Shortly after the NBA announced the findings cap bypass investigation Clippers Last Wednesday, Shams Charania of ESPN said that the trade shipment Kawhi Leonard yes Predators likely to be completed within “next couple of days.”
Both teams have reached an agreement on this deal June 30but the Raptors refused to complete the trade right after the moratorium period ended in July as they waited to see if Leonard would have his contract voided or face a suspension as a result of the NBA’s investigation. However, as Charania noted Wednesday, the consequences for Kawhi were a $700,000 fine, which will not affect Toronto, so there appears to be nothing standing in the way of the deal going through as originally planned.
However, six days later, the two teams have not officially announced the trade. So what’s the delay?
Sources tell Jake Fisher and Mark Stein of The Stein Line (Link to Twitter), that one of the main reasons for the delay is that the Clippers are still “working out” their new front office structure after the team’s ownership Steve Ballmer and president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank were suspended for one year and six months, respectively.
there was expected that the general manager Trent Redden will step up and lead the basketball operations department in Frank’s absence, but the Clippers will also need to appoint a new interim governor to replace Ballmer. Both of these new decision-makers would have to formally sign off on the deal before it could be completed.
There has also been some speculation that the Raptors may try to renegotiate the terms of the trade deal, recognizing that they now have more leverage than they did in June. The Clippers, who were forced by the NBA to forfeit five future first-round picks for violating the league’s cap rules, need the two first-rounders they acquire from Toronto in this deal more than ever, so they may be willing to trade two second-rounders or a 2027 pick that should also be part of the trade.
But ESPN’s Brian Windhorst said during the Hoop Collective podcast on Tuesday (Link to YouTube), that he will not expect the conditions to change.
“Talking to people, I think the trade is going to go, and I think it’s going to go as it is,” said Windhorst. “I was scolded for hinting – or maybe not hinting, but wondering if it was possible – to change the conditions. … The NBA says your word matters. So they negotiated that trade, and I think they’re going to go through with it the way it was intended.”
For what it’s worth, a statement Leonard made last Wednesday through an agent Harrison Gaines and the NBPA characterized the trade as substantially done.
“When I go back to Toronto, I’m focusing on what I can control, closing this chapter and moving forward with a clean slate.” Leonard said in this statement.
The deal the two teams reached in June called for the Raptors to acquire Leonard in exchange for Brandon Ingram, Grady Dickunprotected first-round picks in 2031 and 2033, second-round picks in 2030 and 2033, and the right to trade the least favorable first-round pick of the Clippers, Nuggets and Thunder for Toronto’s 2027 first-round pick.
