The Toronto Raptors had a full-circle moment on Tuesday when the franchise traded with the Los Angeles Clippers to bring All-NBA forward Kawhi Leonard back to the franchise he won the 2019 NBA Finals and Finals MVP with in what was his lone season north of the border. There were reportedly several teams interested in acquiring Leonard’s services, but the Klaw made it clear that he wouldn’t sign a long-term deal just anywhere, all but ensuring his return to Toronto.
On Wednesday, investigative sports journalist Pablo Torre, who has extensively reported on the Clippers’ alleged salary cap circumvention with Leonard via Aspiration, a bankrupt sustainability-as-a-service company, peeled back the curtain on the circumstances at play in the forward’s return to the Raptors.
“There is a fascinating backstory to this Kawhi Leonard trade to the Raptors that just happened,” Torre started in a video he posted on X.
“In 2019, the Toronto Raptors owners met with Uncle Dennis Robertson, Kawhi’s unlicensed representative, and Uncle Dennis, according to the Toronto Star, ‘asked for ownership stakes in outside companies.'”
The backstory of the relationship between Kawhi Leonard and Raptors ownership is essential to understanding why this trade — and ongoing NBA investigation — is so fascinating: pic.twitter.com/LFuLeHPFPv
— Pablo Torre Finds Out (@pablofindsout) July 1, 2026
Torre goes on to read from the Toronto Star report, which details Robertson’s demands for Leonard to be compensated by these companies without shooting ads or making promotional appearances.
“The Raptors then proceeded to take these demands from Uncle Dennis to the league office and Adam Silver. The Lakers, the other bidder in this process, did the same thing,” Torred continued. “But when the league investigated, they found nothing worth punishing, and so Kawhi became a Clipper, and the Toronto Raptors crucially became the most aggrieved party in this entire saga because they believed that they lost Kawhi Leonard because they refused to break the rules.
“So fast forward to this Aspiration investigation we’ve been doing on this weird podcast in which we show that Aspiration gave Kawhi Leonard literally the deal that Uncle Dennis demanded of the Raptors that the Raptors refused to give.”
Torre concludes the video by touching on the NBA’s 10-month investigation into the alleged salary cap circumvention, which remains ongoing, and bringing to light an altogether new conflict of interest.
“What’s so fascinating is that the investigation has not resolved before the Clippers and the Raptors agreed on this trade, turning the Raptors from the most aggrieved party into the one and only bidder being seriously considered by both the Clippers and Kawhi Leonard for the services of Kawhi Leonard, which raises a follow-up question of how convenient this now is for the NBA, which is trying to shrink the PR problem of this scandal because the Raptors now employ the superstar they might have been calling for punishment for, accountability for in some sense.
“And how interesting is it that the chairman of the NBA’s Board of Governors happens to be Larry Tanenbaum, the owner of the Raptors?”
About Qwame Skinner
Qwame Skinner has loved both writing and sports his entire life. In addition to his sports coverage at Comeback Media, Qwame writes novels, and his debut; The First Casualty, an adult fantasy, is out now.