{"id":158079,"date":"2025-09-05T12:21:41","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T16:21:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=158079"},"modified":"2025-09-05T12:21:41","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T16:21:41","slug":"kawhi-leonard-clippers-decision-blessing-in-disguise-for-lakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/09\/05\/kawhi-leonard-clippers-decision-blessing-in-disguise-for-lakers\/","title":{"rendered":"Kawhi Leonard’s 2019 Decision is Blessing in Disguise for Lakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Lakers have had no shortage of stars throughout their 78-year long history. They, of course, had the chance to add another one to their ranks when <\/span>Kawhi Leonard<\/span><\/a>\u2019s free agency saga gripped the NBA world. Fast forward six years after Leonard joined the LA Clippers, and many\u2014including an anonymous league executive\u2014believe Kawhi\u2019s choice may have saved the purple and gold.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kawhi Leonard’s 2019 Decision is Blessing in Disguise for Lakers<\/b><\/h2>\n

NBA Exec Believes Lakers \u201cDodged a Massive Bullet\u201d<\/b><\/h3>\n

The six-time All-Star has made headlines for all the wrong reasons in the last 48 hours. An <\/span>investigation<\/span><\/a> by sports journalist Pablo Torre found the <\/span>Clippers<\/span><\/a> attempted to circumvent the salary cap by signing Leonard to a $28 million endorsement deal with a now-bankrupt tree-planting company, Aspiration.<\/span><\/p>\n

Past reporting revealed that Leonard\u2019s uncle, Dennis Robertson, demanded that teams courting Leonard in 2019 give the star forward a slew of \u201cimproper benefits,\u201d including <\/span>millions in off-court endorsements<\/span><\/a>, according to <\/span>The Athletic\u2019s Sam Amick<\/span><\/a>. Lakers Governor Jeanie Buss firmly denied such requests, which Robertson made via three phone calls over the course of several days.<\/span><\/p>\n

Considering Leonard\u2019s current debacle<\/a> and all that\u2019s happened since he landed in LA, a league executive told Lakers Daily that the team \u201cdodged a massive bullet.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Lakers wanted Kawhi badly. \u2026 Boy, they dodged a massive bullet by not landing him. You think Rich [Paul] and LeBron are hard to deal with? Uncle Dennis (Dennis Robertson) is even worse. He thinks Kawhi is the second coming of Jesus.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Lakers dodged a massive bullet by not getting Kawhi. The guy barely plays, doesn\u2019t market the team he\u2019s on and now he\u2019s in the news for the wrong reasons for the second time since signing with the Clippers. This has been a huge headache for Ballmer and Co.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The \u201cWhat-ifs\u201d of Kawhi on the Lakers<\/b><\/h3>\n

Although the Lakers and Clippers have taken remarkably different paths since 2019, some may still speculate \u201cwhat could have been\u201d had the Lakers formed a big three of Leonard, <\/span>LeBron James<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Anthony Davis<\/span><\/a>. Would those Lakers live up to the purported <\/span>\u201csuperteam\u201d hype<\/span><\/a> that surrounded them in free agency? Would the dream scenario become a nightmare and blow up in their faces? And would the <\/span>Luka Doncic<\/span><\/a> trade <\/span>even happen<\/span><\/i> if Kawhi ignored blue and red for purple and gold?<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Feb
Feb 4, 2025; Inglewood, California, USA; Los Angeles Lakers guard Austin Reaves (15) scores a basket ahead of Los Angeles Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard (2) and center Ivica Zubac (40) during the second half at Intuit Dome. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There\u2019s no use dwelling on the past, of course, but Leonard joining the Lakers would have created a hell of a butterfly effect. And knowing what we know now about Leonard\u2019s time with the Clippers, the exec and Lakers fans agree the team definitely <\/span>dodged a bullet<\/span><\/a>. Despite the rough stretches the purple and gold endured in recent years, it could have been worse with a load managing star and his extremely shady uncle.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lakers have had no shortage of stars throughout their 78-year long history. They, of course, had the chance to add another one to their ranks when Kawhi Leonard\u2019s free agency saga gripped the NBA world. Fast forward six years after Leonard joined the LA Clippers, and many\u2014including an anonymous league executive\u2014believe Kawhi\u2019s choice may […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4265,"featured_media":158081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,27,26,62,3],"tags":[240,168,38,1133],"class_list":["post-158079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-clippers","category-lakers","category-nba","category-news","tag-anthony-davis","tag-kawhi-leonard","tag-lebron-james","tag-luka-doncic"],"modified_by":"Jordan Pagkalinawan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158079"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":158090,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158079\/revisions\/158090"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}