Grade the trade: Proposed deal has Clippers sending Kawhi Leonard to Warriors

The LA Clippers reached a major fork in in the road this offseason as they opted to move forward without the services of Paul George. Doing so left them in a spot where many thought they would be doomed for the lottery come next season, but management knew better than to just stand pat.

Re-upping both Kawhi Leonard and James Harden was of course huge, as was signing all the other role players LA acquired in order to remain competitive as they prepare to play their first ever season at their brand new arena, the Intuit Dome. However, there is still time in the offseason for a big trade to go down.

It is likely that the Clippers do not want to make any massive roster-shaking moves at this point, as they are focused on getting their current group to gel ahead of a huge season debut in just two months. But at the same time, perhaps they could be convinced for the right price.

Recently, Bleacher Report devised a blockbuster trade proposal that would see the Clippers deal away Kawhi Leonard to the Golden State Warriors. In return, LA would get back a massive haul of players and picks that might just tempt them to pull the trigger.

Would the Clippers agree to this trade?

The full trade details involve Kawhi going to the Bay Area, while the Clippers receive Andrew Wiggins, Gary Payton II, Kevon Looney, Moses Moody, as well as an unprotected 2028 first-round pick, a 2030 first-round pick protected between picks 1-3 and 21-30, and a 2029 first-round pick swap. This is of course a deal of considerable proportions, but there are questions on both sides of the proposal.

For the Warriors, they are obviously concerned with trying to win one last championship in the Stephen Curry era. The greatest shooter of all-time is 36 years old, and who knows how much longer he wants to remain in San Francisco before hypothetically returning to play in his home town of Charlotte. Golden State has to pull out all the stops to get him a legitimate second star, something they have failed massively at to this point.

Giving up all these young players would be a big risk on their part, but in theory they would do it while banking on the health of Leonard. It stands to reason that a healthy duo of Kawhi and Steph with the right role players around them could be a legitimate championship core, even in the year 2024. From the Clippers' side of things, the main question revolves around the same central issue.

Given what we know right now, it seems that Kawhi will be healthy going into next season. The only reason the Clippers' front office would feel compelled to give him away would be if they suddenly lost the current confidence they have in his health. With that in mind, it feels very unlikely they would do this kind of deal. It is far from the worst trade proposal for an injury-prone superstar, but the Clippers would in all likelihood reject it.

Grade: B