Los Angeles Lakers: 3 takeaways from 2019 NBA Finals that impact L.A.

3. Kawhi Leonard is not coming to L.A.

Hopes are fading fast for any Lakers (or Los Angeles Clippers) fans who still believe Raptors star Kawhi Leonard will return home to California this summer as a free agent.

Leonard will almost certainly opt out of his current contract and the $21.3 million he’s due next season, but I would wager a bench player’s salary that he’ll turn around and re-sign with Toronto for a ton of money and continue his run as the reigning king of Canada.

Winning a championship for the Raptors has made Leonard an instant legend for an entire country.

Now, if there’s any player in the league who may genuinely not care about fanfare, it’s Leonard.

With that being said, it would still be surprising to see a superstar in his prime leave a team right after winning a championship. The first example that comes to mind is Michael Jordan in 1993, but he left the Chicago Bulls to retire from the sport, not to play for another team.

The angle that has been overlooked in all of the Leonard speculation is that the Raptors are actually the best fit for Leonard as a basketball player. The team is built to maximize his strengths, and if he were to return, the Raptors could ultimately be favored to repeat as champions in 2020.

It also shouldn’t be ignored that New Balance has put a lot of money into marketing Leonard in Toronto and those efforts have been going very well. Of course, being in L.A. can raise his celebrity profile, but Toronto really looks like the right place for Leonard, both on and off the court.

In the immediate aftermath of his second NBA title and second Finals MVP, Leonard-to-the-Lakers seems highly unlikely.

If the Lakers want to bring in one of the participants of the 2019 NBA Finals, they should set their sights instead on Golden State’s Klay Thompson (even with his torn ACL) or DeMarcus Cousins.