Despite pulling off a victory in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals, the Raptors’ role players are proving why Kawhi should be on the LA Clippers.
The Toronto Raptors may have pulled off a 118-112 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks on Sunday to bring the series closer, but they did it mainly thanks to Kawhi Leonard.
Leonard carried the team to the tune of 36 points, nine rebounds and five assists, coming up especially big in both overtimes. Leonard scored 10 of the team’s 22 points in the two overtime periods in route to playing an astounding 52 minutes, which is actually the most amount of minutes he has ever played in his career.
Yes, a win is nice, but the Raptors supporting cast again let Kawhi down. Marc Gasol and Pascal Siakam played well and including them, the Raptors did have 5 players in double figures, but is that enough? This win came by the skin of their teeth despite all of this.
Through these playoffs, analysts have wondered if the Raptors role players could produce at a level high enough to propel Toronto to actually contending for a championship. As of now, that doesn’t look to be the case.
This is just one more check mark in favor of the LA Clippers.
All year, we heard how this Clippers squad was just a team full of role players. These role players not only made the playoffs, but managed to beat Golden State twice during the postseason. While they were unable to advance past the first round, they still proved that they had several more than capable players.
It has to be hard for Kawhi to look at this Raptors roster versus that of the Clippers and not see a difference. The Raptors do have young talent in Siakim (who should win the Most Improved Player Award), but the Clippers have multiple young pieces as well as not one, but two candidates vying for Sixth Man of the Year in Montrezl Harrell and Lou Williams. This isn’t to mention Danilo Gallinari, who is a borderline All-Star and has no trouble creating for himself.
The LA Clippers will likely lay out the red carpet for Kawhi this summer once free agency starts and they need to remember games like the one last night. Any single thing they can point out that they have over Toronto could help sway him to come to Los Angeles.