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At the end of a mid-December exercise, the five highest-ranking members of Toronto called DeMar DeRozan to the office of Masai Ujiri, the president of basketball operations in Toronto, for an intervention.
"I did not know what was going on," DeRozan told ESPN a few months later. "I thought," S —, I know I can not be exchanged. "It was like calling me in the director's office.
Ujiri told DeRozan that he could be Kobe Bryant of Toronto – a lifetime superstar leading his team to the title fight – he was crossing the last hurdle of his game: 3s. DeRozan started to miss the next Toronto games, and the Raptors smashed 59 wins .. The story seemed to have ended happily.
But the team never reached the title contention LeBron humiliated them again, DeRozan was decent at Games 1 and 2 of his second-round series before vanishing in Cleveland, finished the 0-of-9 deep series, and spent the fourth quarter of Game 3. , his last significant match for a team and a city that he loved and loved, on the bench, while the Raptors rallied (but had and even lost) without him.
A Spur, a centerpiece of the Kawhi Leonard anticlimax – an agreement that can work for Toronto both as a means of accessing this elusive final place and as the first step towards complete disassembly.
The price was low: DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl, and a top-20 first-round pick that turns into two second-round picks of 2020's – he's in the top 20 this season.
The Spurs lost influence when LeBron James retired from his contract with Cleveland, and lost more when he joined the Lakers without issuing immediate warrants on superstar partners. They would lose a little more each day until the training camp.
They did not start much either. Nobody knows if Leonard is healthy enough to regain his status as a top five player and MVP candidate. (He still has to pass a physique.) The suitors feared his impending free agency, and his declared preference for one of the LA teams. 
Here's the latest on another thrilling summer in the NBA:
His side made it clear during the past week, to the Raptors and other teams, that Leonard did not want any part of Toronto, sources said.
The Raptors did not care. They know that any threat of not reporting is probably empty, since they can fine Leonard for every practice and game he misses – up to his full salary of $ 20.1 million.
Ujiri will certainly try to influence Leonard on the traps of a city a bit out of the limelight, with a crazy fan base (in the best case). He will have to do most of the work, because it's too much to ask Nick Nurse, head coach freshman. Ujiri has a charisma, and a way with the players. A final race can help. Toronto has a chance at this. With this deal, the Raptors enter next season just behind Boston – ahead of Philly – in the Eastern Conference hierarchy. (The Celtics could have more than 60 special victories next season.)
If Toronto feels Thanksgiving's feeling that Leonard is leaving, he can try to get him back to the Lakers or Clippers. The Raptors will not resolve in such a case, but they could recover enough from what they exchanged to make today 's move almost risk free.
If Leonard walks for nothing, the complete reconstruction is launched. Toronto is clearly abandoning the last two years of DeRozan's $ 27.7 million contract and bailing out before facing the dilemma of signing DeRozan to another mega-miner in his 30s.
Leonard at his peak the Raptors as Kyle Lowry gets older – good enough that you can justify avoiding a reconstruction. DeRozan is not there.
We waited half a decade for Ujiri to imbue this team – to do more than stir up interesting men in the 1920s, retain Bryan Colangelo's players and undo mistakes (Rudy Gay of the Colangelo Era, then DeMarre Carroll). In one way or another, Ujiri has done it now.
Toronto retains its two most interesting perspectives in OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam, plus Delon Wright and Fred VanVleet. Danny Green is more than a throw-in, even though the Spurs made him glimmer a little bit back in the last year, according to sources. With Leonard, Anunoby and Green, the Raptors can play queues with three switchable wings that shoot 3s. There is more than a bit of irony in Toronto for two players who can at least get mired with LeBron – including the best option to defend him throughout the league – just as LeBron drops out. East. (To be clear, the Spurs received calls from Leonard at the trading deadline, including from Boston, but they had not yet reached the precipice with him, sources say.)
Poeltl is solid – an agile center that thinks and feels the game at a high level. Losing it makes Jonas Valanciunas, one of the nurse's favorites, a little more worried. But he could also be a good backup, or fifth starting defending defensive lines with five three-pointers. The first round selection is about as low as possible.
This is an unsatisfactory end to a bitter saga of the Spurs – a series that still beats people within the team. It's unclear exactly when they lost Leonard, or why the relationship became so toxic. Leonard has certainly not verbalized his reasoning.
He annoyed some in Leonard's camp that the Spurs made him wait for a maximum contract after the 2014 finals to keep the hat clear for the following summer, but Leonard understood the logic and seemed to accept "
The team and the player did not agree on the nature of the injury to Leonard's leg and the best treatment. It happens. He should not fracture an essential relationship. A combination of things did, and now Leonard is in the North.
DeRozan as the centerpiece is a disappointing return, but also one that reflects the realities of the market. Gregg Popovich does not want to finish his career in a reconstruction. The Spurs have never shown interest in the packages – including those in Boston – heavy on selections and untested players, sources said. The Celtics would not trade any of their teammates, including Jaylen Brown, perhaps Leonard's most interesting commercial chip in the league, without some guarantees on Leonard's health and future plans, according to sources.
