TORONTO — DeMar DeRozan was unlike many of the franchise players who came before him with the Toronto Raptors. For years, Canada’s lone NBA franchise was jilted by stars who eventually either wanted out or declined to put down long-term roots. Not DeRozan, who once famously said "I am Toronto." The city loved him for it, and for the way he helped the Raptors become a perennial contender in the Eastern Conference. But despite nine impressive seasons in Toronto, DeRozan could never get the team over the hump. And like head coach Dwane Casey before him, he’s now on his way out of town. The Raptors shipped DeRozan to San Antonio on Wednesday in a blockbuster deal that sees star forward Kawhi Leonard come north of the border. Toronto also gets three-point threat Danny Green in the deal with backup centre Jakob Poeltl and a 2019 protected first-round draft pick going to the Spurs. The Raptors confirmed the trade in a news release. There was no immediate word on a team or player availability. Leonard, if healthy, would give Toronto one of the best two-way players in the NBA and a true bonafide superstar. But that’s a big if. Questions remain about the status of a right leg injury that shelved him for all but nine games last season. He was named NBA Finals MVP in 2014 after leading the Spurs to a championship but his relationship with the team deteriorated last season to the point where he asked for a trade. "Kawhi conducted himself wonderfully while he was here," Spurs president and coach Gregg Popovich told local reporters. "He helped us win a fifth championship. As I’ve said, he was a hard worker all the time. We wish him well but at this point it’s time to move on. "I’m concerned about Jakob and DeMar and our basketball team and putting that together. We’ve got a lot of young kids and it’s exciting. But in no way, shape or form does it do any good to go back in time and talk about A, B or C. It’s time to move on." Leonard, a two-time NBA defensive player of the year, can become a free agent next summer and has stated that he wants to play for the Los Angeles Lakers. The trade appears to be an all-in push by the Raptors’ brass on a 2018-19 campaign that could set Toronto up to finally conquer the East or set the stage for a dramatic rebuild. The in-between of an early playoff departure won’t be good enough, as Casey learned with his firing last May after a 59-win season. Toronto’s top seeding in the East didn’t intimidate LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the least as they swept the Raptors out of the second round for a second straight year. With James now with the Lakers, the league’s powerhouses are in the West. The East appears to be up for grabs with the Raptors, Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers among the early favourites. The big gamble is whether Leonard would be interested in a multi-year contract with the Raptors, who could offer more money and term than other teams when he hits free agency. If he did depart, Toronto would have given up a star in DeRozan — who has three years left on his deal — for a one-and-done player. Toronto would be off the hook on a big-time salary but would likely be forced to significantly retool its roster. DeRozan, a four-time all-star swingman who led the Raptors in scoring in each of the last five seasons, appeared frustrated to be leaving. He posted messages on his Instagram account that suggested he wasn’t expecting to be dealt. "Be told one thing & the outcome another. Can’t trust em. Ain’t no loyalty in this game. Sell you out quick for a little bit of nothing… Soon you’ll understand … Don’t disturb," he said. For the upcoming season, new Raptors head coach Nick Nurse will guide a team that looks quite formidable on paper. Barring any other moves, Leonard and Green join a solid core that includes veterans Kyle Lowry, Jonas Valanciunas and Serge Ibaka along with young talents like OG Anunoby, Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet and Delon Wright. Leonard, 27, averaged a career-best 25.5 points a game in 2016-17, when he finished third in MVP voting. Green, a 31-year-old shooting guard, started 60 games for the Spurs last season and averaged 8.6 points. DeRozan was selected by Toronto with the ninth overall pick in the 2009 NBA Draft. He led the Raptors to the playoffs over the last five years, including an East final appearance in 2016. "No matter what…When I think of Toronto Raptors Basketball… I think of DeMar DeRozan…He deserves a statue," former teammate DeMarre Carroll posted on Twitter. DeRozan, 28, is the Raptors’ all-time leader in points (13,296), field goals made (4,716), free throws made (3,539) and games played (675). Poeltl, a 22-year-old centre, averaged 6.9 points and 4.8 rebounds as a key bench player for Toronto last season. The Austrian is entering his third NBA campaign.