Kawhi Leonard is reportedly ready to extend his tenure with the Los Angeles Lakers this summer. The Klaw has had ups and downs with the Angelenos team but they want the 2x NBA champion to lead them to the promised land.
Leonard landed in Los Angeles in the entertaining summer of 2019 after winning his second NBA title with the Toronto Raptors, joining forces with Paul George on the Clippers, trying to take the team to its first NBA championship ever. Kawhi has the desire, the team trusts him and he’s ready to take them to compete for important things.
After the fiasco, the team lived last season and the struggles they are facing this one, people have started to think Kawhi could leave the Clippers and find a new team in free agency. But, that’s not what the rest of the league thinks, according to Sam Amick of The Athletic. Amick recalled that the 2019 free agency was very dramatic for Leonard but now things will be a little different.
Remember the good, old days, when Clippers front office executives spent so much of their season criss-crossing the country to attend Toronto Raptors games — allegedly — as part of their Kawhi Leonard free agency plan? When the time finally came for Leonard to make up his mind, we had flight trackers and secret meetings and even accusations of improper requests on the part of infamous Uncle Dennis. Truth be told, it was the kind of fascinating stuff that makes the NBA world go round.
Yet barring a dramatic turn of events in these coming months, it’s looking like this Leonard’s free agency will be decidedly less dramatic. While this league has certainly taught us to expect the unexpected, the truth is that Leonard is still widely, well, expected to re-sign with the Clippers. As it stands, that’s the word from Clippers sources and rival executives alike.
Now, does that mean there’s no way he gets a wandering eye if the Clippers implode (again) in the playoffs? Of course not.
Amick points out that Kawhi wants to play at home and that is a major factor for him to decide to stay in Los Angeles and it doesn’t seem like that’s changing, unless the Clippers, who recently signed Rajon Rondo and DeMarcus Cousins, have a similar or worse performance in the playoffs than they had last season, where they imploded against the Denver Nuggets in the Orlando bubble.
