually rehab, and not play fortnite during the slaughtering of your team. At this point I don’t expect him to play for us ever again, and I almost wish he’d demand a trade. At least at that point fans like me aren’t speculating and we can finally be at peace with the fact that he’s not coming back.
The Lakers have way more to offer…
Don’t see the Lakers moving anyone actually. These fantasies about Lebron and George getting together need to be put to rest. The Lakers will move forward with Ball,Hart,Ingram,Kuzma, and Randle.
Somehow this is the most rational thing I have ever seen you accumulate in one paragraph. Congrats Dionis.
People don’t understand the man isn’t going to come back playing at 60-70 percent so he can get lowballed next summer. His game is predicated on defense and you need to be 100 percent on a quad to be at your best so I don’t blame him for not playing. Knowing Jerry West he can bring Kawhi to LA and re-sign Jordan. Just don’t know how he would fill out the rest of the team, what would we be looking at?
Beverley-Rivers-Leonard-Harrell-Jordan
That’s a 5th-6th seed in the West barring injury.
You can also say that he’ll get low balled anyway because he didn’t come back when cleared, didn’t travel with the team, put distance between himself and probably the most liked coach in the NBA, and didn’t quiet all the questions as to how serious the injury actually is.
As for that clippers lineup you have listed, that’s three first team defenders you have there. Not too shabby.
I could see pistons offering a package of Drummond and Jackson with there 2020 1st round pick to try and pair Kawhi with Blake Griffin
Kawhi and Blake would be pretty sick but who’s running point if Reggie is gone? If Kawhi and Blake can stay healthy they can most definitely become a top 3 seed in the East it’s just the point guard situation. Popovich would make Drummond the best center in the game.
You could probably find a point fairly easily. Perhaps trading a 2nd round pick to the Knicks for Burke or Mudiay. Neither has shown that much, but a full season with a Leonard/Griffin combo could work wonders. Charlotte may have a PG available too.
You could also go the FA route with a vet like Felton or Rondo or a relatively young hopeful like Shane Larkin or Michael Carter-Williams.
Anyway, the point is that it is a lot easier to find a fill in PG than to find a player of Leonard’s caliber.
That sounds fine to me. Let them team up and see who can miss more games between the two of them. They would be the perfect “Blown Pistons Duo”.
Spurs wouldn’t pull that. Jackson was being offered for a bag of rocks before the deadline. Drummond was shipped before the season began. If the Spurs are going to move Leonard, it’ll be someone with multiple first rounders that are near the top – like the Suns.
What do you mean by Drummond was shipped before the season?
I think he meant shopped.
Who they gonna offer? Lou will and Tobias? Kawhi wouldnt resign with just DeAndre, and that’s if he sticks around.
Boston is still gonna have the best offer
If San Antonio can get Jaylen Brown from the Celtics you make the deal. Jaylen Brown is a 6’7 super athletic 2-3 who can become even more dynamic then Kawhi was under Pop. Not to mention he’s developing a lot quicker then Kawhi did. If I was San Antonio I would ask for Brown and Hayward.
Brown and Tatum and it’s a deal.
Brown, Tatum and Kings pick gets it done.
Brown, Tatum,and the Kings pick would definitely get the deal done, from the Spurs perspective. There’s no way Ainge is saying yea to that though.
Hayward literally wouldn’t happen. If anything they could try to unload horford and a young player just depends which they pick. Both Tatum and brown are nice and starting their careers nicely
Trading for 1 year of Kawhi. Think PG13, they only got Dipo and Sabonis. Dipo at the time was thought of as a nice player, and he turned in an all star year. Harris is a nice player under contract, that’s the start of the convo, but he’s only under contract for 1 year.
Only got Dipo and Sabonis??? That was more than they could have ever expected for the very overrated PG.
You’re using your Monday morning QB analysis. At the time it was NOT viewed as a good deal for the Pacers it was “that’s all they got?”
No, if you thought Sabonis would get better then you thought it was a good trade at the time. Oladipo averaged approximately 6 points less than PG did the prior season in an offense dominated by Westbrook. PG was “the show” in Indy. So it seemed like a pretty good possibility that Oladipo would get better offensively. Defensively, he’s always been consistent (for his position). Add in Sabonis and it looked like a good trade at the time. I guess the Pacers must have agreed too!
It’s not 1 year of Leonard, that’s just BOS fan trying to drive down his value. The whole point is he thinks the spurs have a crap roster, and he wants to win now. There are fewer better situations for the next 5 years than Boston with Irving, Hayward, Hartford and Leonard.
When the league gifts the #1 pick to the Cavs, that pick will be the center piece for the Leonard trade.
If they got #1 you take Ayton.
The guys at the top of the draft are so similar, if I had #1 I would trade down to about 6-7 and pick up an extra player/pick or two. The difference between Ayton and Mo Bamba or Michael Porter isn’t really that much. Ayton would have to end up as a Shaq type player for it to be a mistake and I just don’t see that happening.
