LA Clippers interested in high-profile former Kawhi Leonard teammate

According to Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee, the LA Clippers are ‘enamored’ with Toronto Raptors power forward Pascal Siakam.

Siakam is just 27 years old, and was teammates with Kawhi Leonard when they won the NBA Finals in Toronto during the 2018-2019 season.

There’s no doubt that Leonard and Siakam have chemistry. Leonard went to Toronto and then Siakam won the Most Improved Player award for the season. He knows how to work with Siakam and get the best out of him.

Pascal Siakam would be a great fit with the LA Clippers.

We already know about the chemistry that Kawhi and Pascal Siakam would have, and that obviously would bode very well for the LA Clippers. Siakam turned into the player he is today, largely due to Leonard helping him raise his game.

When Leonard showed up in Toronto, Siakam went from being a 7.3/4.5/2 player to a 16.9/6.9/3.1 player. He shot 50.8% from the field and 22% from deep the season before Leonard came to Toronto, but nailed 54.9% of his field goal attempts and 36.9% of his threes with Kawhi in the picture.

Since, he has upped his game even more. He’s averaged 22.1/7.3/3.9 in these last two years, and even averages 1.1 steals per game. He does a lot of things well on the basketball court, and was both an All-Star and All-NBA selection in the 2018-2019 season.

The Clips could use another power forward, as they missed some depth there in the Western Conference Finals when Marcus Morris Sr. was a little banged up in the first four games of the series. They had many injuries in their frontcourt in general all year, but Siakam has some downside there too.

In June, Siakam underwent successful surgery for a torn labrum in his shoulder.

That’s typically a five month recovery, so he’d likely be out for the start of the season, and not be back until somewhere around mid-November.

The Clippers had a lot of injury problems last year, so there is downside in going after Siakam. He hasn’t had a ton of other injury issues in his career, however, so the Clips may be winning to look past that.

Either way, there’s plenty of upside in getting a deal done for Siakam. The Clippers have many role players that have decent trade value, and could package them together to get it done.

If Siakam stays healthy, then yes, there is plenty to be ‘enamored’ by. If the Clippers want to bank on that, then they’ll absolutely be on the phone quite a bit with the Raps, pushing to get this done.