A major “Woj Bomb” just occurred, as ESPN NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski announced earlier today on Twitter that the San Antonio Spurs and Toronto Raptors have agreed on a trade that will send F Kawhi Leonard and G Danny Green to Toronto, in exchange for G DeMar DeRozan, C Jakob Poeltl, and a protected 2019 first round pick. The reaction to this news has been widespread and mostly negative. A lot of current and former NBA players have come out saying that the Raptors betrayed their loyal franchise player, by lying to him about his trade availability. Fans from both teams are having their own internal debates whether this was a smart move or not, as well. Personally, I think this trade may have some long term consequences that could seriously jeopardize the future of one of these two organizations specifically.
I believe that by trading their marquee player for one that was just hurt last season and has proven to have questionable loyalty, is a very risky move on the part of the Raptors. Worst case scenario is that either Kawhi doesn’t return to full health, or he does play but is a shell of himself from years past. In this hypothetical, which could be likely, Kawhi will stick to his word and leave for another team in the 2019 offseason, preferably the Lakers. Now, not all is necessarily negative though, as while this could be an all time bad move for Toronto, it could also be the greatest trade this team has ever made.
The positive is that Leonard returns to full form (which in my opinion makes him a top 3 player in the NBA) and guides the Raptors to either the Eastern Conference or NBA Finals next year, and ultimately decides to sign an extension to stay. This would be to a greater degree similar to the Paul George situation in Oklahoma City. George had said last year that he wanted to play in L.A. for the Lakers, but got traded to the OKC Thunder. He decided to stay put on the Thunder earlier this offseason and sign a four-year extension with them, to many people’s surprise. In Toronto’s best case scenario, the Raptors have themselves one of the best players in the league for many more years to come and proves that they have indeed won this trade.
In my opinion, I think the latter is less likely. The Raptors organization and fans will be hoping that they won’t be the punchline of the joke when people look back on worst NBA trades ever made. For the Spurs though, regardless of the outcome in Toronto, have put themselves in a solid position to at least compete in the playoffs for several more years. Sure if I were them I would’ve gone out and traded Leonard for young players with a lot of potential, but this is not a bad alternative, especially based on how bad and public this situation has gone.