Kawhi Leonard Signed A Contract Extension With The Clippers Without Woj Or Shams Knowing

The Los Angeles Clippers have been on a tear of late, moving into fourth in the West as they’ve hit their stride with James Harden alongside Kawhi Leonard and Paul George — with Russell Westbrook coming off the bench.

What made the Clippers so interesting this season is it had the potential to be the last year of this current era of stars, as Kawhi Leonard and Paul George both have player options this summer and James Harden is set to be a free agent. However, a big chunk of that possible offseason pressure was alleviated on Wednesday when, suddenly and with no notice from the usual suspects on Twitter, the team posted that Kawhi had signed an extension.

“We’re thrilled to continue our relationship with Kawhi. He is an elite player, a terrific partner and a relentless worker who knows how to win and makes it his first priority,” Lawrence Frank said in a statement. “He elevated our franchise from the moment he arrived. We feel fortunate that Kawhi chose to join the Clippers five years ago, and excited to keep building with him.”

It was an extremely rare major signing where the team got to break the news themselves, and none of the NBA’s big newsbreakers had a clue it was happening or what the details were. Adrian Wojnarowski, Marc Stein, Shams Charania, Chris Haynes, and everyone else who is plugged in to every agency and front office in the league was left in the dark, only able to tweet some form of “Kawhi Leonard has signed an extension, the team says,” without any details on length or how much money it was for.

It’s really incredible for this to happen in the current media climate, but if there was ever a star capable of pulling it off, it’s Kawhi Leonard, who rather famously moves in silence. There is also progress on a Paul George extension to line up with Leonard’s, as Woj reported after Kawhi’s signing.

About half an hour after the Clippers announced the extension, Shams finally tracked down the details on it, which is a 3-year, $152 million contract that is fully guaranteed — which is obviously a big detail given Leonard’s injury history.