KAWHI IS IN TORONTO

[WuTang_OG]

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[Uncle Dennis]

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He has no choice at first, he has to play. Once the season gets going, and the bonds with teammates form (I would like for us to bring in Simmons), we have a chance at him staying.

[PhilBlackson]

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[WuTang_OG]

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He has no choice at first, he has to play. Once the season gets going, and the bonds with teammates form (I would like for us to bring in Simmons), we have a chance at him staying.

There's lots of players for him to bond with. Our roster not only has talent but high character, likeable, easy going guys all of which are around KL's age. Siakam, OG, Norm, Delon, CJ, Serge and plus Green will bond with this guy I'm sure.

Let's not forget KL might have felt out of place on a team like the Spurs that is heavily veteran assembled.

[HeadtopChunes]

Watch on YouTube

They should play this every time he makes a basket

[Truthrising]

Read on Twitter

He has no choice at first, he has to play. Once the season gets going, and the bonds with teammates form (I would like for us to bring in Simmons), we have a chance at him staying.

But according to a source close to Leonard, Leonard might fall in love with Toronto.

Via Mark Zeigler of the San Diego Union-Tribune:

When Kawhi Leonard started playing golf, he was fitted with specially lengthened clubs and extra, extra large grips so his catcher-mitt hands, which measure 9¾ inches from wrist to tip and 11¼ inches from thumb to pinky, wouldn’t swallow the handle.

The point being: There’s nothing standard, off-the-rack about him.

The other point being: It might not be good news for the Lakers.

Leonard was traded from San Antonio to Toronto on Wednesday, part of a blockbuster swap that also involved All-Star guard DeMar DeRozan, No. 9 overall pick Jakob Poeltl and a 2019 first-round pick heading south and Danny Green, a veteran guard who has won both NCAA and NBA titles, going north.

Leonard coerced the trade with his impending status as an unrestricted free agent after the 2018-19 season but he couldn’t coerce the destination, as much as his camp hinted that, you know, a return to Southern California would be nice.

Instead … Toronto?

It sounds like Siberia for a kid from Moreno Valley and San Diego State, the NBA’s lone franchise north of the border, a team named after a dinosaur, a city with an average high temperature of 31 degrees in January and average winter snowfall of 47.8 inches, a country with higher taxes.

So Leonard will zip up his parka, play an obligatory season with the Raptors, respectfully decline their offer for a long-term supermax contract and bid adieu to the Great White North next summer … just as the Lakers, who conspicuously have been signing free agents to one-year contracts, clear salary cap space for him to join LeBron James.

Right?

That’s the off-the-rack take.

Here’s what someone who knows Leonard as well as anybody told me privately: “He’s going to fall in love with Toronto – it’s going to happen. He’s not going to leave, I’m telling you.”

Raptors might become rapture.

For seven years, until things went sideways over the diagnosis (or misdiagnosis) of quadriceps tendinopathy that cost him all but nine games last season, San Antonio seemed like the perfect place for a quiet, unassuming guy who doesn’t covet money or fame or individual accolades, just titles. The coach, Gregg Popovich, is creative and innovative. The city, low key. The fan base, passionate. The locker room, chill – refreshingly devoid of egos bloated by making $20 million to put a round ball in a round hoop. And the team was a perennial title contender.

Toronto?

It has a young, creative, innovative coach in Nick Nurse; a fan base that is loyal and passionate but will leave you alone in public; a cosmopolitan city that many rank the best stop in the NBA; a locker room full of versatile, defensive-oriented players who don’t care about scoring averages; a progressive front office that, unlike many franchises, helps players secure local marketing deals; a loaded roster that won 59 games last season and no longer has to worry about its nemesis, LeBron, in the Eastern Conference playoffs; and Green, one of Leonard’s closest teammates from the Spurs.

The club president is Nigerian-born Masai Ujiri, the only non-American to be named NBA executive of the year. Leonard has called meeting Barack Obama during the Spurs’ visit to the White House following their 2014 championship “one of my greatest experiences.” Ujiri is tight with Obama and spent last week with him in Kenya opening a basketball court by Ujiri’s Giants of Africa charity.

Leonard likes listening to rapper Drake. Toronto is Drake’s hometown. He’s courtside for most games.

“We welcome you,” Drake wrote in an open letter to Leonard posted on social media, “to the most intense and supportive city in NBA basketball!!! You have always been a poised clinical warrior, and I can’t wait to see how Toronto inspires your fight.”

