Portland Trail Blazers: Imagining a trade for Kawhi Leonard

Kawhi Leonard is reportedly frustrated with the Spurs, so it’s time to imagine what a trade to the Portland Trail Blazers would look like.

Kawhi Leonard missed the entire preseason and the first 27 games of the season with a quadriceps injury. Leonard came back for nine games and was starting to look like his old self for the San Antonio Spurs, but then suffered a partial tear in his left shoulder. He has been out ever since with no update.

San Antonio is 30-18 on the season and sits in fourth place in the Western Conference. The Spurs went 5-4 when Leonard played this season. According to ESPN‘s Adrian Wojnarowski, the relationship between the Spurs and their two-time Defensive Player of the Year has become distant.

Now that there is apparently some tension between Leonard and the Spurs, should San Antonio try and trade the multiple time All-Star? He has dealt with some injuries, and without him, their team has played relatively well.

They’re nowhere near as good without him, and trading an MVP candidate in his prime is never a good idea, but if the relationship is worse than feared, there’s a chance — however slight it might be — that the Spurs make the executive decision to move him.

If that’s the case, the Portland Trail Blazers should join nearly every other team in the NBA and give the Spurs a call to see what they can do to acquire Leonard. It wouldn’t be easy, especially since the Spurs and their fans wouldn’t be ready to move on from one of the top players in the NBA.

However, for the sake of speculation, here are two trade proposals the Blazers could offer the Spurs that might make them at least answer the phone and not hang up right away.