ESPN’s Brian Windhorst Breaks Down Kawhi’s Uncertain Future with the Clippers

Brian Windhorst does not think Kawhi Leonard wants to leave the Clippers. He also would not call that a guarantee, and on Leonard's 35th birthday, with one year left on his contract, the uncertainty is the whole story.

Windhorst laid out the case for Leonard staying put, and it is a strong one. He is coming off a season and a half of healthy, high-level basketball. He made second-team All-NBA this year, averaged 25 points, shot 51 percent from the field, hit around 90 percent from the line, and connected in the high 30s from three. He has played roughly 103 of about 120 games over that healthy stretch. By Windhorst's read, Leonard would like to stay in Los Angeles.

The complication is money and timing. At 35 and coming off that kind of year, Leonard would want an extension, the security of being taken care of. Windhorst does not believe the Clippers are ready to extend him. He was careful to say he does not think the Clippers walked in and told Leonard they have to trade him. It is more the other direction. If they are not ready to extend, then Leonard might say he would like to go, and go to a specific place.

That place, per Windhorst's ESPN colleague Shams Charania, is Toronto. And Windhorst suspects the reason is the same one driving so much of this offseason. The Raptors would be willing to extend him. Other spots might be too, but Toronto is the one Leonard appears to like.

The history writes itself, and Windhorst and Rich enjoyed it. If Leonard does go back, expect the warm reviews about how well Toronto treated him. There were the "Kawhi and dine" restaurants during the Finals run, their logos posted right on the door. There was the championship banner he delivered. There was the plant someone handed him at the parade.

All of that is wonderful and nice, Windhorst said, but he suspects the real driver is the extension dollars the Raptors would put on the table.

His bottom line on the broader free-agency board: a Leonard-to-Toronto move has a stronger possibility right now than Anthony Davis landing in Golden State.