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Not even a championship could keep Kawhi Leonard from the lure of continuing his career in Southern California. It won't be long before the LA Clippers superstar is back north of the border, though, as his new team is set to take on the Dallas Mavericks for a preseason game in Vancouver on October 17.
Kawhi Leonard will play his first game in Canada since leaving the Raptors on Oct. 17, when the Clippers will play the Mavericks in Vancouver, the NBA has announced.
— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) July 9, 2019
Reminder for fans who are considering buying tickets: There's no guarantee Leonard will actually take the floor in Vancouver.
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Leonard signed a four-year, $140 million deal with the Clippers earlier this week. After convincing Paul George to orchestrate a trade to Los Angeles from the Oklahoma City Thunder, Leonard and the Clippers are now considered top-tier championship contenders, just less than a month after he led the Toronto Raptors to their first Larry O'Brien Trophy in franchise history.
He was traded to Toronto from the San Antonio Spurs last summer after Leonard and the team grew crossways over treatment of a nagging quad injury that forced him to miss most all of 2017-18. While conventional wisdom said he was always likeliest to sign with the Clippers or cross-arena rival Los Angeles Lakers this summer, the Raptors' title run certainly tilted the odds in their favor, with Leonard supposedly giving real consideration to re-signing with Toronto before ultimately deciding on the Clippers.
Leonard, 28, averaged a career-high 26.6 points, 7.3 rebounds, 3.3 assists, and 1.8 steals per game during the regular season, but only played in 60 games due to “load management” related to his quad injury. All that rest paid off when it mattered most, though, as Leonard re-staked his claim as the best player in the world in the playoffs, becoming just the third player ever – joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and LeBron James – to win Finals MVP with two different teams.
