NBA's Handling of Clippers-Kawhi Leonard Investigation Has Been Embarrassing

The never-ending Kawhi Leonard saga just took another wild turn on Thursday. The trade that was agreed upon on June 30, which sent the 35-year-old forward to the Toronto Raptors, has now been put on hold, per ESPN's Shams Charania.

According to the reports, the league office has informed both teams that the Raptors would be assuming the risk of penalties associated with the NBA's investigation into cap circumvention allegations. As a result, Toronto has understandably decided to wait until the conclusion of the investigation to finalize the trade.

Charania later added that even though the league doesn't have a specific timeline for the conclusion of the investigation, it expects the private law firm "to finalize its work in the coming weeks."

NBA Is Screwing Over the Clippers & Raptors With the Kawhi Leonard Investigation

Not only is this a very frustrating development for the Clippers and the Raptors, but it is also an embarrassing level of incompetence on the NBA's part.

The NBA hired the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz back in September to investigate the allegations that the Clippers were using the company Aspiration to circumvent the salary cap and pay Leonard under the table.

Ten months later, the investigation is still not over. It's difficult to comprehend why the process would take so long. This is not a federal case or a criminal investigation. This is a private investigation from a firm contracted directly by the NBA. The league could have easily set a timeline and demanded that the process be done by a certain date.

The league must have known that if the team acquiring Leonard assumed all responsibility, they would certainly wait until after the conclusion of the investigation.

Why not tell the Clippers and the rest of the league this so that they can plan accordingly? Why did they have to wait until the trade was agreed upon to relay this information to the teams? This could have changed the way teams approached the offseason.

This puts the Raptors and the Clippers in a difficult situation. It messes up their offseason plans. Not knowing whether they will have Leonard on the roster impacts everything else each team was hoping to do.

There is also the fairness aspect. Why would the Raptors be penalized for something that the Clippers did? It's one thing to void Leonard's contract and therefore void the trade, but the idea that the Raptors could be financially penalized or stripped of draft picks is ludicrous.

This investigation has gone on for far too long, and this is now another transaction window that is getting severely impacted by it. It has been restricting the Clippers' ability to plan for the future. Now, it's also hurting the Raptors.

The Clippers have been adamantly denying all allegations. At this point, however, it's almost as important that the investigation is concluded as the actual outcome. It's time to leave this behind and turn a new leaf, but the league is making it very difficult for the Clippers and other teams.

Add us as a preferred source on Google