Clippers Would Benefit From Expanding the Kawhi Leonard-to-Raptors Trade

Even though it has almost been a week since the NBA dealt out its punishment to the LA Clippers stemming from the cap circumvention investigation, the Kawhi Leonard trade has yet to be finalized. The expectation was that once the penalties were announced, it would take a couple of days before the Raptors and the Clippers made the already-agreed-upon trade official.

That hasn't been the case. This raises some questions about the potential motivations of each team. One possibility is that Toronto and LA may be discussing the potential expansion of the trade.

Now that the Clippers know that they will be losing five first-round picks over the next seven years, this could change their calculations. They may be feeling more pressure to accumulate future assets. Since they are unlikely to build a contender with such limited draft capital, the Clippers may focus more on restocking their asset coffers.

Expanding the trade could help the Clippers accomplish that.

Clippers Should Try to Extract More Value Out of the Kawhi Leonard Trade

There are several ways the Clippers can do that. The most obvious one is getting the Raptors to include Jakob Poeltl in the deal. The 30-year-old center is on an unfavorable contract with Toronto, which will pay him an average of $25.9 million per year over the next four seasons. The Raptors would presumably want to offload this salary, and the Clippers should be willing to take him on for the right price.

Poeltl is very overpaid, but he is still a capable rotation center. He would immediately be the best big man on the Clippers' roster. He would help anchor their defense and impact winning right away. He is the type of player the Clippers should be targeting: an overpaid player who can still make a positive impact, but their teams would pay to get out of for financial reasons.

In return for Poeltl, the Clippers could include Brook Lopez and Derrick Jones Jr., two veterans on expiring contracts who could help the Raptors. With this type of return, the Clippers could get the Raptors to include another first-round pick, and maybe even a young player of interest.

The Clippers desperately need a starting center. In this transaction, they would be getting a quality center while adding more draft capital.

Alternatively, more teams could get involved in the trade. If Poeltl isn't an option, the Clippers could look to take on other teams' unwanted salaries. Folding more transactions into a single trade is generally easier for salary-matching purposes, and that could be a way for the Clippers to extract more value in this trade.

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