Leonard Trade Still Frozen, and the Clippers Can't Fully Move On

The Kawhi Leonard deal — Leonard to Toronto, Brandon Ingram and Gradey Dick and two unprotected first-rounders back to Los Angeles — was agreed on June 30, but it hasn't been ratified. The NBA's investigation into potential salary-cap circumvention has put the whole thing on hold, and until that clears, the Clippers are essentially building around a roster they can't officially call their own.

That creates a practical problem. Ingram is presumably the new co-star alongside James Harden, but the front office can't fully integrate him into planning while the trade sits in limbo. Harden averaged 24.2 points and 8.1 assists last season, and he'll need a real second option — the final 10 games of 2025–26 showed what happens when he doesn't have one. He took more shots and made fewer of them, a preview of what a Leonard-less offense looks like under duress.

In the meantime, the Clippers have kept busy at the margins. Rui Hachimura signed a two-year, $28 million deal in early July, and this week they picked up Johni Broome from Philadelphia for cash — the kind of low-stakes depth move you make when you're filling out a roster rather than reshaping one. Useful work. Just not the work they actually need to be doing.

The investigation timeline is the only thing that matters right now. Everything else — the wing depth, the Broome addition, the Harden usage questions — is secondary until the league decides whether this trade stands.