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The first round of the 2026 NBA Playoffs can be an overwhelming time for analysts. With eight series taking place, you can’t possibly keep up with and do thoughtful analysis on all of them. So, you need to narrow down which ones require the most focus.

After the Cleveland Cavaliers took a 2-0 series lead over the Toronto Raptors, I thought I could put this series to bed. The Cavaliers only needed to win two of the final five games, the Raptors have struggled against top ten teams all year (7-22 against those groups, per Cleaning the Glass), and Toronto’s best spacer, Immanuel Quickley, was ruled out for the rest of the round. 

Fast forward to today and the series is currently knotted up at two games a piece and the Raptors have completely flipped the script on the Cavaliers. The Cavs might be an 8.5-point favorite as they return home for Game 5 according to FanDuel, but it truly feels like this series is still up for grabs.

The Key Adjustment That Saved The Raptors’ Season

After two games of being demolished by James Harden and Donovan Mitchell in the pick-and-roll, the Raptors said, ‘hey, we were the fifth-best regular season defense and we are not going to stand for this anymore.’

In Game 1, the Raptors went with some pretty standard matchup assignments. RJ Barrett on Harden, Jamal Shead on Mitchell, Brandon Ingram on Dean Wade, Scottie Barnes on Evan Mobley, and Jakob Poeltl on Jarrett Allen. Juxtapose those matchups with what we saw at the start of Game 4: Barnes on Harden, Ja’Kobe Walter (now starting in place of Shead) on Mitchell, Ingram on Wade, Poeltl on Mobley, and Barrett on Allen. 

What this does is take away the pick-and-roll with Allen as the screener, as any time Harden or Mitchell try to initiate this action, the Raptors can nullify it with a simple switch – since Barrett, Barnes, and Walter are all long and athletic enough to handle a multitude of different player types. 

So, if Harden and Mitchell want to hunt Poeltl (the weak link defensively in Toronto’s starting five), they have to use Mobley as a screener. This may not seem like a big deal, but look how little separation Mitchell is able to generate on Mobley screens:

The Raptors also did a great job of enhancing their gap help to clog up driving lanes, mitigate passing windows, and force Cleveland’s sketchier shooters to vanquish them (as a team, the Cavaliers shot just 25 perect from downtown in Game 4). 

Cleveland should still be able to pull this one out. They have home court advantage, superior closers, and a lot of fat they can cut out of their process (they had 18 turnovers in Game 4). But credit goes to Toronto for turning what should have been a clean sweep into an instant classic.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have gotten away from what’s worked in games 1 and 2. The Toronto Raptors deserve a ton of credit for that. Their physicality with Cleveland’s star backcourt has made it difficult for the Cavs to establish any kind of momentum. At the same time, the Cavs simply need to be better.

Let’s get into what exactly they need to do in Game 5.

1. Reestablish the James Harden pick-and-roll

The pick-and-roll has been a mainstay for the Cavs’ offense since the James Harden trade and was at the start of the series. In Game 1, Harden accumulated four assists out of the pick-and-roll with a big. By contrast, in Game 4, he only had one assist out of that action.

Going smaller and playing less drop coverage has hurt Cleveland’s ability to run the pick-and-roll. Instead of having Jakob Poeltl on Allen, RJ Barrett is the primary defender in the starting lineup. This easily allows the Raptors to switch the action, mitigating any advantage you’re trying to create with the screen.

The Cavs have countered by relying on more guard-on-guard screens. If you’re going to switch everything, you might as well use the guards to create favorable matchups. There’s solid rationale for this. The issue is, guards don’t have gravity going toward the rim. If you cause a momentary mismatch, it doesn’t break the defense because it’s always easier to recover side-to-side than it is to collapse and then try to get back out to shooters.

In short, the guard-to-guard screens don’t generate looks going to the rim. Just somewhat stagnant outside looks.

It’s incredibly difficult to have a good offense if you can’t get anything going inside. Creating clean looks from the outside is predicated entirely on your ability to get to the basket. The Boston Celtics wouldn’t be the three-point shooting juggernaut they are if they didn’t have multiple ball handlers who could beat mismatches and create advantages going to the hoop.

Right now, the Cavs aren’t doing that. They need to get actions going north and south. And they also need to find ways to get Jamal Sheed off Harden. Being able to reestablish the pick-and-roll with the bigs should help with both.

