Los Angeles Lakers: Why Kawhi Leonard will never be a Laker
By Jason Reed
2. Klay Thompson is a much better fit for LeBron and the Los Angeles Lakers
We actually wrote an entire article on this premise yesterday solely devoted to why Klay Thompson is such a good fit for the Los Angeles Lakers. Here, we compare that fit to how Kahwi Leonard would fit on the Los Angeles Lakers.
First and foremost, the obvious. Klay Thompson is a shooting guard, which is one the positions the Lakers are going to need to target next summer. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is going to hit the open market and Josh Hart is great and all but serves the role of a primary combo guard off the bench much better.
Second of all, while Thompson is a top-three shooting guard in the league, he is not a high maintenance star and is used to playing a secondary role to some of the best players in the league. Leonard, on the other hand, did not have a good history with the San Antonio Spurs and could be a bad locker room presence for this young core.
Thompson may not have the same high-level defense as Leonard but he is certainly still a top 15 defender in the league and is a huge off-ball threat that is going to play nicely with distributors in Lonzo Ball and LeBron James as well as other scorers such as Brandon Ingram.
Leonard will demand more of the basketball for him to succeed and will take away what makes LeBron, Ball and Ingram so good. Thompson will not have that effect.