As James passed through a sea of screaming Canadian fans, Pike snuck James a piece of white paper, and The Chosen One scribbled down his signature as he hurried along. Several teams, including the Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers, Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers, emerged as suitors, but most NBA executives believed the Raptors presented the best potential current and future package. DeRozan also has expressed displeasure toward a possible move, becoming aware of the possibility late Tuesday night, league sources said. Privacy Act, please use the links below to visit each company’s privacy center. Sometimes [it takes] takes 2 months, sometimes a year, sometimes two years.”. We wish [Leonard] well, but at this point it's time to move on. have traded star guard DeMar DeRozan to the San Antonio Spurs for Leonard, Neither player happy with offseason trade, reportedly has no desire to play in Toronto, young swingman OG Agunoby in any Leonard-DeRozan swaps, all-time leader in points scored (13,296), swept in the Eastern Conference semifnials, replaced by Raptors assistant coach Nick Nurse. Favorites of at least minus-300, where the Warriors peaked before Game 1, are 13-1 all-time. He leaves Toronto the franchise leader in games played (675), games started (663) and points scored (13296), while also setting the franchise record for most points in a game with a 52-point performance this past season. But not even that iconic home run can compete with Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri’s swing for Kawhi Leonard, the first NBA Finals MVP in franchise history. The Leonard deal may go down as the biggest trade in NBA history. The deal allowed the Raptors to keep OG Anunoby, Pascal Siakam and Delon Wright, something that seemed impossible when the trade talk initially started. They mowed down the expected MVP in Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks after going down 0-2. A source tells Turner Sports' David Aldridge a long-term stay in Toronto past the 2018-19 season for Leonard is going to be "a very tough sell. The two-time All-Star has also been named to the All-NBA First Team twice (2016, 2017), and was the NBA’s leader in steals in 2015. 4 overall pick, and Joseph was selected 29th by the San Antonio Spurs. “I’m pretty much in the janitor’s closet, but that’s OK,” Pike said. They mean business. But Leonard outlasted them all, winning a Finals MVP in his first season with the Raptors. If you make a request through One of his first transactions with the team was trading away the team’s former No.1 overall pick, Andrea Bargnani, to the New York Knicks for three draft picks. In fact, five of the Warriors’ top seven players missed at least one game due to injury this postseason. A thick fog ominously blanketed the entire town. Per Haynes (via Twitter), Leonard reportedly has no desire to play in Toronto. ", As reports involving the Raptors possibly trading DeMar DeRozan for Kawhi Leonard escalate, here is DeMar’s IG story: pic.twitter.com/Wbb72mw0qR. The legacy of this Warriors team has to be its resilience.

San Antonio used this opportunity to unload Green’s expiring contract and added a promising young big at a position of need. As the team’s general manager since 2013 and team president since 2016, Ujiri has never shied away from reinventing the Raptors’ place in the NBA. His absence was especially notable during the Spurs' first-round playoff exit to the Golden State Warriors. The 2019 pick is protected for slots 1-20, and if not conveyed next season would become two second-round choices. The Raptors deserve a bit of praise for making a big swing, but it’s possible they lose Leonard, Green and their first-round pick after this season. Aldridge reports (via Twitter) that DeRozan is not backing off his claim that Toronto lied to him. Kawhi Leonard is a bona fide superstar. 1 overall in the NBA by the Cleveland Cavaliers, an 18-year-old James visited St. John’s -- a community of barely 100,000, or one-seventh the population of Winnipeg -- to play the Raptors on Oct. 23, 2003 in a preseason game. Los Angeles had long been reported as Leonard's preferred destination. Popovich, who also serves as coach of Team USA Basketball, also said he expects Leonard to be in Las Vegas next week for Team USA's minicamp and that he is "looking forward" to coaching Leonard there. For the Raptors, it must be noted, not as a slight, but as a matter of fact, that the Warriors literally began to fall apart this postseason, the fifth Finals run for the franchise. The only upset more stunning by Vegas standards was the 2004 Finals, when the Detroit Pistons took down the minus-700 Los Angeles Lakers, a juggernaut that also came up short of its fourth championship in five years. But that one comes with the caveat that it was functionally a sign-and-trade when Malone made his intentions clear that he wanted to sign in Philadelphia, and the two sides later agreed to facilitate a deal.

“I wanted to make history here,” Leonard said after winning the 2019 Finals, “and that’s all I did.”. Information from The Associated Press was used in this report. The Leonard trade is bigger than that: Leonard delivered a title. However, if Leonard decides not to resign at the end of the season, alarm bells should not be raised. All NBA champions need a little luck to go their way. The hockey team left St. John’s in 2005. Since making his first of his four career All-Star berths in 2013-14, DeRozan has averaged 23.4 points, 4.5 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game in that span. Fifteen years after getting James’ signature, Pike traveled eight hours on two flights from his hometown in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, a town of 8,000 people on the banks of Labrador Sea in Northern Canada, to be at ScotiaBank Arena to watch the Raptors win the NBA championship. “Kawhi Leonard jerseys sales,” the MLSE official said, “have exceeded all expectations.”. “I knew as soon as they beat Milwaukee,” Pike said, “I was going to spend the money and make this once-in-a-lifetime trip.”. But attending that canceled game still sparked a passion that will last a lifetime. On the Sunday before the Finals, with Kevin Durant’s health status still in the air, Golden State opened as a minus-275 favorite at the Westgate SuperBook and even reached as high as minus-300 before settling in at minus-270, according to sports-betting trackers. Lowry and Ibaka will both have a year left on their deals, respectively and the spare cap room can be used to take on some bad contracts. Talks between the Spurs and Lakers reportedly took place on more than one occasion, but never gained enough momentum for completion. By swinging the Leonard trade and then acquiring Gasol at the trade deadline, Ujiri made himself into one of the most coveted executives in the NBA. This is what was on Pike’s mind when he trekked from his hometown in North Canada -- geographically closer to Greenland than Toronto, in fact -- to watch his beloved Raptors try to clinch the 2019 NBA Finals in Game 5 at ScotiaBank Arena. In a span of two months, Ujiri had gotten rid of two of the franchise’s most beloved members in order to deploy a player who played just nine games in the prior season. Terms of Use | Leonard occupies the rare space of a cult hero turned global superstar. All rights reserved. Largely regarded as the best perimeter defender in the league, Leonard’s impact is immediate and felt on both ends of the floor. When Kawhi Leonard opted to bolt from the Toronto Raptors last summer, the general belief was that he did so in order to chase another title with the Los Angeles Clippers. News of the reported deal broke early Wednesday as the Raptors and Spurs reportedly engaged in serious talks involving the Raptors acquiring the two-time Kia Defensive Player of the Year and former NBA Finals MVP Leonard. NBA veteran Green will join Leonard in Toronto. Let’s go!”. This trade flat-out knocks the wall down. After a controversial load-management strategy during the regular season, Leonard capped off one of the greatest postseason runs ever, culminating in one of the biggest Finals upsets ever.

As it turns out, Leonard actually told Toronto that he firmly believed they were not capable of winning another championship this season: There were obviously other reasons why he chose the Clippers, including and especially his desire to go home, but one of the things Kawhi told the Raptors when he met with them in Toronto last summer, according to a source, was that he didn't think they were good enough to repeat, — Josh Lewenberg (@JLew1050) September 16, 2020.

The name of the game for the past few years has been to keep the window open for as long as possible and hope that LeBron James eventually leaves the East. There’s no denying that the East is the weaker conference, and Leonard would have arguably had an easier path to the Finals had he remained with the Raptors.

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