2. Get Jarrett Allen involved in the offense

The Raptors have conceded a mismatch inside by having Barrett guard Allen to start games. They’re okay with Barrett getting beaten inside if it means they can slow down the pick-and-roll and be versatile elsewhere defensively. But right now, they’re getting all the advantages of this strategy without having to worry about any of the consequences.

Cleveland tried to get the ball to Allen on a post-up with Barrett on one of the first possessions in Game 4, but a bad entry pass from Harden resulted in a turnover. For whatever reason, this caused the Cavs to stop looking for Allen altogether as he had just five field-goal attempts in Game 4.

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While we all acknowledge that post-ups aren’t necessarily what you want to construct an offense around, getting Allen involved more when he has Barrett on him would help in a couple of ways.

For starters, Barrett has been Toronto’s second-best offensive player. One of the most effective ways to slow someone down offensively is to make them work on the other end.

Guarding in the post is physically draining. Fighting for position, especially against someone bigger than you, takes a toll. Being intentional about getting Allen the ball is a great way to tire Barrett out.

Head coach Kenny Atkinson has instead opted to keep Allen in the dunker’s spot to use him as a play finisher and a rebounder. In theory, that makes sense. There’s more ways to punish a mismatch than by just posting up, but this more passive role allows Allen to get lost in the shuffle.

Allen’s energy on both ends is tied directly to how involved he is offensively. When he’s getting the ball with regularity, he’s more aggressive in how he fights for position, sets screens, and rolls to the basket. But when he’s only used sparingly, the focus and intensity aren’t there. Instead, he plays like someone who just doesn’t want to get in the way, as opposed to one who’s taking command.

The Cavs need an engaged Allen on both ends of the floor. Their size with their bigs is one of their advantages in this series. But that advantage only matters if they’re doing what they can to maximize it.

3. Win the possession battle

If you wanted to attribute Toronto’s Game 4 victory to one thing, it’d be how they won the possession battle. The Raptors attempted 10 more shots from the field and 13 more free throws. And even though they shot worse than the Cavs, getting more shots up helped overcome that disparity.

Securing defensive rebounds and forcing turnovers led to this.

Offensive rebounds happen for a few reasons, but usually, they can be the result of defensive breakdowns. Every rotation to contest a drive at the rim results in one person who isn’t boxed out. That — combined with the Raptors just playing with more energy — allowed them to control this category.

Turning it over 17 times doesn’t help. The Raptors’ offense in the regular season was predicated on running in the open floor. Giveaways, especially live-ball ones, invite Toronto to do that.

The Raptors have a great defensive team. Their length and switchability allow them to get more deflections than most teams, but Donovan Mitchell and Harden need to be better.

If you go back and look at the guard’s turnovers from Games 3 and 4, you’ll see that a good portion of them were simply from a lack of focus. That can’t happen in games that are this important.

If the Cavs can win the possession game, they’ll easily win Game 5.

4. Donovan Mitchell needs to finish at the basket

The Cavs absolutely do need Mitchell to score. And if he’s going to do that as efficiently as the Cavs need him to, it’ll be because he’s getting to the rim.

Mitchell took 24 shots in Game 4, but only four in the restricted area. He missed all four of them. Overall, he went just 2-10 on shots in the paint.

When he’s not able to beat teams at the rim, he becomes overly reliant on the outside shot. Mitchell is a good pull-up three-point shooter, but that is a much higher-variant shot than what you’d like if it’s going to be someone’s main form of offense.

Mitchell has talked about saving his body for the playoffs. He’s added more elements to his in-between game, particularly with the floater, so that he can be ready for the postseason.

Well, now is the time to show what he’s been saving his body for. The Cavs are two bad performances away from their season being over — and possibly this era of Cleveland basketball as we know it. There’s no reason to leave anything in the tank now.

From my seat in press row at TD Garden, you can see the entire arena. The benches, the matchups, the way a possession starts to form before it fully develops. It’s a different way of watching the game, a little more removed than being down by the railing before tip, where everyone is leaning forward trying to catch a glimpse of warmups or an autograph from their favorite player.

Just a few hours earlier, that’s where I was, moving along the baseline and talking to whoever had gotten there early enough to be close to the action. Different groups, different ages, different reasons for being here, but the conversations started to reveal similar themes after a while. Some people were born into loving this team. Some picked it up along the way. Some had a specific player that pulled them in. Others couldn’t really explain it beyond the fact that it stuck.

Now they’re all somewhere in the building, scattered across different sections, watching the same game unfold.

