1 contract every NBA team would want back
By Ian Levy
Los Angeles Clippers: Kawhi Leonard
If they had the chance to go back and do it again, the Clippers very well might make the same gamble — trading Shai-Gilgeous Alexander and a mountain of first-round picks for Paul George and then committing an additional four years and nearly $340 million to him and Kawhi Leonard. The George half of the plan has been just a subtle disappointment but the Leonard half has been a disaster.
In the first two years of his four-year extension, Leonard has played just 52 total games. The Clippers have shown flashes of contender-level play when he’s been on the court but that’s been less than a third of their games and there’s not much reason for optimism about his health and availability over the last two years of the deal.
Going all in on Leonard and George was a no-brainer at the time, and their talent is such that with a time machine, the Clippers might make all the same choices and hope for healthy outcomes. But they could also just as easily be built around essentially the same core as Thunder right now, a team with a much brighter future.