Or listen to Sharon Powell.

She’s the mother of Norman Powell, the Lincoln High alum who played at UCLA and was initially drafted by Milwaukee, only to be quickly dealt farther east to Toronto. A Southern California boy shipped to the Great White North.

He’s been there three seasons and last fall signed a four-year extension. Sharon, who lives in San Diego, likes it so much that she vows to attend every home game this season.

“The first time I went, it was freezing cold – cold like you just don’t know,” Sharon says. “But it was the best, it was amazing … Norman loves it there, he really does. He likes the city, the people, the team. The fans are so great, so supportive. They’re humble, they’re nice, they’re cordial. I haven’t seen pushy people yet.

“It’s just a fabulous place. Everybody has treated us with open arms. I’m hoping when Kawhi gets there he’ll feel the same way. I know he’ll be treated the same way.”

It’s a message she will share with Kim Robertson, Leonard’s mother whom she has befriended through basketball circles.

Ujiri will be telling her, too. The future of his franchise might depend on it.

“There’s something about this city, about this place, this team, that a star player hasn’t figured out yet,” Ujiri told the Toronto Star last year. “There will be a first one … it’s going to happen, for sure. Maybe not in my time, maybe 20 years from now, maybe 10 years from now, maybe five years from now.

“But I’m telling you, somebody’s going to figure it out. We haven’t won big, but people can see that and say: ‘How cool is that there? What if I came there? Maybe I can make it cooler. Maybe I can build it bigger.’”

Leonard isn’t saying if it will be him. He isn’t saying much of anything, as usual. He was in Toronto on Friday to finalize trade details, and the team hosted a news conference. With Ujiri, not Leonard.

But to prove the 2014 NBA Finals MVP and two-time defensive player of the year was indeed in town and diffuse speculation that he might refuse to report, the Raptors tweeted a picture of Leonard, Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster.

Leonard is famously stoic in photos, to the point where teammates kid him about it. But look closely at the man standing between Ujiri and Webster, and you can see the corners of his mouth slightly upturned. You can see some teeth.

You can see – yes, there it is – the beginnings of a smile.

[Uncle Dennis]

Read on Twitter

He has no choice at first, he has to play. Once the season gets going, and the bonds with teammates form (I would like for us to bring in Simmons), we have a chance at him staying.

But according to a source close to Leonard, Leonard might fall in love with Toronto.

Via Mark Zeigler of the San Diego Union-Tribune:

When Kawhi Leonard started playing golf, he was fitted with specially lengthened clubs and extra, extra large grips so his catcher-mitt hands, which measure 9¾ inches from wrist to tip and 11¼ inches from thumb to pinky, wouldn’t swallow the handle.

The point being: There’s nothing standard, off-the-rack about him.

The other point being: It might not be good news for the Lakers.

Leonard was traded from San Antonio to Toronto on Wednesday, part of a blockbuster swap that also involved All-Star guard DeMar DeRozan, No. 9 overall pick Jakob Poeltl and a 2019 first-round pick heading south and Danny Green, a veteran guard who has won both NCAA and NBA titles, going north.

Leonard coerced the trade with his impending status as an unrestricted free agent after the 2018-19 season but he couldn’t coerce the destination, as much as his camp hinted that, you know, a return to Southern California would be nice.

Instead … Toronto?

It sounds like Siberia for a kid from Moreno Valley and San Diego State, the NBA’s lone franchise north of the border, a team named after a dinosaur, a city with an average high temperature of 31 degrees in January and average winter snowfall of 47.8 inches, a country with higher taxes.

So Leonard will zip up his parka, play an obligatory season with the Raptors, respectfully decline their offer for a long-term supermax contract and bid adieu to the Great White North next summer … just as the Lakers, who conspicuously have been signing free agents to one-year contracts, clear salary cap space for him to join LeBron James.

Right?

That’s the off-the-rack take.

Here’s what someone who knows Leonard as well as anybody told me privately: “He’s going to fall in love with Toronto – it’s going to happen. He’s not going to leave, I’m telling you.”

Raptors might become rapture.

For seven years, until things went sideways over the diagnosis (or misdiagnosis) of quadriceps tendinopathy that cost him all but nine games last season, San Antonio seemed like the perfect place for a quiet, unassuming guy who doesn’t covet money or fame or individual accolades, just titles. The coach, Gregg Popovich, is creative and innovative. The city, low key. The fan base, passionate. The locker room, chill – refreshingly devoid of egos bloated by making $20 million to put a round ball in a round hoop. And the team was a perennial title contender.