Everyone gets here a different way

About 45 minutes before tip, I had stopped near the sideline and talked to a father and his son, both born and raised in Boston. The father didn’t hesitate when I asked how long he’d been a fan. “I’m 42,” he said. “So we can say 42 years.” His 13-year-old son followed right behind him with the same answer in his own way. “You were born into it,” his dad said, smiling. That part didn’t need much explaining.

The kid was wearing a Tatum jersey, but it didn’t stop there. He lifted it to show the Tatum shirt underneath. Tatum socks. Tatum sneakers (“The new 4s”, he told me, a non-sneakerhead who still wanted him to think I knew and loved them). His dad laughed and said it didn’t matter the time of year or the time of day, he was probably wearing something with Tatum on it.

When I asked what stood out about this team, they answered right away. “We’re so deep,” he said. “Every single person that comes onto the floor can score, they can defend.” His son nodded. Same answer.

Early on, it didn’t look like that depth was going to matter. The Celtics opened cold, missing shots they usually make, the kind of start that brings a low murmur across the building before it builds into something louder. A Jaylen Brown dunk finally broke through and the place responded the way it always does, rising together, a quick reminder of how quickly things can change in here.

That idea of depth came back not long after. The bench started to chip in with Payton Pritchard pushing the pace, making things happen in a way that felt familiar after Game 4. Even when the shots weren’t falling from deep, the Celtics found ways to stay in front. They had more options. More answers.

A little further down the baseline before the game, I had talked to a group of college-aged guys, each with a half-full cup of beer, watching warmups. I learned that two of them were Celtics fans. Two of them weren’t, at least not yet.

“Depth goes crazy,” one of them said when I asked what he loves about the team, without much hesitation. His friends nodded, half agreeing, half laughing, likely about the fact his buddy was getting interviewed by a member of the media.

That depth showed up throughout the first half. It wasn’t one player carrying things. The responsibility and production moved around from possession to possession. One possession it was Brown getting downhill, the next it was Tatum creating space off the dribble, then Pritchard pushing the tempo, then Vooch throwing one down.

The ball didn’t stick. The game didn’t feel heavy. Not yet at least.

Before the game started, I stopped at one point to take a picture of two older-looking gentlemen, who I would learn were brothers. They had grown up in Boston after moving here from Uganda. They didn’t need much time to answer how long they’d been fans.

“Forever,” one of them said.

There wasn’t much elaboration beyond that, but in a way there didn’t need to be. They had been to games before, so they knew what this place felt like, especially during this time of year. That part came through in how casually they talked about it, like the Celtics had always been part of their lives, even though they were born 6,900 miles away.

Sitting up top in press row, it’s easy to forget how many different paths lead people into this building. Sure, you can see the whole arena, but the paths people took to get there aren’t always as clear.

This team is different

Game 5 settled into something tense by the third quarter. The Celtics had a lead, but the Sixers kept chiseling away at it, steadily and methodically. Philadelphia kept finding ways to keep the score close. Joel Embiid looked much improved from Game 4 and more like the former MVP version of himself, which certainly helped.

At one point, with the Celtics trying to create some separation, Jordan Walsh made a play that barely registers in a box score. A hustle steal, a sprint the other way, and a drawn foul.

The reaction from the crowd was immediate — loud in a way that didn’t match the scale of the play, at least not on paper. Walsh turned and embraced it, breaking the fourth wall between fans and players. That was all it took to set the crowd into a frenzy.

That exchange, small as it was, felt like a perfect example of how connected everything was in that moment. The crowd sees it. The player feels it. In TD Garden, the energy can often be a two-way street.

Later in the quarter, Pritchard hit a three right in front of the Sixers bench and held his stare for a beat, like he wanted them to sit with it. Another moment that doesn’t change the outcome on its own, but adds to everything around it.

By the end of the third, the Celtics were still in front, but the margin had narrowed to one point, 86-85. The building felt it. From way up high, I could hear the noise shift from confident to urgent. Still loud, but tighter than before.

Earlier in the night, I had talked to a family that made the drive up from Connecticut. The dad leaned into the conversation as soon as I brought up past teams, talking about Bird like he had been waiting for the chance. The passing, the feel, the way everything seemed a step ahead.

His daughters listened, one in a Tatum jersey, the other in a Brown jersey, exchanging looks that suggested they had heard some version of this before. Classic Dad.

When I asked what stood out about this team, he kept it simple.

“They all trust each other.”

That idea held for most of the night. It showed up in the way the ball moved, in the way players stayed with possessions even after something went wrong. Brown going over to Vučević after a couple missed threes, making sure he wasn’t dissuaded from firing away on the next open one. Tatum and Pritchard talking through something after a defensive breakdown, both of them coming at it from the same place, a shared desire to win.

