Everyone owes Kawhi Leonard a big thank you for all the intrigue that this upcoming NBA season has. Fresh off of leading the Toronto Raptors to their first ever NBA championship and winning his second NBA Finals MVP, we all knew Leonard was looking to come home to Los Angeles as a free agent. If he joins the Los Angeles Lakers, he forms the best big 3 in NBA history with LeBron James and Anthony Davis and, assuming good health, they win the NBA title for the next two years, at least. Yet, he joined the Clippers, a franchise infamous for its losing, bad ownership, and consistent failures to produce basketball worth watching. He just took one franchise to their first championship, what if he does it again?
Kawhi joined Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and LeBron James as the only players to win NBA Finals MVP with two different teams; an elite, exclusive level of company. His legacy is as good as any players in the history of the league at the age of 28. If he wins an NBA championship with the Clippers, he is making history that no other player is really even close to accomplishing. How do we judge him among the all-time ranks of players? It’s a conversation we have with the greatest players of the generation (LeBron, KD, Steph, etc.) and somehow Kawhi doesn’t get talked about enough. Can he end up as a top 10-15 player before its all set and done? There’s still so many questions to a player that is so quiet, yet such an assassin. Kawhi has created a path for himself that is so unique to the point where you can’t make other comparisons to the legends of Basketballs past.
There are so many storyline’s to keep an eye on this upcoming NBA season, and Kawhi being a Los Angeles Clipper might be the most intriguing of them all. It’s not like he joined a so-so team; this was a 48 win team who took the almighty Golden State Warriors to 6 games in the first round of the playoffs. Let’s not forget they traded for Paul George, a Perennial All-Star who was in the top 3 of MVP voting last year. This team is loaded, and defensively, especially on the perimeter, is going to be a nightmare for 29 other teams. They’re going to need it, as the Western Conference is as loaded as its ever been. The Clippers might not even be the best team in their own building, as the Lakers still ended up creating a team around James and Davis worthy of winning an NBA title. Not to mention, all the lure and history of the Lakers that has kept the Clippers in the shadows ever since they moved from San Diego in 1982.
All these obstacles, and yet it still feels like Kawhi controls the league, and his stare down with history, with the palms of his (5XL) hands.
For a look at Kawhi’s stats and accomplishments up to this point.
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