Thursday night Kawhi Leonard finished his return season with an NBA Championship. Leonard only played nine games in the previous season before eventually pushing himself out of San Antonio. Masai Ujuri took a chance and made a blockbuster deal swapping DeMar DeRozan for Leonard, I know others were included in the deal, but DeRozan and Leonard were the centerpieces. People questioned the quiet superstars health, his will and his want, but now all the doubters have to eat crow because he’s done something in one year that nobody has done in the Raptors franchise history by winning an NBA Championship.
Leonard has killed multiple dynasties in his NBA career. He stopped the famous Heat, stopped the Warriors and stopped the Spurs. Yes, he stopped the Spurs by subtracting himself and that’s no disrespect to DeRozan, Leonard is just on a different level at this time in his career. The NBA Finals MVP has returned to a Top 5 player in the NBA. If he stays in Toronto or not he will have a statue outside of their arena in no time. It will probably be the pose while waiting for that jumper over Joel Embiid to go in, that is a classic pose.
Leonard had a lot of help to take down the Warriors Kyle Lowry balled, Fred VanVleet played great, Pascal Siakam is on the road to become an All-Star, Marc Gasol played solid on both sides of the court, but Leonard was the main cog in the wheel. With Kevin Durant tearing his Achilles in Game 5 and Klay Thompson tearing his ACL during Game 6 it seems the Warriors dynasty is over. Durant will miss all of the 2019-20 season and Thompson will be out until around March/April so honestly he may be out the whole season also. The biggest question is will Durant and Thompson resign with the Warriors, if one or both do it will be a one year redshirt plan if they can draft people that fit their system and pickup the players the 2020-21 season the Warriors will have a shot to be back in the mix, but what they do this offseason will be key they must resign at least one of their big free agents and that isn’t counting DeMarcus Cousins they won’t be able to pay him the coin. So the word of the day for the Warriors will be “shooters”. Next year it will be Stephen Curry and the Pips, but the next year they may have a shot, but who knows the NBA is wide open once again.
