NBA Free Agency July 4th Open Thread: Kawhi the 4th?

After the helicopter chase, the supposed meeting, and multiple deadlines throughout the day on Wednesday — we ended up with nothing. Kawhi Leonard has reportedly finished his meetings with the Raptors, Clippers, and Lakers and is now taking his time to make a decision. Given how quickly the rest of the league got snapped up on June 30 and how slowly Kawhi is moving on his own decision, you can see the frustration etched on supposed NBA insiders... who know as much as we do.

Now, today has been thrown around as another possible day that Kawhi would’ve wanted to make a commitment by. If anything is 100% true, though, he will make this life-changing decision at his own pace. More power to him.

Now, let’s take a look at what’s happened around the league since our last update.

Morning Update:

Just a couple of deals to speak about this morning. The first is a bit of a head-scratcher from the Portland Trailblazers, who are letting restricted free agent Jake Layman walk to Minnesota in a sign-and-trade. The summer of S&T continues!

Layman’s trade means that Portland is running with Hassan Whiteside at centre until the eventual return of Jusuf Nurkic. That’s a bold strategy, cotton.

Oh, and the Philadelphia 76ers finally signed a normal-sized guard. Here comes 6’1” Raul Neto!

More to come...