OverDrive - Lewenberg on the Clippers and Leonard punishments, Leonard's fine and the Raptors' future

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

TSN Raptors Reporter Josh Lewenberg joined OverDrive to discuss the Clippers and the Kawhi Leonard punishments in the cap circumvention investigations with the league, the trade impact with the Raptors, the fine for Leonard and if it's a slap on the wrist, how the team prepares for the season and more.

Get Bell pure fiber internet with craved Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. It is our TSN rapper reporter, Josh Loonberg. Live from Costa Rica. Look at this guy. Oh my goodness.

Not a green screen. This is real. Oh, boy. Josh, how did it feel? hopping off the plane last night, Lanny and Costa Rica, and this bombshell ends up happening.

Do you expect that when you boarded the plane or what? Oh, yes. No, I mean, look, I would love to say that I'm surprised to be talking to you right now, but it was inevitable. For the last two months, everybody that I talked to,

whether I knew them or I didn't, would ask me, when is the Kwai news going to come down? And I would joke, but like, maybe not actually, that I'm going on vacation first week of September, and the moment that I go away

is when this thing is going to happen. I didn't think it would happen so literally minutes after I got off the airplane. I had just gotten onto the shuttle to the hotel. When I looked down on my phone, I'm like, yeah, of course. I'm going to take off my sunglasses. I've got to be professional. I like it.

You look cool, Josh. You can go back to the glasses. Nobody would be offended. You're on vacation. We appreciate you doing this. So I guess the question is, When will the deal with the Raptors and the Clippers that's going to bring Kauai here? And, of course, in his statement, he was very much talking about being in Toronto as it is.

When will that deal be consummated? And there's been some speculation, Josh, down in the States from some of our old colleagues at ESPN, that maybe the Raptors are in a position now where they have leverage to maybe sweeten this deal on their side. How do you see it? No, I don't think so. I think it's going to be done at some point in the next few days. I imagine the clippers are pretty busy right now. They've got their hands full.

So do their lawyers. But at some point in the next few days, it's going to be made official, official official this time. And, yeah, I mean, I expect the trade to come through as it was designed as it was set up a few months ago. Same amount of draft picks, Grady Dick, Brandon Ingram, Kauai. coming back to Toronto. I don't expect any changes there. And then, yeah, I mean, the Raptors will get working pretty quickly on an extension for Kauai, adding on another two years to his remaining deal. I would expect it to come in pretty close to his max, which is, I believe, around $126 million. Now, look, I mean, I guess technically, until the trade is official, they can't begin negotiation on that.

But, I mean, even though I'm sure Kauai wants to have his hands clean right now, he's been spending a lot of time, with the Raptors over the last few months. They never doubted for a second that this trade would ultimately go through. So I'm sure they've had some conversations and have a pretty good idea of what that extension is going to look like. So, I mean, that's the order of business here. At some point in the near future, we're going to get word that the trade is done and an official and Kauai is back with the Raptors.

And then the extension news will probably follow pretty shortly after that. So, Josh, I mean, we've spoken extensively from the. Clippers perspective and the harsh penalties that were levied to them, there's a sentiment that Kauai Lennar got off a little easy. Where do you kind of land on that debate when it comes to Kauai? No suspension, no voided contract. Just a $700,000 restitution bill and away you go. Now, I mean, no question. A slap on the wrist, a drop in the bucket. The guy is worth nearly $400 million just in terms of like his career earnings up to this point. As I mentioned, he's about to sign an extension worth nearly $126 million.

So $700,000, yeah, he's going to be just fine. Don't worry about Kauai Leonard. In some ways, it's surprising because, look, if the clippers are guilty, and now the NBA has proven that they are, and even before they had that hard proof, we all had a pretty good idea that they were guilty of the allegations that were being thrown their way. If they're guilty, Kauai is guilty to some degree, right?

he's complicit in this and he can plead ignorance all he wants and say that he had no idea where the extra money was coming from but he had to know he was getting more money than what was allowed by the CBA he had to know what was being asked of the clippers even if he wasn't the one doing the asking because of course he asked for the same things from the raptors a few years before So, yeah, to just get a slap on the wrist while obviously the hammer was dropped on the clippers and his reps, including and especially Uncle Dennis, were made into scapegoats. Yeah, he came out of this pretty good, I would say. In another sense, though, it's not surprising because I think it was pretty clear all along that the NBA didn't want to go to war with the players association. that's exactly what would have happened if the Leonard penalty had looked anything like what the Clippers punishment is, suspension,

voided contract, any of that, the PA would have come after them. And look, I mean, the voided contract was never going to happen. That would have been a nightmare scenario for everybody. And it would have screwed over the Raptors, which is something that the NBA didn't want to do. So not surprising in that sense that they would, kind of let the players slide by a little bit. And I also don't think they needed to throw the book at Kauai in order to accomplish what they needed to accomplish here.

I mean, basically what the message here is, is that players and reps can ask for whatever they want. At the end of the day, the onus is on the team now to uphold the league's rules and to say no in the way that the Raptors did back in 2019 and the way that the Clippers now, we know, did not do. So I think it still sends the message around the league, which is what the NBA needed to do here, that this is not something that is going to be tolerated, that if you get caught doing this, the punishment will be significant, even if it isn't significant on the player's side of things. Unmistakably Canadian.

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