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When it was revealed that Kawhi Leonard was joining the Los Angeles Clippers a couple of weeks ago, it took only minutes for the news to break that Paul George would be joining Leonard via trade.
According to reports, it was Leonard who told the Clippers to look for another star before he committed to them. Obviously, they were able to do that. Moreover, there were rumors that Kawhi had already met with George in LA during the first week of free agency, and they discussed teaming up.
When the blockbuster news broke, people dubbed Leonard the mastermind of making the PG trade happen. However, in his interview with Yahoo Sports' Chris Haynes, Leonard credited the Clippers' front office, simply saying he told them he would like to play with George and that there had been some prior conversations between the two stars. He then said he was close to signing with other teams, but when LA announced it had acquired George, he had no second thoughts about where he wanted to play next:
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“S—, I guess I need a front-office position if that’s what happened. They’re saying I was the architect of the deal. I’ll say this: players talk, and when I talked to the Clippers, they had certain players they thought they could pair with me before I signed. His name was on the board, and I said I would love to play with him. They made the opportunity happen in probably two to three days later. I was close to signing with other teams, but once they told me that this deal was on the table, I jumped for it.”
Leonard gave all the other teams an opportunity to make their pitch. He met with the Los Angeles Lakers and Toronto Raptors, but in the end, he chose a loaded Clippers team playing in his hometown of LA.
Regardless of how much Leonard had to do with that George trade, he made a great decision that makes sense for him on multiple levels.