<doc-sep>The Raptors are acquiring disgruntled San Antonio Spurs star Kawhi Leonard, according to a report from Adrian Wojnarowski. The Raptors will send out DeMar DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl, and a top-20 protected 2019 first-round pick. They’ll also receive Danny Green. The news was first reported by Shams Charania, Adrian Wojnarowski, and Chris Haynes early Wednesday morning. We have a full reaction here, although that was prior to knowing the return. Knowing the return now, the deal looks like a more justifiable move – the Raptors landed a former MVP candidate in Leonard and a very useful two-way rotation piece in Green, and while giving up DeRozan is all kinds of difficult, they kept their two highest-upside young players in OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam and only surrendered one draft pick. Raptors president Masai Ujiri is swinging for the fences here, and the optics are not great, but he’s maintained the most important potential pieces of the next core (Siakam, Anunoby, Fred VanVleet, and the team’s 2021 first-round pick), so there isn’t quite as much future sacrifice as initially anticipated. Being able to hang on to both Anunoby and Siakam is huge, not just for the team’s future long-term potential but for how they stack up this season, when both players figure to be key rotation pieces and complementary defensive pieces alongside Leonard. There are still a lot of complications here, namely that Leonard reportedly doesn’t want to play in Toronto. The risk here is immense, both that Leonard walks at the end of 2018-19 and heads to the Los Angeles Lakers and that Leonard doesn’t return to his previous form after almost an entire year off due to a mysterious quad injury. At his best, Leonard was perhaps the second-best player in the NBA, and these are the type of risks necessary when such a rare talent becomes available on the market at a depressed price. I went into this much more in the piece linked above, but the Raptors could basically only get into Leonard talks under a certain set of circumstances where adding him would be complicated. Ujiri is betting on his ability to sell Leonard on staying and, failing that, the benefit of maximizing one year of the team’s window versus having DeRozan for the next two, or perhaps three. At his best, Leonard is the best player the Raptors have ever had. He is a highly efficient scorer, a solid secondary playmaker, and a strong shooter, and he is the league’s best perimeter defender when healthy. It can’t be overstated just how good he is. Even after playing just nine mediocre games last year, he projects in nearly the 100th percentile for player impact next season. Whether he can return to that level is a major if given the nebulous nature of his rehabilitation and how he looked in limited action last year. Flipping a player of DeRozan’s caliber for an MVP candidate is a lot easier a sell than flipping him for a lower-end All-Star, obviously. The Raptors are betting big that Leonard can return to full form. If he does, they’ll be right there with Boston as the class of the Eastern Conference, employing its best player. If he looks hampered or, worse, sacrifices money by deciding not to report (this seems unlikely), this will look like a shakier bet. Given how much is on the line here, the Raptors seem confident that he’ll be something close to the Leonard that had the Golden State Warriors on their heels two postseasons ago and has the most legitimate claim to being a star-stopper in the NBA. Getting Green in the deal was necessary mostly from a financial perspective to make the trade math work, but it’s a nice addition nonetheless. Green hasn’t been quite the player he was from 2011-2013 the last few years, but he remains a solid 3-and-D wing who will be a boon to the team’s perimeter defense and add even more shooting. He probably slots in on the lower end of the team’s rotation and projects as especially useful against some postseason opponents that will require a greater emphasis on individual defense and spacing. He should fit the team’s transition game, too, either as a starter or reserve. Green’s projection for 2018-19 grades him as a solid rotation piece, and his $10-million contract expires after this season, offering the Raptors some additional flexibility. (That they’ve cleared a lot off of their books for next summer and 2020 in this deal should not be underestimated; the Raptors are set up even better now for a quick pivot to the younger core, and they figure to have loads of cap space in 2020 and 2021 if Leonard walks.) The cost, obviously, is large. DeRozan has had the best Raptors career of any player to ever wear the uniform and is one of the most beloved athletes the city of Toronto has had the last…forever. Reports are that he’s quite hurt by the deal after being told he wouldn’t be dealt, and there’s a real risk in trading away the first star who consistently wanted to stay, represent the city and the franchise, and put them on his back. I wrote about this more in the earlier piece and will probably reflect upon it in a stand-alone piece later, but dealing DeRozan is very hard from a P.R./fan/loyalty perspective. He’s meant a ton to the franchise, and it doesn’t feel great, even if it makes sense. It feels a little dirt, to be honest, especially if the reports of him being lied to are true. He deserves better than that, even if loyalty is strictly imaginary in sports. And it’s not as if DeRozan has fallen off. He was Second-Team All-NBA last year after once again improving against all odds, and he was probably the best piece available to the Spurs if they were committed to remaining competitive, even if the fit is incredibly awkward. He is a high-volume, moderate-efficiency scorer who’s improved dramatically as a playmaker, and the Spurs have shown they can get more out of minus-defenders than other teams. He’s a four-time All-Star and holds every meaningful record in Raptors franchise history. Those