Clippers' Kawhi, PG Additions Set Up Epic Western Conference Fight for Supremacy

If the demise of the Golden State Warriors' dynasty opened up next year's NBA title race, Friday night represented yet another shake-up in the Western Conference.

Kawhi Leonard's decision to leave the defending champion Toronto Raptors to join the Los Angeles Clippers was only a mild shock. The Clippers had openly recruited him all year, he was known to be interested in playing in his native Southern California and the Clippers have proved to be the better-run L.A. organization despite the Lakers' pairing of Anthony Davis with LeBron James.

It was the other domino that toppled minutes after Leonard announced his decision that shook the NBA to its core. The Clippers dealt a massive collection of picks and players to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Paul George, as first reported by ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, manufacturing a superstar teammate for Leonard out of thin air and creating a legitimate power in the West.

The Clippers' emergence as a contender only further muddies what was already shaping up to be a bloodbath of a battle in the Western Conference hierarchy.

There are now six teams—both Los Angeles clubs, the Utah Jazz, Denver Nuggets, Portland Trail Blazers and Houston Rockets—that can enter the season believing they have a legitimate shot at a trip to the Finals. None of them are the Warriors, who have won the West the past five seasons. Golden State still hopes to make some noise, too, although the Dubs' future is up in the air. And there are several other teams with an outside chance at making a run.

Leonard and George will join a Clippers team with a strong supporting cast. They agreed to re-sign defensive ace Patrick Beverley—together, the three of them will form NBA's the most lethal perimeter defense. They also agreed to trade for veteran forward Maurice Harkless from the Blazers. Lou Williams, Montrezl Harrell and promising guard Landry Shamet overachieved as the primary options on a scrappy No. 8 seed last year; they'll thrive as role players around two superstars under Doc Rivers, who's as well-respected a coach as the NBA has.

Their Staples Center roommates are coming off a trip to the lottery in James' first season as a Laker. The agreed-upon late-June trade for Davis from the New Orleans Pelicans got James the superstar partner he wanted, but Leonard's decision to join the Clippers is a massive blow for the Lakers in more ways than one.

It creates a tougher pathway for them in the playoffs while robbing them of the third star they had hoped to bring on board. A James-Davis-Leonard trio with even decent role players would have been the clear favorite in the West. But despite lingering questions about the rest of their roster, the presence of those two still makes the Lakers a threat, if not a front-runner.

Outside Los Angeles, the Clippers and Lakers will have plenty of competition. Three teams in the Northwest Division are serious players.

The Jazz have made the most obvious upgrades this offseason, trading for point guard Mike Conley from Memphis and agreeing to sign sharpshooting forward Bojan Bogdanovic in free agency. They already have a young go-to scorer in Donovan Mitchell and the reigning Defensive Player of the Year at center in Rudy Gobert, as well as a solid supporting cast, including Joe Ingles and backup center Ed Davis, who reportedly agreed to a two-year deal with Utah.

The Jazz were a good team last year; they have the talent to be great now.

Portland made big changes this summer as well, coming off a Western Conference Finals run, although the Blazers' moves are much riskier. They agreed to trade Harkless and Meyers Leonard to acquire center Hassan Whiteside from Miami. Whiteside is as talented a stopgap as they'll be able to find until Jusuf Nurkic comes back from a leg injury that's expected to keep him out until at least the All-Star break.

However, Whiteside poses chemistry risks and isn't as good a passer or defender as Nurkic. Still, Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum have proved year after year they can't be underestimated. Coming off the franchise's best season in 19 years, they're still in the mix.

The Nuggets haven't made many changes this summer, but they might not need to. Last year's team was Denver's best in years, earning second place in the Western Conference and grinding out a tough seven-game series with Portland in the second round. Nikola Jokic is an MVP candidate at age 24, and his surrounding cast—Jamal Murray, Gary Harris, Malik Beasley, Will Barton—are just coming into their own. They're as much of a threat as anyone.

Houston is a much tougher contender to figure out. On paper, the Rockets have arguably the most talent in the conference, with the majority of the core that won 65 games in 2017-18 and the deadliest isolation scorer in the NBA in James Harden still in place.

Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press

But persistent reports of tension between Harden and Chris Paul, as well as unrest in the coaching and front-office ranks (including head coach Mike D'Antoni's drawn-out contract negotiations and the wholesale changes management made to his coaching staff), have them on the verge of collapse. They could make or break this race for Western Conference supremacy.

And then there are the Warriors. They salvaged Kevin Durant's departure to Brooklyn by agreeing to a sign-and-trade for D'Angelo Russell. But there are real questions about his fit with Stephen Curry in the backcourt, which could be similar to Curry's awkward early-career pairing with Monta Ellis. Klay Thompson won't play most of the year, if at all, as he recovers from a torn ACL suffered in Game 6 of the Finals against Toronto. Their supporting cast behind Curry and Draymond Green is still shaky.

It's unlikely Golden State will make a sixth straight trip to the Finals given the circumstances and stiff competition, but it's not impossible.

Other teams hope to make a dent in the playoffs, but their cases aren't nearly as strong. The Dallas Mavericks, with a healthy Kristaps Porzingis to pair with Rookie of the Year Luka Doncic, are expecting to get back in the playoffs. The San Antonio Spurs can never be fully counted out, although they don't have nearly the top-end talent other teams do.

New Orleans and Sacramento are young and scrappy. Trading George takes Oklahoma City mostly out of the picture, and that's before the Thunder figure out what to do with the suddenly on-an-island Russell Westbrook. There will be no shortage of intrigue up and down the conference.

For the first time in memory, half a dozen teams can enter the season with reason to believe that they can make a run. The inevitability of the Warriors' dominance with Durant has taken the drama out of the top of the league for the past three years; now, it's anybody's game. The Clippers' loaded roster with George and Leonard only makes things tougher for everybody else.

Sean Highkin covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. He is currently based in Portland. Follow him on Twitter at @highkin.