Just because Kawhi Leonard is now out of San Antonio and now with the Toronto Raptors does not mean that speculations of where he will go have ended. The rumor-sniffers merely shifted their focus on what Leonard will do next year, when he finally has the option to control his own destiny.

There won’t be a shortage of suitors lining up at Leonard’s doorstep in the summer of next year, when Leonard can decline his 2019-20 player option to become an unrestricted free agent.

In his list of top NBA free agents in 2019, Sean Deveney of Sporting News touched on the subject of Leonard’s immediate future and revealed that most people in the NBA still believes that the two-way forward is headed to Hollywood for his next stop. Whether it is to play for the Los Angeles Lakers or the L.A. Clippers, however, remains a tossup.

As has been well-documented, the task for Toronto in the coming year is to persuade Leonard to stay in a place and perform for a team for which he had no desire to play just a few short weeks ago. It’s a tall order, and if the Raptors can do it, the massive gamble they took this month will have paid off.

Most around the league still expect that Leonard will look to return home to Southern California, either to join LeBron James with the Lakers or bring his star power to the Clippers.

Leonard is believed to be now in good standing with the Raptors, with whom the forward didn’t seem to like being traded to initially, but Toronto is going to have a number of rivals in 2019 if it plans to keep the two-time All-Star beyond the next season. The Lakers and the Clippers, in particular, were two teams which will have enough financial leg room on their cap spaces to accommodate Leonard. That’s not to mention that Leonard is from Los Angeles, a fact that both of those ballclubs will use to the hilt to lure the two-time Defensive Player of the Year winner.