things do not happen by accident. Leonard at his best is a meaningful upgrade – he’s a more efficient scorer, an elite defender, and has an outsized positive impact on team-level performance where DeRozan has never really moved that particular needle in a positive direction – but DeRozan is a great piece for San Antonio to get back in a bad situation, and if Leonard walks after a year, the loss of DeRozan will hurt. Poeltl and the 2019 pick are a fair sweetener to get the deal done. The No. 9 pick in 2016 – and yes, the Andrea Bargnani trade tree now connects to Leonard – Poeltl has already established himself as a high-end backup center and could project as a solid starter. It’s unclear if there’s much upside beyond that, though with two years left on his rookie-scale deal and with a ton to like from an awareness, IQ, and fundamentals perspective, that’s still a really valuable piece to have. Solid is the perfect word for Poeltl, who has improved as a finisher around the rim, contests well on the other end of the floor, and has good mobility on both sides of the ball, either as a defender in space or as a roll-man (he has great screen-setting mechanics, as well). The Raptors are surely happy that Poeltl is the young piece they gave up – he was the most tradeable outside of maybe Delon Wright given the accessibility to replacements at center (hi again, Lucas Nogueira) and Serge Ibaka’s ability to play some center – and the Spurs are probably likewise happy to have a very Spurs-feeling center in the fold. He’ll be missed in Toronto, as he was extremely well-liked within the organization and within the team’s young core. Two great friendships have died today. The 2019 pick, protected for the top 20 or it becomes a pair of second-rounders, makes sense as a throw-in.<doc-sep>The San Antonio Spurs are reportedly in the final stages of a deal to send Kawhi Leonard and a player (or players) to the Toronto Raptors for DeMar DeRozan and a player (or players). It started with this: Toronto is close to a deal to acquire Spurs All-Star Kawhi Leonard, league sources tell @ChrisBHaynes and me. Trade package includes DeMar DeRozan, league sources tell ESPN. — Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 18, 2018 It has apparently progressed to point where this story by Woj is at the top of the front page of ESPN. For the time being, phrases like “An agreement in principle” and “reached as soon as Wednesday” are being tossed around by (you guessed it) “league sources.“ And just in case you thought the drama might be in the rearview: “Leonard and DeRozan are both aware that an agreement could be imminent, and neither is expressing enthusiasm for the deal,” and DeRozan even went so far as to post a reaction to Instagram: “Be told one thing & outcome another. Can’t trust em. Ain’t no loyalty in this game. Sell you out quit for a little bit of nothing...soon you’ll understand... Don’t disturb...” More details to follow as they’re available.<doc-sep>
Photo : Thearon W. Henderson ( Getty ) The good news, for Raptors fans: Kawhi Leonard is reportedly heading to Toronto in a trade. The potential bad news for Raptors fans, but good news for Lakers fans and fans of NBA drama: Yahoo first reported that the Spurs and Raptors were “engaged in serious talks” on a deal that would send disgruntled Kawhi Leonard north in a deal for DeMar DeRozan. ESPN then offered stronger wording, saying that the sides were “finalizing” the deal, and it could be announced as early as today. It’s a package deal, with multiple players going both ways, though as of this morning only DeRozan is publicly known (and has been informed), according to Adrian Wojnarowski. (Update: Woj has the other pieces. Danny Green is also going to Toronto, and Jakob Poeltl and a protected first-round pick are coming back.) There are, of course, big complications here—Leonard is a free agent next summer, and he quasi–held out this year, and he’s already got 2019 plans. From ESPN: Raptors president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri is taking a significant risk in pursuing the trade. Ujiri will make the deal with a determination that he can sell Leonard on re-signing with the Raptors next summer in free agency, sources said. Toronto would be able to offer Leonard a five-year, $190 million contract next summer. If Leonard left the Raptors, he could sign a four-year, $141 million deal with a team with the available salary-cap space. Leonard has been clear that he plans to sign with the Los Angeles Lakers in free agency next summer. DeRozan’s pissed about the trade too! Late last night he posted an Instagram story and it’s not particularly cryptic. “Be told one thing & the outcome another,” DeRozan wrote. “Can’t trust em. Ain’t no loyalty in this game. Sell you out quick for a little bit of nothing.” DeRozan has two more years under contract, and a player option for 2020–21. He’s a pretty good return for Leonard for the Spurs, especially since San Antonio didn’t have a ton of leverage. (They did have the ability to send Leonard somewhere they knew he didn’t want to go, and thus denude his likelihood of signing a five-year max contract instead of a four-year deal.) Will Leonard even play? Could the Raptors flip him? Does clearing DeRozan’s deal mean they have big plans for next summer’s star free agent class? Does Leonard even hate this trade more than DeRozan does? It’s going to be a wild year.