After winning the Larry O’Brien trophy in his first season with the Toronto Raptors in 2019, bringing the first NBA championship to the Canadian franchise, Kawhi Leonard was widely considered the best player in the world.
He had finally proven that he wasn’t just a player shaped by Gregg Popovich’s system in the San Antonio Spurs, but capable of carrying a team almost single-handedly to a title and a franchise like the Raptors, which had never reached such heights.
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Still, as Fred VanVleet confirmed on his podcast, Kawhi knew from the start of the season that he didn’t plan to stay in Canada’s capital. His deep desire was to return to Los Angeles, where both the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Clippers were willing to do whatever it took to land him. But as Pablo Torre reveals, Jerry West once again orchestrated a masterpiece.
“This is Jerry calling. You know, I really want to thank you for trying to help. I heard this morning that everyone over in the Lakers camp thinks they’re going to get him,” West allegedly stressed. “I just find it hard to believe that he would want to go to that sh-t show where he would even get his name in the paper and he wouldn’t be the face of the franchise, that’s for sure.”
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West allegedly offered Wilkes $2.5 million for helping the team sign Leonard
The voice message heard on “Pablo Torre’s Finds Out” show was released by Johnny Wilkes, a man closely connected to Dennis Robertson, better known in NBA circles as “Uncle Dennis.”
He is Leonard’s uncle, and Wilkes claimed he had an oral agreement with West and the Clippers to be paid $2.5 million for helping the team sign Leonard. Wilkes reportedly also suggested to West that if he wanted to ultimately persuade the two-time Finals MVP to join the Clippers, they would need to acquire Paul George as well, which ultimately happened.
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Kawhi denied any outside influence on his decision, stating that it was entirely his own, and Wilkes later sued West and the Clippers in 2020. However, the case was dismissed due to the lack of any enforceable contract between him and Jerry or the Clippers.
It’s hard to imagine West speaking this way about a franchise he spent four decades with, but the fact is that at the time, he was an executive with the Clippers and likely doing everything in his power to bring the current Finals MVP to his team.
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Fast forward to today, with all the context, plus the scandal that erupted around Kawhi and Steve Ballmer ahead of this season, it’s no surprise that Bill Simmons calls the Leonard–Clippers saga one of the “worst trades ever”.
“This whole Kawhi thing, getting into business with him, all the stuff it cost the Clippers, all the players and draft picks, plus this scandal with Leonard,” Simmons said. “It has to be the most damaging transaction in NBA history. I can’t even compare it to anything else, honestly. It’s already retroactively one of the worst trades of all time.”
Injuries stood in the way of Kawhi leading the Clippers to a title
Looking at it from today’s perspective, Leonard missed 155 regular-season games, George has long since left, and at the time of acquiring him, the team had lost Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and later Jalen Williams. The team only reached the Conference finals once.
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Meanwhile, the Lakers paired LeBron James with Anthony Davis, winning the NBA title in their first season together, though they later fell into a stretch of mediocrity.
Still, Leonard clearly resisted the always-tempting Lakers pitch, preferring a project where he could run the show, and at the time, neither he nor anyone in the Clippers organization could have known how much failure injuries would ultimately cause.
This story was originally published by Basketball Network on Feb 12, 2026, where it first appeared in the Latest News section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.