On Monday's episode of First Take, Stephen A. Smith revealed a rumor that he says he heard about how things went down when Kawhi Leonard was shopping around for a new team.
Now, the reason Stephen A.'s name is specifically mentioned in the headline is so you can consider the source, but nevertheless the man seems to spend the entirety of his waking hours around sports/sports figures, so perhaps this is gossip with some teeth. It's also worth noting that he's revealing rumors that are already spreading throughout the league, regardless of their veracity.
"This is me putting on my reporter’s hat here," Smith said. "People in NBA circles are talking about this right now. Allegedly, the uncle, Uncle Dennis, was asking for a lot of stuff from the other teams. Houses, planes, sponsorship, guaranteed sponsorship money, just as an example. They’re throwing this stuff out there. All of those things are supposedly illegal in the collective bargaining agreement."
He went on to add that he was unsure if there was any validity to the chatter he'd heard, but he still said that it's currently going around the league.
"I have no idea whether this is true or not. I’m not trying to cast any aspersions on Uncle Dennis," he said. "But people in NBA circles are talking about this as we speak."
As you're probably aware, Leonard ended up signing a deal with the Clippers.
Why is that important? Because one could argue the reason why this story is out there right now about the Lakers and the Raptors feeling played wasn’t just because of what Uncle Dennis asked for, but they’re going to try to turn that around and parlay that into a question about what did the Clippers give up to get Kawhi Leonard. So in other words, you’ve got teams right now playing games with one another talking about they’re trying to point the finger at the Clippers saying, ‘let’s ask what the Clippers did to get Kawhi Leonard.’
Smith went on to clarify why he believes this topic is important, and also conceded that this might be sour grapes from a pair of organizations (see: the Lakers and Raptors) who missed out on Leonard's services and weren't real happy about it. He also says that it will leave teams to wonder what exactly the Clippers did to get Kawhi's signature. As transcribed by Bleacher Report, Smith said:
Watch the whole segment up top, via ESPN.
