Kawhi Leonard may not choose next team for a few days, and reportedly hasn’t discussed two-year deals

Kawhi Leonard has three organizations waiting in lockstep, and an two entire countries following the flight pattern of a jet they thought he might be on. He is also carrying the burden of the biggest decision he’s made to this point in his life. Said decision might not be coming anytime soon.

In fact, according to Jabari Young of The Athletic, Leonard’s decision-making process could take us well into the weekend:

Leonard has obviously earned the right to take his time with this decision. Such is what happens when you have had the incredible career he’s had to this point. For the rest of us, it means more sitting idly, refreshing social media for every morsel of truth and private jet update.

For the Lakers specifically, it means waiting even longer on an ever-thinning free agent market. If Leonard signs with them, great, filling out the roster with three of the top five-to-eight players is not all that complicated. Just don’t mess it up.

Should Leonard sign with one of his other two suitors in these next few days and viable role players sign elsewhere, well, that’s where you run into troubles. It still makes sense for the Lakers to hold out given how great Leonard is (how are you so dumb, Knicks?), but the math equation does get kind of tricky the longer this takes.

A detail that has to get pointed out here is Young reporting that no two-year deals have been spoken about thus far. Earlier, Jalen Rose of ESPN reported that he was 99% sure Leonard and Toronto were close to an agreement that would likely be a 1+1 (a one-year deal with a player option for the second),allowing Leonard to become a free agent again after his 10th season, making him eligible for an even more fruitful supermax contract at that time.

If we’re to believe Young (and he has a slightly better record on this than Rose, Kendrick Perkins, Arye or any of the other clout chasers that have crawled out of the woodwork recently), such an offer being off the table makes this a little more interesting.

I’ll put it this way (and take this all with a grain of salt because I don’t know really anything about Leonard): By several accounts, Leonard has prioritized trust as high as any other factor at play here. If that is the case, he wants to make sure he can trust whichever team he signs with enough to sign there for as long as he possibly could.

Therefore, it would make sense that maybe he’s taking a little extra long to make this decision, given what it would mean for what he likely hopes to be the rest of his career.

Again, this is just one theory on all this, but with precious little else to work off of, this is kind of where Leonard has forced us to go: speculation — sometimes informed, but almost always, well, not.

So buckle in, everyone. Keep your phones handy (unless you’re near a pool of water) and try to pay some attention to your loved ones this holiday weekend.

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