If Leonard would ensure signing long term, how about a deal with the Wolves headlined by Wiggins?
Wiggins hasn’t turned out quite like everyone expected.
The guy is averaging 20 PPG for his four year career and is only 23 years old, so what exactly did you expect? Perhaps the fault is not with him, but in the expectations that he become the greatest player of all time before he turns 25.
Nah, Wiggins seems like Rudy Gay 2.0. Nice career numbers on a bad team, but missing something upstairs.
That doesn’t even make sense. The team is trash regardless, Leonard would just upgrade them to recyclables.
I still think BOS has the best package of interest to Spurs. Tatum, Brown, (filler like Baynes), Kings 2019 Pick, and a right to swap for the 2020 Memphis pick gets it done.
They’re not trading Tatum Nd brown. Brown, rozier and a pick, maybe horford to match salary.
Brown and Sacto’s pick in the 8-11 range NEXT year won’t be enough. I’m not sure Tatum and that pick alone gets it done. Spurs will insist on both Brown and Tatum.
Also, Celtic fan needs to stop overrating Rozier. It’s like Spur fan who overrates, Kyle Anderson, Davis Bertans, and all their mid/late 20 draft picks, etc.
Leonard to Clippers…jerry west will mastermind that. He is a LA kid. He might not want to play for doc/son…so we will watch that. Pop played this all wrong….having tony Parker say crap in the press….Pop’s act is getting old….he was a complete jerk to the female reporter during the game. Lakers can have PG…Clippers get KL…..if he is healthy.
Pop’s act was amazing this year, given the spur’s record compared to their talent. Leonard’s pseudo-holdout may have been a commentary on the talent.
Clippers don’t have enough. Celtics and Lakers other hand do if the part with Ingram or Brown.
Boston can only pull it off if one of Hayward or Horford were included, the other potential salaries won’t match.
As a realist Spurs fan, I think to Z-A’s point above that KL has lost some value, and the offers may not be as good as some would think. I may actually be in favour of a Clips offer if it includes Harris, Beverley and the two 1st’s.
KL, like anyone who’s going into the last year of their contract, is less of an asset than he is a player. SA is the team with the issue, so they can’t expect other teams to match even that value. The LA teams both make sense, but the package is likely to be underwhelming, or be based on mostly future assets. Boston doesn’t really.
We’ll see. Teams have thrown max deals at injured players in the offseason and not even blinked. It’s the same reason that the Spurs HAVE to offer the designated player deal this summer. Also, there is ample evidence here that he has largely recovered from the injury itself, and that something else might be going on.
It also feels like Kawhi is too nice (or scared) to say that he didn’t like spurs’ offseason moves last year, including re-upping LMA. He’s looking around, seeing an aging team likely heading for a rebuild soon and wants to move on to a situation like Boston, Phlly, Cleveland (with Bron), or even the Lakers where the future looks brighter.
Offering KL a max deal in 2019-20 is a given (if you trade for him this offseason), but that doesn’t mean he will accept it. Team trading for him can’t give up so much that they are no longer an attractive team to him. If it’s all about $$ he’d re-up with the Spurs.
Yeah, but it’s one things if it’s the Suns and other if it’s the Celtics. That’s a nasty team, the likes of which Leonard would want to compete with for years to come. Aside from maybe Philly and wherever Bron goes, I don’t see a better situation.
If i were miami, I’d go to san antonio and tell them to take whatever they want in exchange for him.
It’s quite possible that there’s a lot more wrong with Leonard than we know. And would be worthless. Just speculating. Not hating.
Offering KL a max deal in 2019-20 is a given (if you trade for him this offseason), but that doesn’t mean he will accept it. Team trading for him can’t give up so much that they are no longer an attractive team to him. If it’s all about $$ he’d re-up with the Spurs.
If West says Leomard is a good fit for the mediocre situation the Clippers are in I will believe it.
But not sure I would want to offer as much for Leonard as some of these suggestions. He either bailed on his team or has a funny muscle condition; IDK which is worse. He never had a positive nature. He was lucky to get drafted by Popovich but is dismissing that. No communication with fans. He might be spiraling down.
I doubt Boston deals Brown or Tatum or at all. If Lebron is too much bully-ness for The Process then Leonard is too. Detroit and Charlotte are in a Clipperlike situation.
BTW the Clipper picks, prob 12&13, are in good positions this year. I would NOT also offer Tobias Harris and another $4+ mil or so of player also.
If anything we see you never get equal value for superstars. Teams who can offer the most tend to get trumped by the deals us fans deem wtf. With that said if I’m Clips and it’s going to cost me both my picks, I’m asking for 18 and 46. Offer 12, A Rivers, Gallo, Wes future protected for Kawhi. I could see a poo platter like that get it done.