{"id":202249,"date":"2026-09-09T17:12:06","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T17:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/202249\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T17:12:06","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T17:12:06","slug":"l-a-clippers-front-office-suspensions-rework-slowing-kawhi-leonard-trade-to-toronto-raptors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/202249\/","title":{"rendered":"L.A. Clippers front office suspensions, rework slowing Kawhi Leonard trade to Toronto Raptors"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the key reasons the Clippers have not yet finalized the trade of F Kawhi Leonard to the Raptors is because the Clippers are \u201cstill working through their new front office structure\u201d after the penalties handed down by the NBA<\/a> as a result of the league\u2019s cap circumvention investigation<\/a>, according to sources cited by the STEIN LINE\u2019s Jake Fischer. Owner Steve Ballmer and President of Basketball Operations Lawrence Frank were both suspended, Ballmer for the 2026-27 season, and Frank for six months (X, 9\/8<\/a>). THE ATHLETIC\u2019s Amick & Murray cited sources saying that the Raptors, Leonard\u2019s camp and the camps of other prominent players in the trade \u201cremain very confident it will go through soon.\u201d The widespread belief is Clippers GM Trent Redden \u201cwould fill that role\u201d of President of Basketball Operations, but the team has not publicly revealed its plans. If the deal goes down in the next day or so, \u201cnone of this will ultimately matter, but given\u202fthe Clippers\u2019 intense response\u202fto the league\u2019s ruling,\u201d and how owner Ballmer has \u201cmade it abundantly clear he intends to fight back by whatever means necessary, it\u2019s fair to wonder what might come next here.\u201d Especially considering the role Leonard played in the process (THE ATHLETIC, 9\/8<\/a>).<\/p>\n

HOW THIS WILL PLAY OUT: In Toronto, Doug Smith wrote there is \u201cno rush\u201d in completing the trade as neither team is \u201cgoing to do anything else at this point of the off-season; as long as it\u2019s all done before the end of September, that\u2019s fine.\u201d But the idea of \u201crejigging the trade\u201d seems \u201cto be one of the more popular theories being bandied about.\u201d Smith added fans can \u201call understand that trying to get an edge on a sports adversary is the goal of every executive.\u201d Raptors GM Bobby Webster \u201cwants to win every trade but reneging on an agreed-to transaction, for whatever reason, is not how honourable men operate.\u201d Webster is, \u201cabove all, a man of honour.\u201d Smith: \u201cHow\u2019s he going to look every other GM in the eye and say \u201cwe have a deal\u201d if he walks away from this one? Is it worth the hit to his well-earned reputation earned over more than 20 years in the league? It isn\u2019t to me.\u201d The Clippers are not \u201cin a place of \u2018demanding\u2019 changes to the deal, they need to start restocking the draft cupboard and this is a good first step\u201d (TORONTO STAR, 9\/8<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the key reasons the Clippers have not yet finalized the trade of F Kawhi Leonard to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1288,63576,5052,996,1394,48],"class_list":["post-202249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-basketball","tag-clippers","tag-kawhi-leonard","tag-nba","tag-raptors","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}