Celtics landing Kawhi Leonard would change everything

It appears the San Antonio Spurs are ready to move on from Kawahi Leonard, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to the Lakers.

This is the Summer of LeBron, full stop. There’s no doubting that when LeBron hits the free agent market, he will control the flow of everything. But there are subplots to pay attention to that might end up altering how the story of this offseason is told.

One of those, and perhaps the most interesting, involves Kawhi Leonard. The San Antonio Spurs silent superstar is making noise as he tries to escape Texas and continue his career elsewhere. Many have pegged him as the first domino to fall in a potential Big 3 involving LeBron and Paul George teaming up in Los Angeles.

It’s long been thought that if Kawhi goes to the Lakers, so too will LeBron and George. If he goes to the Celtics, which is now being rumored, that changes things.

None of this is to say that a deal will get done for sure. There’s time for the Spurs to try and smooth things over and offer Kawhi a max contract. But as Marc Stein pointed out on Thursday morning in his analysis, that doesn’t seem likely. San Antonio has shifted from trying to keep Kawhi to trying to find the best deal.

That could be in Boston.

The ripple effects of that could mean the Cavaliers shift to dumping salary overboard in an effort to sign Paul George and keep LeBron. It might not happen, but it becomes a serious option if Kawhi is in Boston and a team up in Los Angeles is off the table.

For Boston, it would mean they’re pushing their asset chips to the middle for Kawhi, as a Jaylen Brown package with the future Kings pick could be enough to get it done. Something that shouldn’t be lost in the Kawhi-to-Boston talk is it would essentially mean the Celtics are putting all of their eggs in a basket that doesn’t belong to Anthony Davis. Continuing to save in order to try and make something happen with Davis might be the key. He hasn’t had Kawhi’s health issues, doesn’t seem to be as mentally perturbed, the list goes on as to why Davis might be the better long-term investment.

LeBron may hold the cards to this offseason, but Boston can reshuffle things if it finds a way to land Kawhi.