Details of Spurs Trading Kawhi Leonard For Raptors' DeMar DeRozan

Remember a time when rumors said Kyle Lowry wanted to be on a contender like the Spurs? Well, unfortunately for him, two other teammates are the only ones that would suffice. 5:58 am Pacific time, Adrian Wojnarowski dropped a bomb.

In typical Woj fashion, he was already laying the groundwork for this trade to happen as he had tweeted several tweets before saying this was possibly going to happen.

Of course, the sad thing about this is that the Toronto Raptors probably screwed themselves in 2019 free agency if they can't convince Kawhi Leonard to re-sign. They end up taking nothing more than a rental that missed several games this last season. 

The other side of this story is reportedly Toronto assured DeRozan that he would NOT be traded:

Toronto and San Antonio have been talking about the trade for two weeks, and several incarnations of packages have been discussed, league sources said. Sources close to DeRozan told ESPN's Chris Haynes that DeRozan met with Toronto officials in Las Vegas during summer league and was told he would not be traded. NBA.com

There was definitely some truth to that.

For the Spurs...

In the end, Spurs get a solid player in DeMar DeRozan with several playoff trips under his belt with a few more years left on his contract. Losing Danny Green could hurt, but Spurs need to be thinking about their future so that could mean doing some rebuilding/retooling especially since they lost Tony Parker. Their roster still boasts a mixture of old and new. For DeRozan, this presents a new opportunity to be under a great coach who could mold him into a player capable of facing off against LeBron James who has taken DeRozan led teams to task for several years.  

For the Raptors...

For Kawhi Leonard, it's hard not to assume that this is nothing more than a "wonderful" rental. Reports have said that Leonard demanded to be in Los Angeles, so I hope Toronto has one hell of a pitch to convince this guy to stay otherwise they've basically taken on two rentals. Maybe this was their intention, and their goal was looking forward to clearing some money off the books. Sadly this puts Kyle Lowry in an awkward situation going forward who now will be the leader of this team. 

Does Toronto think they can make a finals push with Kawhi+Danny Green, a new coach, and a new system? Celtics challenged LeBron to the very end. Toronto got ran over. Does Kawhi fix everything?

Could Toronto see this as an opportunity to make some noise before the trade deadline?