It felt steady. It felt like the Celtics.

When it all falls down

The fourth quarter didn’t follow that pattern.

Philadelphia hit shots early, getting production from Embiid, Maxey, and even Grimes, who found himself at the line twice after being fouled on three-point attempts. The Celtics had an impossible time answering. A couple open looks missed, then another, and the rhythm that had carried them through the first three quarters started to slip.

At first, it didn’t feel like anything more than a bad stretch. That happens in closeout games like this. As a Celtics fan, you kind of expect it to turn back the other way eventually.

It didn’t.

Early in the fourth, the lead finally flipped in Philly’s favor. The crowd got louder, trying to pull it back and reacting to every defensive possession like it might be the one that starts a run. A Hauser three gave the Garden a jolt. Another miss took it right back out.

From up top, you can feel that shift even if you can’t quite hear individual voices. The noise tightens. Reactions get sharper. Every possession clearly starting to matter a little more than the one before it.

Somewhere in there, I started thinking about the people I had talked to before the game. The kid in the Tatum jersey there with his dad. The family that made the drive in from Connecticut. The brothers who said they’d been fans forever. The young girl who was at her first Celtics game in person.

My first instinct was to feel bad for them. Like this was going to be the part they remembered. But looking down at the floor, then back out into the crowd, that didn’t really line up with what was happening.

I caught myself reacting at one point, as a fan and not the version of me that was there as media. “FOUL!” came out of me before I could stop it after Grimes relentlessly hounded Jaylen Brown in the backcourt with a level of physicality that I clearly felt was inappropriate. I looked around, hoping fellow media members weren’t staring in my direction. Luckily, or maybe not, everyone couldn’t look away from the nightmare that was the fourth quarter of Game 5.

The Celtics couldn’t find a stretch where everything clicked again. Shots that had fallen earlier stayed out, and Philadelphia kept making enough to keep the distance. The Celtics would go on to finish with only 11 total points in the quarter.

Even as the outcome became obvious, people stayed in it.

They stood. Clapped. Waited.

After the game, Joe Mazzulla talked about perspective. He said it wasn’t all bad, that there were stretches they could build from.

Jaylen Brown kept it simple. They weren’t good enough, and they’d have to be better the next time out.

Both things can be true.

Perspective is important

After the final buzzer, I made my way down from the press section and onto the concourse. There were still fans lingering. Some standing in the aisles, some drifting closer to the court now that the game was over, others taking pictures, clearly not ready to let the night end.

Besides a small group chanting “Embiid sucks,” most people actually seemed surprisingly chipper. They were talking, smiling, taking it in before being told to go.

I’ve been to enough of these that my instinct after a loss is to get out quickly. Clear out, complain, then move on to the next one.

A lot of people didn’t seem interested in doing that.

Maybe it was their first game. Maybe it was the trip into the city. Or maybe it was simply something they’d been looking forward to for a long time. Whatever had brought them there, they stayed for as long as they could.

I wondered if the father and son I had talked to earlier were still somewhere in the building, or the family from Connecticut, or the brothers who had grown up here after coming from somewhere else. The college bros had probably already moved on to Tavern in the Square by then.

On my way to the postgame press conference, I caught myself changing my tune.

A few minutes earlier, I had been sitting in press row, frustrated like everyone else, watching Game 5 slip away in a way that was so un-Celtics-like. Now, I was walking into a room where Jaylen Brown was about to answer questions a few feet away, Jayson Tatum not far behind him.

It’s a strange shift. You spend the whole night thinking about the game the way a fan would, then you find yourself in a position you could only dream of from the outside.

I started thinking about the people I had talked to before tip. What they would’ve thought if they were in that room. If they were sitting where I was sitting.

The result still mattered. It always does.

But so did this.

Nights like this happen

Still, the result of Game 5 didn’t give them what they wanted. It didn’t give any of us what we wanted.

Sometimes it goes the way you hope, and sometimes it doesn’t. The people who have been around long enough understand that, and the ones who are new to it will learn. Either way, we all come back just the same.

Before the game, I took another photo of a group of three adults, beaming with excitement to the point where I knew I had to talk to them. After snapping their photo, I realized English wasn’t their first language, so the woman in the group smartly pulled out her phone and began translating my questions in real time.

After some back and forth, I learned that one of them had attended Boston College when he was younger, and fell in love with the Celtics during his time here. He was now here with his two friends, who had never stepped foot inside an NBA arena until that night.

