There are plenty of stories still untold about the Toronto Raptors‘ stunning run to the NBA championship in 2019. Point guard Fred VanVleet has revealed one of them in speaking on a Raptors-based podcast this week.
Then-Raptors boss man Masai Ujiri stunned the basketball world when he pulled off a blockbuster trade to land superstar Kawhi Leonard in the summer of 2018, in exchange for DeMar DeRozan. Of course, the results of that deal speak for themselves, with the team winning the NBA title in Kawhi’s one and only season with the Raptors.
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Amidst the celebrations and massive victory parade in the city in June of 2019, many around Toronto held out hope that the newly-crowned free agent would decide to stay north of the border and run it back with the Raptors. Of course, Leonard signed with the Los Angeles Clippers, breaking the hearts of basketball fans across Canada.
But VanVleet now tells us that any thoughts of Kawhi re-signing with the Raptors were just wishful thinking. And the entire team knew it:
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He (Kawhi) said it from day one… I’m not staying here. From day one, (he said) ‘I don’t know why they traded for me. I don’t want to be here. I’m not staying here.’
VanVleet admitted that the city did everything conceivably possible to try to convince Leonard to stay. From free meals for life at certain restaurants to a key to the city from the Mayor. But it was never going to work.
The city of Toronto made its best pitch for Kawhi to stay, but it was never to be, per VanVleet
“Toronto put their best bid in, man. The city bowed down like we’ve never seen before… As for us regular people, we can look at it and say, ‘Man, how could you leave that?’ But his mind was made up, Kawhi is Kawhi. I thank him eternally for helping us win a championship and carrying us to a moment to where I could be solidified and go on to make a ton of money. We’re forever indebted to him for that… He changed a lot of people’s lives.”
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But if Kawhi was about winning titles, he obviously made the wrong move going to the Clippers. The team has won only three playoff series in the six+ years he’s been there, and Leonard has spent huge chunks of that time injured and unable to play. To make matters worse for the Clips, they were forced (essentially, by Kawhi) to trade blue-chip prospect Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and five first-round picks to the Oklahoma City Thunder back in ’19 in order to land Leonard’s preferred running-mate, Paul George.
We know how that all turned out. Six years later, Shai is an NBA champion and an MVP in OKC, while Kawhi and the Clippers have never come close, and are currently 6-19 near the very bottom of the NBA standings. And Paul George? He’s essentially washed, now playing in Philadelphia with one of the worst contracts in the league.
Maybe Kawhi should have given Toronto another thought, after all.
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