The idea of Kawhi Leonard in Detroit always came with a catch, and the latest news only sharpens that edge.
One week into the season, Leonard is already out. He played the Raptors’ first two games, then sat out Sunday against the Timberwolves because of knee soreness. On Tuesday morning, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported that the forward is expected to miss “a period of weeks.”
Toronto’s Kawhi Leonard is expected to miss a period of weeks due to swelling in his left knee, sources tell ESPN. MRI on Leonard's knee showed no structural damage, but sides will use the shorter term to ramp him back up after the stoppages during the offseason. pic.twitter.com/DBAgI3v38D
- Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) October 27, 2026
Leonard will be re-evaluated in one week, though that doesn’t guarantee he’ll be ready then. The encouraging part is that the injury doesn’t sound long term. The discouraging part is that Toronto is already watching him miss games this early.
That’s exactly why the Pistons would have been walking into a risky deal. ESPN’s Vincent Goodwill reported a week ago that Detroit checked in on Leonard, though Leonard wasn’t interested.
The fit made sense on the surface: the Pistons have been hunting for a second star to put next to Cade Cunningham, and Leonard is still the kind of talent who can change a team’s ceiling. But at 35, with an injury history that keeps shadowing every move, he would have been a dangerous swing.
And it wouldn’t have been a cheap swing.
Toronto paid a massive price to get him from the Clippers, sending Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, two unprotected first-round picks, a first-round pick swap, and two second-round picks in return. On top of that came a two-year, $115 million extension.
The Raptors made that bet because they believed Leonard could help them chase another banner. That belief isn’t crazy - he’s shown before what he can do when healthy - but staying on the floor is the whole battle.
For Detroit, that’s where the hesitation would have lived. Yes, a Leonard trade would have eased the noise about Cunningham carrying too much weight on his own.
Cunningham has played only 70 games in his career, and adding a proven star next to him would have looked clean on the depth chart and clean in the headlines. But if Leonard missed time, the pressure on Cunningham could have grown instead of shrinking.
The Pistons do have reason to think bigger now. They finished atop the East last season, and while the playoffs didn’t unfold the way fans wanted, they still pushed forward by reaching the second round for the first time since 2008. Building on that in 2027 is the next step, and a player like Leonard would have fit that ambition.
But the postseason track record tells the other side of the story. Leonard played all seven games of the Clippers’ first-round series against the Nuggets in 2025, but in the two previous first-round series, he managed only two games in each. The last time he got through more than one playoff series was in 2021, when he missed two games in the second round and then sat out the conference finals entirely because of a right knee sprain.
That’s the dilemma in full: Leonard can lift a team’s floor in a big way, but his health makes it hard to build a reliable plan around him. For the Pistons, that would have made him a tough investment to justify.
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