In an effort to keep my questions simple, I looked at the woman, gestured around us, and asked, “What do you think?”

She looked out across the floor, took it in for a second, and gave the same gesture back.

Then she said one word, her first in English during our brief conversation.

“Magic,” she said.

Even after a tough loss, I couldn’t agree with her more.

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the NFL. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Rockets fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.

Well, the rumors are already flying. Some people are speculating that Kevin Durant may ask out of Houston again this summer. Others are speculating the Rockets may not even want him back. While others speculate still that this is all for nothing and Durant is back next year without question. Teams are expected to be calling for KD either way.

I typically believe where there is smoke, there is usually fire in these types of situations, but it all remains to be seen. Durant’s reputation precedes him, so it’s an easy leap to make.

Anyway, what would you like the Rockets to do? Do you want them to trade KD? Not what will they do, what do you want the Rockets to do?

We’ll be back soon with results.

BOSTON — Joel Embiid conquered his postseason demons on Tuesday night. He overcame the Boston Celtics at TD Garden in a do-or-die Game 5 to keep the Philadelphia 76ers alive to see another day.

Down 3-1 following back-to-back Boston victories in Philadelphia, Embiid was ruled probable when Sixers coach Nick Nurse took to the podium pregame. It wasn’t until less than an hour before opening tip that Embiid was inserted in Philadelphia’s starting lineup, eager to prove a point. Despite the unfavorable 4-12 playoff record that has historically made the Sixers a punching bag for Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown to take turns hurling warm-up punches at, Embiid was determined.

“I just wanted to impose myself a little bit more inside, and it worked out,” Embiid said after Philadelphia’s 113-97 win to force a Game 6.

To do that, Embiid needed to make an adjustment. He recognized that searching for offense in the perimeter wasn’t working after going 0-for-5 from 3-point range in the first half. So it was time for a tweak. With 15 points at halftime as the game’s leading scorer, Embiid knew he could elevate his impact by abandoning the perimeter and attacking the interior instead.

He stuck with that plan throughout the second half, going right after Celtics center Neemias Queta.

“I feel pretty good about my chances going one-on-one against anybody in this league, and I don’t think that can be stopped,” Embiid said.

Struggling to contain Embiid’s offensive revival, Queta quickly found himself in foul trouble. Two minutes into the second half, Embiid ran a pick-and-roll with V.J. Edgecombe. Queta stayed with Edgecombe as Embiid trailed from behind, and Boston’s defense briefly fell apart, allowing Kelly Oubre Jr. to finish a contested layup with a chance at the free-throw line.

That marked Queta’s fourth personal foul with 9:57 left in the third quarter, and forced coach Joe Mazzulla to make an immediate substitution.

For the first time in this series, the Celtics saw a different, more confident version of Embiid. Over time, that snowballed into a problem that prevented Boston from punching its second-round ticket at home, leaving TD Garden half-empty and dead silent for the closing minutes of regulation. The Celtics held an 86-85 lead to begin the fourth quarter, giving Embiid a clean slate to decide either to fall to Boston again or to turn the tables and make a statement.

Ultimately, he chose the latter.

Embiid finished with 33 points, four rebounds, and eight assists. In the final two frames, he shot 7-of-10 from the field and didn’t attempt a single 3-pointer. Embiid took two trips to the foul line and knocked down all four free throws, logging a plus-21 rating in the second half.

Boston went from a Tyrese Maxey plus Edgecombe problem in Game 2  — without certainty that Embiid would even play this series — to desperately needing to account for another possible Embiid masterclass in Game 6.

“He was dominant. He was dominant, especially in the second half,” Maxey said. “He was extremely dominant, and he did a really good job of inserting himself. I was proud of him tonight, man. That’s the dominance you go into a playoff game with, and he did that.”

Embiid missed only one layup in the second half, which he recovered with an offensive rebound and putback over Nikola Vučević in the third quarter.

“I feel like he had too many easy baskets,” Jaylen Brown said. “Like, we need to make him work. It was just too easy for him. Even though we trust our guys to guard certain matchups, you gotta make it a little bit tougher. Tonight he got a lot of easy baskets, and I feel like that propelled them.”

Five of Embiid’s makes came against Queta, five against Vučević, and the remaining two with Luka Garza defending. And while Embiid tucked the 3-pointer away in his back pocket, he still managed to knock down three fadeaway mid-range jumpers over Boston’s bigs.

