Kawhi Leonard is the biggest star on the Los Angeles Clippers, so it stands to reason that he has more sway than some of his teammates.
How much pull does the 31-year-old have, exactly? Enough to go to the front office and highlight whom he wants the team to acquire ahead of February’s NBA trade deadline.
Given how unabashed he has been about criticizing his team after losses, management will undoubtedly take Leonard’s concerns seriously.
This week, a report surfaced revealing Leonard’s role in the Clippers’ activity on the trade market ahead of Feb. 9.
“Kawhi Leonard has made it clear to the Clippers front office that he would welcome a point guard addition,” Matt Moore of the Action Network reported this week. “And it’s no surprise that two of his former teammates on his championship Raptors team, [Kyle] Lowry and [Fred] VanVleet, are on their short list of targets.”
Los Angeles added John Wall over the summer in hopes that he would plug the longstanding hole at point guard. Unfortunately, he just hasn’t been able to do so consistently.
Currently, the Clippers are 29-25 on the year heading into Thursday's night contest against Milwaukee and sit fourth in the Western Conference.
Everyone agrees that if this group gets healthy and makes maybe one or two moves ahead of the trade deadline, it will be right there in the title chase.
Will either of those things actually materialize? It’s unclear.
The Heat have been telling everyone that Lowry isn’t on the market, and the Raptors have other suitors for VanVleet.
Whether the Clippers have enough to offer either Miami or Toronto to make something happen remains to be seen.
When the Clippers originally got Leonard and Paul George, the assumption was that they would reign over the Western Conference for many years to come. To date, that hasn’t happened.
If Los Angeles doesn’t pull a rabbit out of its hat ahead of this year’s trade deadline and fails to legitimately compete for a title again, Leonard and George may go down as one of the most disappointing dynamic duos of all time.
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