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Reasons for the Clippers to trade Kawhi Leonard are apparent. So are reasons to keep the seven-time All-Pro forward who turned 35 on Monday.

For now, the team is engaged in discussions and entertaining offers for Leonard, who is highly regarded despite being central to a league investigation into allegations of salary-cap intervention.

Representatives for Leonard, who has one year remaining on a three-year, $152.4 million contract, have informed other teams he prefers to remain with the Clippers and would only sign an extension with the Toronto Raptors or San Antonio Spurs if the Clippers trade him, ESPN reported. Leonard helped both of those teams to NBA titles, the Raptors in 2019 and the Spurs in 2014. He was Finals MVP both years.

However, the Athletic reported that the Dallas Mavericks offered to trade power forward P.J. Washington, shooting guard Klay Thompson and draft picks for Leonard. Mavericks president Masai Ujiri held the same position with the Raptors when they won the 2019 championship.

If Leonard doesn’t agree to a contract extension with Dallas, he essentially would be a one-year rental and not worth as much in trade capital. Ujiri engineered the trade in 2018 that brought Leonard to the Raptors without the player agreeing to an extension, and the result was a championship followed by Leonard bolting to the Clippers.

Another factor in assessing Leonard’s trade value and the Clippers’ motivation to move him is the ongoing NBA investigation involving team owner Steve Ballmer, Leonard and the now-bankrupt sustainable financial technology firm Aspiration.

Triggered in October when the “Pablo Torre Finds Out” podcast detailed a $28 million endorsement contract Leonard received from Aspiration, the NBA hired a prominent law firm to conduct the probe. Findings could be announced soon because NBA commissioner Adam Silver said June 2 that it was time to “wrap it up.”

Aspiration had a $300 million, 23-year endorsement deal with the Clippers and Ballmer personally invested $60 million into the company, whose co-founder Joseph Sanberg was convicted of two counts of wire fraud and sentenced to 14 years in federal prison. Ballmer admits introducing Leonard to Aspiration executives but has denied that he knew details of the endorsement deal that Leonard never fulfilled.

Silver has not stated that the NBA would hold up any trade involving Leonard because of the investigation. Still, the Clippers expressed at the end of the regular season that keeping the 14-year veteran was a priority.

“Our plan is to win with Kawhi,” Clippers president Lawrence Frank said.

Leonard is coming off his best season of six with the Clippers, averaging a career-high 27.9 points over 65 games. He has averaged 20.7 points a game during his career.

The Raptors are rumored to be dangling former Lakers forward Brandon Ingram and first-round draft picks

MIAMI — Giannis Antetokounmpo wants more championships. So do the Miami Heat.

And the Heat finally have another superstar.

Ending a marathon watch for the next great Miami get, the Heat landed Antetokounmpo — a two-time NBA MVP and 10-time All-Star — from the Milwaukee Bucks on Monday night in exchange for a massive haul of players and draft picks.

The terms, according to a person who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the move has yet to receive the required league approval: Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis are heading to Miami for Wisconsin native Tyler Herro, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kel’el Ware and Kasparas Jakucionis. Milwaukee also gets at least four picks, including the No. 13 selection that will be made in Tuesday night’s NBA draft.

It ends a wild back-and-forth in the final days of the saga, with the Bucks considering offers from both Miami and Boston for Antetokounmpo — who led Milwaukee to the 2021 NBA title, was on the NBA’s 75th anniversary list of its greatest players ever, is a nine-time All-NBA selection and is coming off an injury-shortened season where he averaged 27.6 points per game.

There has been no secret that this is what Miami has sought, because this is what Miami usually seeks. The Heat pulled off similar moves by landing Shaquille O’Neal in 2004 (helping lead to the 2006 NBA title) and by getting LeBron James and Chris Bosh to play alongside Dwyane Wade in 2010 (leading to four NBA Finals runs in four seasons together, along with the 2012 and 2013 NBA titles).

Now, it’s Antetokounmpo’s turn. At 31, the Heat clearly believe he still has many good years left — and it’s generally presumed that by making this deal they’ll give the Greek superstar a massive extension later this year.

He was a perennial MVP candidate in Milwaukee, getting votes for that award in nine consecutive seasons before 2025-26, when too many missed games left him ineligible.

He has averaged 24.1 points and 9.9 rebounds per game in his career, with 10 consecutive seasons of averaging at least 22.9 points — with three years in there of averaging more than 30 points per game.

Only seven current players have more points in their careers than Antetokounmpo, who has totaled 21,531 to this point.

Antetokounmpo had been mentioned in trade talks countless times in recent years, with the Bucks always insisting — with words and actions — that they had no interest in trading their best player and one of the best players in the history of their franchise.

But this time, it seemed different.

The Bucks, who fired Doc Rivers as coach after the season, don’t have a roster that would be considered a championship contender. By trading Antetokounmpo, they can essentially start over with four players (and the Heat were high on all of them) along with draft capital.

“I just think before the draft is a natural time, right, because if Giannis does play somewhere else we’re going to get a lot of assets. … You’ve got to get it right,” Bucks co-owner Jimmy Haslam said in May, when the team introduced new coach Taylor Jenkins — who was told that Antetokounmpo may or may not be with the franchise when next season starts.

Jenkins and the rest of the NBA now has the answer: Antetokounmpo won’t be there.

Antetokounmpo had spoken highly of Miami many times over the years, even when the Heat and Bucks were going head-to-head in the playoffs. He also shares an agent with Heat star center Bam Adebayo, who was the only player that Miami clearly was not willing to part with in order to make this deal happen.

“They’re going to play tough and they’re not going to stop playing,” Antetokounmpo said after Milwaukee played Miami on March 12. “That’s the Miami Heat culture.”

Little did anyone know that night that those words were coming after what would be the next-to-last game for Antetokounmpo in a Bucks uniform. He played three nights later against Indiana, then was held out of Milwaukee’s final 15 games of the season.

The Bucks said that was for injury-related reasons. Antetokounmpo said he wanted to play.

He had some bouts with injury this past season: Antetokounmpo missed four games in late November with a left adductor strain and sat out eight games in December with a right calf strain, then he injured the right calf again in January.

He landed awkwardly on a dunk in that March 15 victory over Indiana and didn’t play again because of what team officials had labeled as a left knee hyperextension and bone bruise. Antetokounmpo said the last few weeks of the season that he was healthy and wanted to play, a dispute that resulted in an investigation by the league office.

Reynolds writes for the Associated Press.