Looking back, Jayson Tatum couldn’t refrain from tipping his cap to the 2023 league MVP.

“Give him credit,” Tatum said. “He played well. He put a lot of pressure on us, especially on the defensive end. We’ll go back and watch the film and make some adjustments and be ready for Game 6.”

As the Celtics discovered over six months ago on Opening Night, defending Maxey and Edgecombe is tough enough. On any given night, they can become the hardest to stop backcourt duo in the league — as was the case in Game 2. But now, the Sixers have Embiid added to that mix. He’s not only healthy, but he’s also healed enough, less than three weeks after undergoing emergency appendectomy surgery on April 9, to make an example out of Boston’s interior defense.

“When the pace slows down, he’s hard to cover one-on-one, and we played right into his type of game,” Payton Pritchard said.

In the final five minutes of the third quarter, Embiid even survived an injury scare. After falling for Brown’s pump fake, spin move under the basket, Embiid hobbled and immediately grabbed his left knee. The signs weren’t promising as he hunched over before slowly making his way toward Philadelphia’s bench and into the locker room.  

But moments later, for the final two minutes of the third quarter, Embiid returned — and didn’t miss a beat.

“I’m good,” Embiid said with a smile.

Embiid continued, opening up about the narrative he’s battled: “I’ve dealt with a lot of stuff over my career. I don’t complain. I just want to give as much as I can every single time I step on the floor. I know a lot of people might have takes that I might be lazy or whatever, but every single time I’m on the floor I want to play as hard as possible.”

The Celtics have 48 hours to reflect. After finishing tied (with the New York Knicks) for the second-most home wins (30) in the Eastern Conference during the regular season, Boston has dropped two of its first three playoff games at TD Garden. It’s nothing Tatum, Brown, and Mazzulla haven’t seen before, but as Embiid proved in Game 5, history is nothing more than a track record that can turn meaningless on any given night.

Boston has seen this position before. However, Tuesday night made it clear the series has changed. What once looked like a smooth-sailing path to the semifinals has now turned into a puzzle. Embiid delivered his response with a strong performance in Game 5. Now, it’s up to the Celtics to respond and redeem themselves on Thursday night in the City of Brotherly Love.

ESPN outlines potential Kawhi Leonard-to-Warriors NBA offseason trade package originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

It appears the Warriors will attempt to reel in another big fish or two this offseason.

Golden State, in an effort to surround superstar Steph Curry with more top-end talent in the final seasons of his NBA career, has pursued trades for star players for years, oftentimes coming up short.

One name the Warriors came up short in pursuit of before the NBA’s Feb. 5 trade deadline this year was LA Clippers star forward Kawhi Leonard, who Golden State reportedly targeted and nearly acquired in the wake of their failed Giannis Antetokounmpo pursuit.

The Warriors are rumored to be interested in pursuing Leonard again this summer, and ESPN’s Bobby Marks and Zach Kram, in a recent article, proposed a possible trade package that could land Leonard in the Bay Area this offseason.

Warriors get:

Kawhi Leonard

Clippers get:

Jimmy Butler III
2027 first-round pick (lottery-protected)
2032 first-round pick

“The Warriors have been connected more to Leonard than any other team in recent months, and for good reason,” Kram wrote. “After Butler tore his ACL in January, the Warriors need a Plan B if they want to try to reopen their competitive window while 38-year-old Stephen Curry is still playing at an All-Star level.

“Leonard would be a strong fit as a Butler replacement, with even higher upside after the best regular season of his career. The salaries of the two stars match well enough that no other player would need to be included in this deal.”

“Considering Butler is out indefinitely, the Clippers certainly would want the top-14 protection removed from the 2027 first-round pick or amended,” Marks wrote.

“An injured star, a pick that might not convey and a selection six years into the future should be a nonstarter for Frank and LA. From the Warriors’ viewpoint, swapping Butler for a healthy All-Star makes too much sense — even if the 2032 first-round pick ends up in the lottery.”

The 34-year-old Leonard is coming off the best scoring season of his 14-year NBA career, having averaged a career-high 27.9 points with 6.4 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 1.9 steals per game on 50.5-percent shooting from the field and 38.7 percent from 3-point range in 65 games for the Clippers.

Butler, who suffered a torn ACL on Jan. 19, likely will be out at least for the first half of the 2026-27 NBA season, and might not make it back to the court until February next year.

His extended absence next season likely will be a big reason why Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy will search high and low this offseason for star talent to pair with Curry next season, either until Butler returns, or in place of him.

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