It's hard to look last season's drama with Kawhi Leonard subsequently concluding with his being traded with Danny Green to Toronto for DeMar DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl, and a protected 2019 pick as having any sort of positive. I mean, you just lost a legitimate two-way star that was a two-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year and finals MVP, not to mention close runner up for MVP when he was healthy and playing. The loss of arguably one of the premier perimeter defenders in Danny Green as well is a tough pill to swallow, but given the situation, changes were necessary. Despite being one of the premier defensive squads in the league (1st in opponents points allowed per game at 99.8 and 3rd in overall defensive rating of 104.8) they were dismal on the other end (27th in points per game at 102.7, 17th overall offensive rating at 107.9). While the common belief was that the return of Kawhi Leonard as our number 1 option would solve much of our offensive woes, it became painfully clear that outside of LaMarcus Aldridge we had no effective go-to third option, no way of generating offense when we needed it. We got open shots, but we can't hit them, and frankly, we had trouble creating offense.
