The San Antonio Spurs are finally done with Kawhi Leonard. The drama that his injury issue brought last season was more than the Spurs franchise bargained for. Now, San Antonio is headed in a different direction with a new All-Star player on its roster.
According to a recent report from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Leonard and Danny Green are headed to the Toronto Raptors in exchange for DeMar DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl and a protected 2019 first-round pick.
Leonard is as indispensable as they come. He was the 2014 NBA Finals MVP, a 2016-17 Most Valuable Player candidate, a two-time Defensive Player of the Year awardee, a two-time All-NBA 1st Team member and a member of multiple All-Defensive Teams. That’s a resume that would make nearly every player in the league envious.
Meanwhile, DeRozan is a four-time All-Star and a two-time All-NBA Team member who averaged 23.0 points per game last season. While the deal may seem one-sided in favor of the Spurs, Leonard also has issues that make this deal one that cannot be judged until at least the first month of the next season.
Kawhi vs. DeMar
It’s painful for Spurs fans to imagine what could have been in the 2016-17 Western Finals. They were on their way to victory against the eventual champion Golden State Warriors in Game 1 when Leonard was injured after landing on Zaza Pachulia’s wayward foot while taking a 3-point shot. They led by as much as 25 points in that game but the loss of their star player was just too much to overcome. The Warriors went on to sweep the Spurs after that.
Leonard on the Spurs was a perfect marriage at the time. He had taken the reins of the franchise from retired future Hall of Famer Tim Duncan and brought the Spurs to the brink of the Finals. The freak injury took the opportunity from him of leading the franchise without his predecessor. He was that good.
DeRozan is not the best two-way player by any stretch, but he is one of the best offensive weapons in the league today. Not only can he score, he is also an improved passer who had a career-high 5.2 assists per contest last season. These make up for his defensive deficiencies which are average at best.
Just the same, the Raptors thrived with him leading the way and was going to be a Raptor-for-life if not for their sweep at the hands of the Cavs again last season. That put into question how far he could take the Raptors which likely played a part in this trade.
With the Spurs, don’t expect DeRozan to replace everything that Leonard did for the team. Instead, he will be one of the team’s scoring leaders along with LaMarcus Aldridge and be counted on to deliver for them in crunch time. DeRozan ranked second to LeBron James in clutch scoring last season and he will deliver for the Spurs when they desperately need a basket.
Team Chemistry
The Spurs definitely would have wanted to keep Leonard but the 6-foot-7 small forward made it clear that he wanted out of San Antonio. His mind was set no matter what coach Gregg Popovich said when he visited his former star player before the draft.
There was no question that trading Leonard had to be done as it would have been awkward to see him on the bench together with his teammates who he has not made amends with. The only question was which team would take on a player with only a year remaining on his contract while getting an All-Star or All-Star caliber player in return.
Apparently, the Raptors were willing to roll the dice by trading their star player for an MVP-type player who is probably just a one-year rental at this point.
The Spurs are getting a disappointed DeRozan, who was promised during summer league play that he wouldn’t be traded but was shipped just days later. As hurt as he may be, he will be motivated to play the best basketball of his career. Popovich will be a great coach to DeRozan who will soon discover that he is in a great position to succeed in San Antonio. He’s a terrific character guy and one who knows how to follow orders, the perfect player for Pop.
Meanwhile, the Raptors receive a player who has made it public that he wants to play for the Lakers, only to be sent packing to a team in the Eastern Conference where the Spurs will only see him once in San Antonio next year unless they meet in the Finals. Leonard will have to force himself to like his situation and to say all the right things to the press just to look like someone who is relieved to be in a different environment.
Unlike the Paul George situation in which he changed his mind about going to L.A. and re-signed with the Oklahoma City Thunder this offseason instead, Leonard may be a tougher player to persuade to sign with the Raptors long term.
This will create all sorts of chemistry issues unless his heart is in it playing for Toronto. Newly-hired Raptors coach Nick Nurse has the unenviable task of convincing their recently acquired superstar to play all out even if his heart is in Hollywood.
Injury to Leonard
Leonard barely played last season due to injuries that limited him to only nine games in the 2017-18 season. He was hardly the player he once was prior to the injury that sidelined him in the playoffs, averaging a lowly 16.2 points a game, the fourth-lowest output of his young, seven-year career. The Raptors received the medical report on Leonard during the trade talks and it looks like they are convinced that he can return to his old form when training camp begins.
But no one will be able to know for sure how good Leonard will be after a right quad injury kept him on the shelf for much of the year. Though the Spurs doctors gave him the go signal for full contact late last season, he continued to push back and say he wasn’t fully healed. If Leonard is back to 100 percent, then the Raptors have one of the top five players in the game. If he’s not even close to it, then they may have dug themselves a hole by trading away their franchise player who barely missed games for damaged goods.
Final Verdict
Though Leonard may be the better player overall and the Spurs are better with him in the lineup, there’s no doubting that DeRozan is a quality player without the baggage that the former will be bringing along if he had stayed in San Antonio. Overall, the Spurs did the best they could to get rid of a player who didn’t want to be with them and received an underrated superstar who will fit in nicely with their team. He’s a top talent who will thrive playing for a winning organization.
Don’t be surprised if the Spurs get back in the championship hunt with DeRozan leading the way.
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