The Los Angeles Lakers were in the running for Kawhi Leonard until the very last second as he instead decided to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers as they traded the future for Paul George.
Kawhi now finds himself as a rival of the Lakers and the team’s fans and the idea of him being on the Lakers might not be all that appealing. However, before the season, that was the one thing that every Laker fan wanted: a super team with LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Kawhi Leonard.
It would have been arguably the most talented team in NBA history. The Lakers would have had three of the top five most talented players in the league, and the results would have been crazy.
To see just how crazy it would have been, especially in this current downtime in sports, we took to NBA 2K20, put Leonard on the Los Angeles Lakers, and simulated the entire 2019-2020 season.
However, there were some changes that had to be made. Leonard going to the Lakers would have affected the team’s depth, as well as the direction that the Clippers would have turned to.
For the Clippers, we assumed that Steve Ballmer was so superstar hungry that he still made the exact same trade for Paul George, even if it is not the smartest thing to do without Kawhi coming to time. Ballmer and the Clippers could not afford to go star-less this offseason and the hope would be that George could be a recruiting tool for other stars.
The Lakers had just enough to sign Leonard to a max deal with Anthony Davis rejecting his trade kicker, but there would have been no other space to sign players, other than exceptions.
The team could have used a mid-level exception on Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. They already signed Rajon Rondo, Jared Dudley and Dwight Howard to veteran minimum contracts and in this, we are assuming that JaVale McGee takes the pay cut to stay on the team as well.
There would not have been space to sign Alex Caruso, Quinn Cook or Troy Daniels, which would have fast-tracked Talen-Horton Tucker to have a role on the team until the buyout market developed.
The result would be a starting five of KCP, Kawhi Leonard, LeBron James, Anthony Davis and JaVale McGee with a bench consisting of Rajon Rondo, Kyle Kuzma, Dwight Howard, Jared Dudley and Talen Horton-Tucker. That is a fine 10-man rotation.
How the 2019-2020 Los Angeles Lakers performed with Kawhi Leonard:
The results were shocking, and we expected them to be good. In the simulation, the Los Angeles Lakers set the all-time wins record with 75 wins and only seven losses. It is important to note, injuries were off, so that is what helped win 75 games.
In real life, they would not have won 75 games as there would have been load management among other things, but they definitely could have flirted with 70 wins.
LeBron James’ scoring went down but his assists and rebounding numbers were still great. He averaged 23.2 points, 10.4 rebounds and 7.9 rebounds per game. Kawhi averaged 24.0 points, 6.1 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game. Davis led the team with 24.2 points, 9.7 rebounds and 2.2 blocks per game.
In the first round of the playoffs, the Los Angeles Lakers squared off against the eighth-seed Clippers (how big of a change that is) and swept them in four games. Little did these virtual Clipper fans know that in real life they got Kawhi Leonard.
In the second round, the Lakers squared off against the fifth-seeded Utah Jazz, and once again, swept them in four games, the closest game being a six-point contest in Game 3.
In the Western Conference Finals, it was the Lakers vs. the Houston Rockets and Houston managed to steal Game 2. However, it was simply a gentleman’s sweep, as the Lakers won in five.
And in the NBA Finals, the Lakers re-ignited the rivalry with the Boston Celtics, who defeated the Milwaukee Bucks in seven games in the Eastern Conference Finals. It did not take as long to beat the Celtics in the NBA Finals, as the Lakers swept them.
Overall, between the regular season and the playoffs, the Los Angeles Lakers went a staggering 91-8. LeBron James was the NBA Finals MVP.