{"id":85287,"date":"2024-07-09T11:59:57","date_gmt":"2024-07-09T15:59:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=85287"},"modified":"2024-07-09T11:59:57","modified_gmt":"2024-07-09T15:59:57","slug":"sixers-paul-george-teases-raptors-team-up-kawhi-leonard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/07\/09\/sixers-paul-george-teases-raptors-team-up-kawhi-leonard\/","title":{"rendered":"Sixers\u2019 All-Star Teases Raptors Team Up With Former Teammate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Philadelphia 76ers swingman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/georgpa01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Paul George<\/a> dropped a bombshell in the latest episode of <em>Podcast P with Paul George<\/em>. A man with <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/07\/01\/can-clippers-replace-paul-george-internally\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">no qualms about changing teams<\/a>, the nine-time All-Star reveals that he nearly signed with the Toronto Raptors to join now former teammate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/l\/leonaka01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kawhi Leonard<\/a> after his championship run. Interestingly, the Raptors were <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/sources-kawhi-leonard-declines-option-to-become-free-agent-raptors-the-favorite-to-land-him-231317276.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">considered the favorites<\/a> to sign Leonard at the time.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the duo ultimately signed with the Los Angeles Clippers, where they played together for five seasons.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So after Toronto wins, right, Kawhi and win it, I text Kawhi, &#8216;Congrats, bro.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>I think he ended up calling me right after: &#8216;What you gonna do?&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;What you mean?,\u2019\u201d George asks.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Like, what you gonna do?&#8217; &#8216;Like, you comfortable there? You good there?&#8217;,\u201d Leonard follows up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI&#8217;m like, &#8216;Yeah, bro, I just re-signed. We gonna try to do this s*** next year.\u2019,\u201d George says.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Like, nah, I hear people trying to get out of there,\u201d Leonard retorts.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Let me call you back,\u2019 George responded.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThat was the initial start of that conversation.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Paul George Shares How Kawhi Leonard Reacted to Potential Move to the 76ers\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7R3RTg7Oons?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Then me and him was just working on \u2018how can we make this happen.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cI was close to going to Toronto,\u201d George continues. \u201cWe were deciding to go to Toronto or to Clippers. Ultimately, the Clippers put something better\u2026 a better trade package that sent me to L.A., but I was close.<\/p>\n<p>He was going to re-sign to Toronto, and we were going to go to Toronto. That was the origin and beginning of that story, and it was just a whirlwind of how it played out.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Sixers\u2019 All-Star Teases Raptors Team Up With Former Teammate<\/h2>\n<p>If George had signed with the Raptors in 2019, joining Leonard, the ripple effect would\u2019ve been enormous.<\/p>\n<h3>A Multiverse of Madness<\/h3>\n<p>The Pacific Division would have of course been much different if the Clippers never landed George and Durant. They may have signed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/i\/irvinky01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kyrie Irving<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/duranke01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevin Durant<\/a>, or both. Had they not, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/doncilu01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Luka Doncic<\/a> and the Dallas Mavericks may have reached the NBA Finals long before this year.<\/p>\n<p>If that happened, they may have never felt inclined to trade for Irving. In fact, they may have decided one or both of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/brunsja01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jalen Brunson<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/p\/porzikr01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kristaps Porzingis<\/a> were worth keeping. That puts the future of the New York Knicks and Boston Celtics \u2014the latter now the reigning NBA champions \u2014in question. The Knicks\u2019 case is titillating, because if they never sign Brunson, they might\u2019ve <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/06\/14\/knicks-longtime-trade-pursuit-donovan-mitchell-cooling-off\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">still been chasing<\/a> Cleveland Cavaliers guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mitchdo01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Donovan Mitchell<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Celtics may have found themselves facing the Raptors themselves in the playoffs. As Toronto\u2019s roster may have still had some combination of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/v\/vanvlfr01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fred VanVleet<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/a\/anunoog01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">OG Anunoby<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/s\/siakapa01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pascal Siakam<\/a> supporting the star duo of George and Leonard, the Raptors may have been the ones lifting the Larry O\u2019Brien Trophy.<\/p>\n<p>All of that brings to question the future of the Houston Rockets and Indiana Pacers, who benefited from their acquisitions of VanVleet and Siakam, respectively. For a while, the Knicks were seemingly invincible with Anunoby. As <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/barnesc01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Scottie Barnes<\/a> was only drafted because Toronto struggled in the wake of Leonard\u2019s departure, his destiny would\u2019ve changed as well.<\/p>\n<p>Then again, with the injury history of George and Leonard as well as the restrictions imposed by the CBA, the Raptors\u2019 fate may have resembled the Clippers.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, the duo of George and Leonard proved to be fool\u2019s gold. Though they\u2019re two of the most talented players in NBA history, they\u2019re simply not durable enough. Yet, because of their salary demands, VanVleet, Anunoby, or Siakam may have been squeezed out of Toronto\u2019s wallet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Philadelphia 76ers swingman Paul George dropped a bombshell in the latest episode of Podcast P with Paul George. A man with no qualms about changing teams, the nine-time All-Star reveals that he nearly signed with the Toronto Raptors to join now former teammate Kawhi Leonard after his championship run. Interestingly, the Raptors were considered the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":85291,"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":[14,1608,5,9,30,27,62,12,13,4721],"tags":[1244,1417,168,406,297,4774,1082,1754,50,3852],"class_list":["post-85287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-raptors","category-basketball","category-celtics","category-cavaliers","category-mavericks","category-clippers","category-nba","category-knicks","category-76ers","category-trade-rumors","tag-fred-vanvleet","tag-jalen-brunson","tag-kawhi-leonard","tag-kyrie-irving","tag-nba-free-agency","tag-rumors","tag-og-anunoby","tag-pascal-siakam","tag-paul-george","tag-scottie-barnes"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85287","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\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}