Photo by Zach Beeker/NBAE via Getty Images

How Kawhi Leonard Backstabbed Russell Westbrook By Using His Phone Call To Team Up With Paul George

In the summer of 2019, the NBA world was in disbelief, after an earthquake move no-one expected.

The Los Angeles Clippers signed Kawhi Leonard and traded for Paul George in a move that shook the NBA landscape.

Interestingly enough, it appears that Russell Westbrook – Paul George’s Oklahoma City Thunder teammate at that time – accidentally was the one who triggered the entire thing.

In an interesting article, Ramona Shelburne reveals how a phone call between Russell Westbrook and Kawhi Leonard would end up making things possible.

Back then, Kawhi still was a free agent making his decision whether to stay in Toronto or go home to California and join the Clippers or Lakers. It appears as Russell Westbrook was planning on a homecoming of his own, which is why he contacted Kawhi. Leonard though, used Westbrook’s phone call against him and ended up calling Paul George

Per ESPN:

“Westbrook had become a father of three the previous November, and while he’d made a home and carved a Hall of Fame legacy in Oklahoma City, the chance to live and play in Los Angeles, where grandparents and his large extended family and friends could visit every day, held deep appeal.

Teaming up with Leonard would be the fastest way there, so he placed the call, according to multiple sources. But Leonard didn’t just take the call as one native son of Los Angeles to another, ponder it and file it away.

He used it.

According to multiple sources, Leonard then called Westbrook’s teammate in Oklahoma City, Paul George, and told him he’d rather team up with him on a homecoming.”