We Would Be NBA Champs This Week If...

[Androslav]

I posted this link in a different thread, but it shows a timeline of just how bizarre the Kawhi saga was:

https://ftw.usatoday.com/2018/07/whats-going-on-with-kawhi-leonard-a-strange-timeline

It's hard to look at the Raptors today and say they didn't hit a homerun, but Kawhi had just totally quit on his team and was ghosting everybody. Of course if we could go back in time and trade Brown/Smart or Kyrie for him, you would have to do it, but there was no guarantee it was going to work out. In fact, there were guarantees that he was signing in LA no matter what.

The article ends with:
"Leonard reportedly does not want to play for the Raptors, so this deal likely won’t end well."

I think media gets some things right just by sheer number of different reports and then they eventual hit some.
I personally look for facts (we do actually get some facts on occasion), I try to find motives and I just about always take players side of the story. By using this method I believe I hit twice as many takes right than the mainstream media does.
Which is not that surprising since reporters often have their little rotten agendas unrelated to the truth.

Oh, the opinion of it not ending well is still up in the air, but things are looking mighty bright for the Raptors even if Kawhi does leave.

But it was widely reported that he didn't want to play for the Raptors and if things broke differently, they easily could have gone down in the 2nd round to Philly. And if Boston didn't have an epic meltdown this year, they were also slated to go further. The Raptors took a calculated risk and it absolutely paid off. I'm happy for them!

Winning a 1st title in franchise history may still be in the air.
But that air has about 5-10% of occurrence.
It also has 85-90% of becoming pure gold.

[ozgod]

I am leaning towards a volatile relations between KL and Kyrie hence I don't think it would have worked out. Both are alpha's and would need the ball in their hands a lot. I also think that Danny had JT, and GH already even if he traded JB so it would have been redundant, but knowing what we know now that JT was regressing and GH cloned into Chandler Parsons, then it would have been a good idea to have gone all in on KL. C's would have ruled the EAST.

I must admit, I never knew KL would be this good, I thought he wasn't as good as PG13, boy was I wrong.

I never knew Kawhi Leonard would be compared to Michael Jordan after his injury. Pretty crazy stuff.

It wasn't that evident during the regular season but he's really gone to another level this postseason, carrying the Raptors on his back.