Stephen A. Smith Is Hearing a Potential Uncle Dennis-Kawhi Leonard Bombshell Could Drop

No one really knew what Kawhi Leonard was up to during free agency or where he would eventually sign. Even the so-called experts. So the Los Angeles Clippers was a big reveal. Before the news broke, though, one way to glean insight was to shrink the mind of his advisor, Dennis Richardson, affectionately known as Uncle Dennis.

ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith offered an interesting nugget on First Take this morning regarding Dennis’ involvement in the process and it was a bit eyebrow-raising.

Putting on his “reporter’s hat,” which is not a real hat, Smith said this: “allegedly, the uncle, Dennis, was asking for a lot of stuff from the other teams. Houses, planes, sponsorships … just for an example, they’re throwing this stuff out there. All of those things are supposedly illegal in the collective bargaining agreement.”

Bleacher Report transcribed Smith:

“This is me putting on my reporter’s hat here. People in NBA circles are talking about this right now: Allegedly, the uncle, Uncle Dennis, was asking for a lot of stuff from the other teams; houses, planes, sponsorship, guaranteed sponsorship money, just as an example. They’re throwing this stuff out there. All of those things are supposedly illegal in the collective bargaining agreement. I have no idea whether this is true or not. I’m not trying to cast any aspersions on Uncle Dennis, but people in NBA circles are talking about this as we speak. Why is that important? Because one could argue the reason why this story is out there right now about the Lakers and the Raptors feeling played wasn’t just because of what Uncle Dennis asked for, but they’re going to try to turn that around and parlay that into a question about what did the Clippers give up to get Kawhi Leonard. So in other words, you’ve got teams right now playing games with one another talking about they’re trying to point the finger at the Clippers saying, ‘let’s ask what the Clippers did to get Kawhi Leonard.’

“I’m here to tell you right now, we don’t care. We don’t care. The bottom line is Kawhi Leonard is with the Los Angeles Clippers. He’s not with the Lakers or the Raptors, but I’m telling you right now in the days to come you’re going to hear more noise about what Kawhi’s camp was asking for, with questions about what the Clippers gave up.”

Well, that certainly seems like a big story! The type of thing ESPN — and others — would chase. It’ll be very interesting to see the follow up here. Here’s hoping the “noise” takes the form of actual reporting.

No pressure for the company’s news-gathering team.