The Detroit Pistons are aggressively pursuing a second star and have reportedly expressed interest in Kawhi Leonard.
The Pistons were also attached to Austin Reaves and Tyler Herro, but appear to have struck out on both, as the Lakers fast tracked Reaves’ new max deal, and Milwaukee may actually just want to keep Herro.
Brian Windhorst of ESPN speculated that Kawhi could be the next target up and that if the Clippers were willing to trade him the Pistons “want to be in line.”
That’s an interesting development, but there are some huge roadblocks to actually making it happen.
Kawhi Leonard is under investigation
As Windhorst laid out, Leonard and the Clippers are still under investigation by the NBA for the whole tree planting fiasco and may not be allowed to extend or sign him.
Until that situation is resolved, it’s hard to see how any team would trade for Kawhi given the uncertainties of how that turns out. Could his contract be voided? Could he be suspended? This sounds like potential for a massive distraction even if it were allowed to happen.
The Pistons already narrowly dodged a bullet with Malik Beasley, so I do wonder if Kawhi’s drama would ultimately put them off. I’m sure Trajan Langdon wouldn’t do it unless he was confident in the outcome, but it seems risky.
And that’s before you even get to Kawhi’s age (34) and lengthy injury history. He surely fits the definition of a second star, but he comes with challenges that are out of the Pistons’ control.
Would Kawhi even want to play in Detroit?
I have doubts that Leonard would sign off on a trade to Detroit, and even if he did, I wouldn’t expect him to stick around.
This is a guy who spent his entire career trying to get back to his hometown LA, so there would be no guarantee he’d want to extend with the Pistons.
Maybe Detroit wants to take a one-off shot like Toronto did with Kawhi, and if that’s the case, great, but they can’t give up too much for a rental.
How much to trade for Kawhi Leonard?
Red flags aside, Leonard can still play and is fresh off one of his best seasons. He did play 65 games which is somewhat reassuring, but the Pistons still can’t go all in to get him.
The problem is that he’s making $50 million next season, and now that the Pistons traded Stewart, it would be difficult to come up with that many salaries. They’d have to likely send Duncan Robinson, Caris LeVert, Ron Holland and Marcus Sasser, not exactly a tempting offer for LA.
The idea of a healthy Kawhi next to Cade Cunningham in the playoffs is appealing, even if it’s just for one season, but there are real challenges to making it happen and the Pistons would have to give up a lot of their roster depth to get there.
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