Dario Saric, and the 2021 unprotected choice of heat did not move the needle. It is not known if the Spurs had an interest in Markelle Fultz; the two sides never discussed it seriously, and the Sixers would not have separated from him, the sources say. The Spurs said any deal with Philly would require Ben Simmons or Joel Embiid (presumably Simmons), and the Sixers would not come close, according to league sources.
Discussions with Boston and Philly failed weeks ago. There was no last frenetic call Monday or Tuesday. San Antonio over the past four days has dropped its asking price with some other potential Leonard teams, according to sources around the league, but it was difficult to build a realistic deal.
DeRozan will keep the relevant Spurs in the playoff race. They won 47 games last year without Leonard, juggling an alignment of melodies. You know that they will find a way to approach at least 50 this season, even though DeRozan and LaMarcus Aldridge jack 40 mid-range jumpers per game between them. These guys are crushing the victories of the regular season. Combine them with good coaching and intelligent team defense, and the Spurs will be in almost every game.
But it's a long-running game – one of the first times that a coach is installed as the best decision maker. have hurt San Antonio. Without Leonard, a reconstruction is coming. This movement only delays it. DeRozan is an All-Star, but not a franchise star who only warns of a downward slope.
It is tempting to suggest that the Spurs could eventually return DeRozan for the kinds of assets that would trigger a proper rebuild, but he does not carry it kind of commercial value. (DeRozan's role in this trade does not indicate much about his commercial cachet at the league scale.)
It's possible that Boston, Philly and other teams selections have been chosen. Not offering their best – including the juicy 2019 Kings choose the Sixers and the Celtics have split as a summer timeshare. But a franchise with different priorities could have pitted this kind of teams and come out with an interesting collection of future assets.
For the Lakers, it's a calculated risk that they can acquire someone sometime in the next year without giving up their best assets – especially Brandon Ingram, a budding star. It's a smart bet, even after watching Paul George stay in the Los Angeles anti-league without even giving the Lakers a pitch meeting.
The free agency class 2019 is loaded. The Lakers have LeBron, the ceiling space, and the most desirable market of the league. There would have been value in the certainty of acquiring Leonard now. There is also value in the sustainability of young talent. By refusing to pay for the full freight, the Lakers appreciated these things properly.
In Leonard, the Raptors get the real superstar that they've never had in the playoffs. Lowry has been hard to catch up in a few playoffs, even though he's been more reliable in the last two games. The DeRozan playoffs have been ubiquitous, including a 0-on-8 low point in the third game of the Toronto series against the Bucks there are two postships.
What will the Spurs and Raptors look like after the Kawhi Leonard exchange? Kevin Pelton notes the case
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Zach talks to Nick Friedell of ESPN about the Bulls signing Jabari Parker and then Brian Windhorst about what comes next for the Bucks.
1 Hardcover
DeRozan has generally underperformed. Even so, the Raptors over the past three seasons dewormed by all opponents of the Eastern Conference save LeBron. But it was always a slog. It was heartbreaking. Again and again, DeRozan and Lowry fought through subsidence and mental blocks. Their offensive collapsed at each end of the season, a true NBA rite of spring, until they revised it. Then last season, their defense has collapsed
The best rivals in the playoffs do not allow such a margin of error. In the end, the Raptors could not take a match from a Cleveland team that was 8-10 against its other three playoff opponents.
Leonard is a player of the finals. It has the mid-range precision of DeRozan, only at greater efficiency. He can fill the same spaces as DeRozan and perform some of the same actions, as Lowry spreads the ground at the top of the bow. He is a more dangerous post-up scorer, which should make him a pick-and-roll partner at least as dynamic.
Leonard breathes DeRozan in all its facets. He is a three-point shooter above average at a high volume, and he can hit them dribbling in a pinch. (This is still not his strong point, however, Leonard has only touched 31.5% of his 165 3 pulls during the 2016-17 regular season and playoffs, by NBA.com.) [19659002AtitsbestDeRozanisalittledefenderbelowaverageInitsworstitisasieveLeonardmaywellbecomethebiggestdefenderoftheperimeterofbasketballhistoryTherearenotmanyperimetertrioswiththecollectivedefensivechopsofLowryLeonardandoneofGreenandAnunoby
Raptors are deep and versatile. They can play three wings together, maybe even with Siakam as a small ball, super-switchable center against good opponents. (Remember Siakam's brief work as John Wall's antidote to the first round last season?) They represent a real threat to the final.
In every sense of the word, it's worth it for the Raptors. There is enough conflicting information about what Leonard wants – he really wants to go on a mega-market, or where he wants to play the supporting role at LeBron – to encourage teams with healthy cultures. If there is a chance that he does not know what he wants, maybe he will end up wanting you.
It's a cold end to Toronto for DeRozan. He kissed an icy market, often forgotten. He swore to help repair the team, and he did it. He did not take any meetings in free agency. All he did was work, and improve each season.
This is the kind of harsh reality of the NBA that neither DeRozan nor the Spurs of the Duncan era have known. They could all be unhappy with today 's results, although the Spurs are surely relieved that it is over.
They will go from the front. The Raptors too, along one path, or another.
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