Kawhi Leonard Trade Completed: Raptor and Clippers' Draft Gains

The Kawhi trade is now done for anyone that has been living under a rock. Kawhi is now a Toronto Raptor. Brady Dick and Brandon Ingram are now LA Clippers. The Clippers get a lot of draft capital back. They get a first round pick swap, two unprotected first round picks in 31 and 33. They get two second round picks in the 2030s. And it was, I remember, agreed to back in June, late June. Finally became official on Monday. John, I want you to hit the Clippers side of this first. They get some picks back, and this is really important for a team that just got docked five first round picks, right? After the penalty was levied on them, it was essential that they got this trade done, regardless of what it took, just from a standpoint of securing these picks. Because if you're talking about going forward with no picks for the next five years, that's pretty much taking the legs from underneath your future when you look at their history of signing free agents. It's not good now. If you look at every free agent they sign now, people are gonna be checking under the tires. They're gonna be looking under the hood. They're in the glove compartment. They're like, they're searching for something. So, you know, it really feels like this is the best outcome possible for them going forward after everything happened. It allows them to get in actual players who can contribute to the success of the organization. It allows them to have some draft capital going forward if they want to try to make some trades. And with Kawhi's injury history and the lack of star power on the roster, if he unfortunately does have an injury, that pick's gonna be really, really good. And so now you just need for the stars to align and for something to fall into your lap again like this year's fifth pick fell into their lap. And so if we're talking about this strictly from a basketball perspective at the end of the day, you get the controversy out of your building. You bring in a former all-star and a serviceable NBA player and you see where you can go with this young roster. Now, if you're talking about just being on the court, I don't like it. But I think this might make the Clippers the fourth best team in California. But that's my personal opinion about the moves that they've made prior to this happening. Prior to this, I was not a fan of what they had left on the roster. So like I said, there's going to need to be some very, very large seasons from Darius Garland and Brandon Ingram are gonna have to have career years for this to really look like it's a competitive situation. Yeah, they're hinging a lot of their success onto a few players, right? Brandon Ingram, they're expecting him to kind of replicate what he did last season and get to the all-star game. I don't think he's gonna get to the all-star game with the Clippers, but again, they're expecting that type of productivity. Not in the Western Conference, Ian. Yeah, not in the Western Conference. I mean, it's just such a loaded, such a tall task, even for Darius Garland to even be in the nomination and consideration for an all-star spot. So I think they just need to get to that level of production for them to be even competitive in this Western Conference. I mean, you go down the list of teams that are projected to be even better this year, the Mavericks, you go to the Trailblazers are still gonna be good, but you go to the Phoenix Suns, I think they're gonna be very competitive too. You go, the Pelicans should on paper be pretty competitive with the roster that they have, but John, you look at this Clippers team, and we're gonna dive more into just this Clippers reset, I guess, this new era of Clippers basketball, but the draft capital that they got back, and now that they're cooperating with the NBA, and Steve Ballmer finally gave in and said, hey, I did this, we did this, I accept it, we're moving forward, maybe that gives the NBA some grounds to give them some picks back. We'll see, it happened in 2000 with the Timberwolves, it didn't happen immediately, they had to happen over the course of three to five years, but we'll see what happens with all that draft capital, but getting those unprotected firsts back, and where the Raptors may not even be good in 2031 and 2033, pretty relevant picks. Now, the Raptors side of this, Kawhi now goes back to Toronto, he's not being suspended, his contract is not being voided, Adam Silver said that the punishments are final, they just had the Board of Governors meeting, so that's all taken care of, Kawhi is back with the Raptors, now that we can talk about this basketball fit, John, where do you have this Raptors team? Because remember, they were very good defensively, they took the Cavs to seven, almost got to the second round, they were 46 and 36, where do you see them now with Kawhi added? What if I told you I thought that this team, this current Raptor team is going to be worse than last year's Clipper team? Oh.