It's definitely very sad to see Kawhi go. It's rare to see that level of greatness in any sport, on any team, and we were lucky enough to witness it for a year in Toronto. The performance he put in was Jordan-esque, and I think it's fair to say we'll never see another player like him play for the Raptors in our lifetime. Luckily, it culminated in a championship, and that can never be taken away. So I'm grateful for that.
While it would have been amazing to see him here for another year or two, the second it came out that he wasn't interested in a short-term deal, I knew the writing was on the wall. That was our only chance - for him to give the LA teams another season to get their houses in order.
But it turns our that Kawhi is as focused and methodical off the court as he is on it. When he has a goal, he keeps at it until he gets it done, even if unforeseen obstacles pop up.
His goal was to go home and play for the Clippers, and he set that goal early in 2017. It took him two years, but he got there. And man, he did it creatively. When Durant went to Brooklyn, he turned his attention to Butler. When Butler went to Miami, he recruited a player who was already under contract with another team. It was an incredible set of shrewd maneuvers from someone everyone thinks is this quiet, simple guy.
This article sums it up incredibly well:
Kawhi Leonard Made the Clippers Accept All the Risk to Earn Their Superteam
Kawhi exercised every bit of
the massive amount of power at his fingertips this offseason. He essentially looked around the league and picked what team he wanted to play on and what star he wanted to play with. Nothing was off limits. And no team was safe. It didn’t matter what Oklahoma City had done to make George happy over the past two seasons, just as it didn’t matter how much Toronto had done with Kawhi.
There was nothing Masai could do. And while Kawhi's end goal was delayed by one year, he did come here for a season and gave this franchise everything he had. I don't think anyone in management or the city would change the outcome, even if it stings a little now.
With that said, while I don't think Kawhi will ever regret going home, time will tell whether it was the right basketball decision. There are quite few questions, and it'll be interesting to see how this all unfolds.
Kawhi has been very up front about how health is his top priority, and how important "load management" was in enabling him to finish the playoffs. But the Raptors were in a unique situation to be able to take that approach.
• The entire organization (management and players) were willing to handle Kawhi with kid gloves because of how rare it was to have a player of his calibre in Toronto, and they were doing anything they could to recruit him to stay.
• The league didn't care that much, because the Raptors are up in Canada and don't get many prime-time US national games.
• The Raptors played in a relatively weak conference and could afford to sit their best player for 20+ games and still finish in the top 3.
LA might be a different story.
• Leonard is locked in for 4 years. They don't need to recruit him anymore. Are they willing to sit him for 1/4 of the season, even if he's healthy? And are players like George, Beverley and Williams going to sour on a guy who gets that type of special treatment, when they're putting their bodies on the line for the entire season?
• The Clippers are now the league's premier team, alongside the Lakers. They will be on national TV in the US every single week. They will be the hottest ticket on the road. Adam Silver has gone on record that how Toronto handled Kawhi was a "unique, one-off approach" and he doesn't think load management is acceptable around the league. How much pressure will the league exert on the Clippers to have Kawhi in the lineup as much as humanly possible?
• The West is going to be an absolute dogfight. Home court and favorable 1st, 2nd round matchups will be incredibly important. How much "coasting" will the Clippers be able to do?
I have no doubt that Kawhi's next 4 years would have been more comfortable if he had stayed in Toronto. The toll on his body and time would have been less. But the allure of going home superseded that. We'll see how it goes!