Toronto?

It has a young, creative, innovative coach in Nick Nurse; a fan base that is loyal and passionate but will leave you alone in public; a cosmopolitan city that many rank the best stop in the NBA; a locker room full of versatile, defensive-oriented players who don’t care about scoring averages; a progressive front office that, unlike many franchises, helps players secure local marketing deals; a loaded roster that won 59 games last season and no longer has to worry about its nemesis, LeBron, in the Eastern Conference playoffs; and Green, one of Leonard’s closest teammates from the Spurs.

The club president is Nigerian-born Masai Ujiri, the only non-American to be named NBA executive of the year. Leonard has called meeting Barack Obama during the Spurs’ visit to the White House following their 2014 championship “one of my greatest experiences.” Ujiri is tight with Obama and spent last week with him in Kenya opening a basketball court by Ujiri’s Giants of Africa charity.

Leonard likes listening to rapper Drake. Toronto is Drake’s hometown. He’s courtside for most games.

“We welcome you,” Drake wrote in an open letter to Leonard posted on social media, “to the most intense and supportive city in NBA basketball!!! You have always been a poised clinical warrior, and I can’t wait to see how Toronto inspires your fight.”

Or listen to Sharon Powell.

She’s the mother of Norman Powell, the Lincoln High alum who played at UCLA and was initially drafted by Milwaukee, only to be quickly dealt farther east to Toronto. A Southern California boy shipped to the Great White North.

He’s been there three seasons and last fall signed a four-year extension. Sharon, who lives in San Diego, likes it so much that she vows to attend every home game this season.

“The first time I went, it was freezing cold – cold like you just don’t know,” Sharon says. “But it was the best, it was amazing … Norman loves it there, he really does. He likes the city, the people, the team. The fans are so great, so supportive. They’re humble, they’re nice, they’re cordial. I haven’t seen pushy people yet.

“It’s just a fabulous place. Everybody has treated us with open arms. I’m hoping when Kawhi gets there he’ll feel the same way. I know he’ll be treated the same way.”

It’s a message she will share with Kim Robertson, Leonard’s mother whom she has befriended through basketball circles.

Ujiri will be telling her, too. The future of his franchise might depend on it.

“There’s something about this city, about this place, this team, that a star player hasn’t figured out yet,” Ujiri told the Toronto Star last year. “There will be a first one … it’s going to happen, for sure. Maybe not in my time, maybe 20 years from now, maybe 10 years from now, maybe five years from now.

“But I’m telling you, somebody’s going to figure it out. We haven’t won big, but people can see that and say: ‘How cool is that there? What if I came there? Maybe I can make it cooler. Maybe I can build it bigger.’”

Leonard isn’t saying if it will be him. He isn’t saying much of anything, as usual. He was in Toronto on Friday to finalize trade details, and the team hosted a news conference. With Ujiri, not Leonard.

But to prove the 2014 NBA Finals MVP and two-time defensive player of the year was indeed in town and diffuse speculation that he might refuse to report, the Raptors tweeted a picture of Leonard, Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster.

Leonard is famously stoic in photos, to the point where teammates kid him about it. But look closely at the man standing between Ujiri and Webster, and you can see the corners of his mouth slightly upturned. You can see some teeth.

You can see – yes, there it is – the beginnings of a smile.

Haha, I love it. I hope he's right.

[...c.a.p...]

Kawhi better understand the amount of chips Masai put all in on this trade and appreciate it

We traded our franchise star who loved it year and didnt want to leave (first one ever) for you knowing

1) you want to go to LA
2) have no medical reports

If that doesnt show confidence in your abilities, I dont know what will.

Honestly one of the biggest gambles in NBA history

Certainly our biggest gamble for sure

Would you say it's bigger than the Grizzlies drafting Steve Francis? I'm trying to think of a bigger one a team took.

[Jadoogar]

https://www.fanatics.com/jersey-assurance/x-2132+z-932267037-343285709

get one with trade protection, get a replacement jersey if he gets traded

Only 90 days within purchase tho

Stupid Veshon. WHy couldn't he spell his name properly

[WuTang_OG]

https://www.tsn.ca/nba/video/do-you-have-a-problem-with-kawhi-not-speaking-to-the-toronto-media-yet~1444449

[Westside Gunn]

Only 90 days within purchase tho

Stupid Veshon. WHy couldn't he spell his name properly

lol id rock it. young fans will think its fake

[Vlade Divac]

https://www.tsn.ca/nba/video/do-you-have-a-problem-with-kawhi-not-speaking-to-the-toronto-media-yet~1444449

I liked this guy till he said "he is not resigning in Toronto"

[alienchild]

Only 90 days within purchase tho

Stupid Veshon. WHy couldn't he spell his name properly

You should quit bitching. It's Voshon.

