Kawhi Leonard officially returns to Toronto with NBA approving Raptors-Clippers trade

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“We believe his leadership, experience and talent will help us as we continue building toward our next championship.”

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The deal was paused while the NBA investigated Leonard and the Clippers for salary-cap circumvention.

The league completed its investigation on Sept. 2, fining Leonard US$700,000 but declined to suspend him or void his contract.

The NBA was much harder on the Clippers.

They were stripped of five first-round picks from 2029 through 2033 and the team was fined $30 million after an independent investigation found a pattern of misconduct and multiple significant rules violations. Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and president of business operations Gillian Zucker were suspended for one year, while president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank was suspended for six months.

Leonard is expected to speak with reporters on Sept. 28 at Toronto’s media day.

Although the deal had not been officially submitted to the league while the investigation was underway, Leonard, Ingram and Dick tried to participate with their new teams as much as NBA rules allowed.

Leonard sat in the front row at Kyle Lowry’s July 7 news conference at Toronto’s OVO Athletic Centre, where Lowry announced he would retire as a member of the Raptors. Ingram attended a Clippers summer league game in Las Vegas on July 10.

The 35-year-old Leonard averaged 27.9 points, 6.3 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 1.9 steals and 0.4 blocks per game last season for the Clippers in 2025-26.

Leonard is a seven-time All-Star, seven-time All-NBA selection, a two-time NBA champion (with San Antonio in 2014 and Toronto in 2019) and is generally considered one of the game’s top defensive players. He joins a Raptors team that had the fifth-best defensive rating in the league last season.

Ingram averaged 21.5 points, 5.6 rebounds and 3.7 assists in his one season in Toronto, but was injured 11 minutes into Game 5 of the Raptors’ first-round playoff series against the Cleveland Cavaliers. He underwent right heel surgery on May 8.

Dick took a step back in his third NBA season, averaging 14 minutes per game in 2025-26, averaging six points, 1.9 rebounds and 0.7 assists, all career lows.

“We also want to thank Brandon and Gradey and appreciate their work ethic, character, and basketball excellence they brought to our team every day,” said Webster.

Leonard was the central player in the Raptors’ 2019 championship run, but spent just one season with the club before joining his hometown Clippers as a free agent, signing a three-year $103 million contract that off-season.

After opting out of the final year of that contract, Leonard re-signed with the Clippers in August 2021 to a max four-year, $176.3 million contract with the fourth year being a player option. He missed the entire 2021-22 season, however, with a partial ACL tear in his right knee.

That 2021 contract was the deal the NBA scrutinized after allegations emerged in September 2025 that Leonard signed a $28 million “no-show” endorsement deal with Aspiration, an environmental company that entered bankruptcy in March 2025 after co-founder Joe Sanberg was arrested and charged with fraud.

The alleged deal did not require any action on Leonard’s part, other than remaining with the Clippers.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 14, 2026.

John Chidley-Hill, The Canadian Press