[And1Skip]

https://www.tsn.ca/nba/video/do-you-have-a-problem-with-kawhi-not-speaking-to-the-toronto-media-yet~1444449

THat's actually a nice discussion they are having on ESPN Firsta Take about whether or not Kawhi not speaking to media is OK or not and about his "brand". That may be his personality but I find it weird that Kawhi is so quiet but he's always trying to show-off his Claw logo and does that claw sign with his hands (which we all will be doing non-stop next season can't wait!). Him wearing a sweatshirt with his Claw logo on that first pic with the Raptors and wearing his new Jordan's that was made for him (that also has the claw logo). I think he wants to get the brand out there but is just naturally shy and quiet. Maybe he needs some PR training and he's actually open to it - hope Masai and the organization has a plan to get him the most national and global exposure he's ever hard.

[Fast_Feets]

Someone needs to blast the media and say how cold chicago and boston are. Great players still played there. They need to shutup about this cold this or that.

[WuTang_OG]

https://www.sportsnet.ca/590/jeff-blair-show/maybe-kawhi-leonard-wont-just-one-season-rental/

[StopitLeo]

https://www.sportsnet.ca/590/jeff-blair-show/maybe-kawhi-leonard-wont-just-one-season-rental/

Main takeaway for me from that interview is that Kawhi's motivation is winning. He just wants to win rings. All he does is workout and want to win.

Put on the spot Zeigler says he gives it a greater than 50% chance Kawhi re-signs. He thinks the organization can do some stuff (moves) and the team can be really really really good. Kawhi is out to prove something so if he plays well the team is going to win a lot of games and he's going to be happy.

The roster looks pretty good but people still question whether we are better than Boston (or even ridiculously whether we are better than Philly). I feel like there is another big move coming that makes it clear the Raptors are the best in the East (on paper). Masai made a bold move with the Kawhi trade. Time to go all in.

[VancouverRaps]

Someone needs to blast the media and say how cold chicago and boston are. Great players still played there. They need to shutup about this cold this or that.

Yeah, but that doesn't fit the narrative.

[Mr.Raptorsingh]

https://www.sportsnet.ca/590/jeff-blair-show/maybe-kawhi-leonard-wont-just-one-season-rental/

Main takeaway for me from that interview is that Kawhi's motivation is winning. He just wants to win rings. All he does is workout and want to win.

Put on the spot Zeigler says he gives it a greater than 50% chance Kawhi re-signs. He thinks the organization can do some stuff (moves) and the team can be really really really good. Kawhi is out to prove something so if he plays well the team is going to win a lot of games and he's going to be happy.

The roster looks pretty good but people still question whether we are better than Boston (or even ridiculously whether we are better than Philly). I feel like there is another big move coming that makes it clear the Raptors are the best in the East (on paper). Masai made a bold move with the Kawhi trade. Time to go all in.

If they get to the Finals and really compete with the Warriors and even win it, I think he's re-signing.

[WuTang_OG]

https://www.sportsnet.ca/590/jeff-blair-show/maybe-kawhi-leonard-wont-just-one-season-rental/

Main takeaway for me from that interview is that Kawhi's motivation is winning. He just wants to win rings. All he does is workout and want to win.

Put on the spot Zeigler says he gives it a greater than 50% chance Kawhi re-signs. He thinks the organization can do some stuff (moves) and the team can be really really really good. Kawhi is out to prove something so if he plays well the team is going to win a lot of games and he's going to be happy.

The roster looks pretty good but people still question whether we are better than Boston (or even ridiculously whether we are better than Philly). I feel like there is another big move coming that makes it clear the Raptors are the best in the East (on paper). Masai made a bold move with the Kawhi trade. Time to go all in.

The more I think about it, the more I believe the X factors on this team will be JV and Serge.

We have everything sorted out. Good point guard depth, 3pt shooting, proper spacing, strong perimeter defense and the bench mob.

JV and Serge need to bring rebounding, good defense from p and r, and rim protection.

I dont care who starts out of them but if both can bring that especially serge, then we should be able to make the finals.