TORONTO — Seven years after leading the Toronto Raptors to the first and only NBA championship in franchise history, Kawhi Leonard is going back to Canada in a blockbuster trade that has reshaped the Eastern Conference landscape and given Toronto the most compelling storyline in the NBA heading into the 2026-27 season.

The Los Angeles Clippers agreed to send Leonard to the Toronto Raptors in exchange for All-Star forward Brandon Ingram, guard Gradey Dick, unprotected first-round picks in 2031 and 2033, a 2027 first-round pick swap and two second-round picks in 2030 and 2033, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania, who first reported the deal Tuesday.

The transaction ends a seven-year Clippers tenure that produced three All-Star appearances, four All-NBA honors and a career-high 27.9 points per game last season but never came close to delivering the championship that both the team and Leonard sought when he chose Los Angeles over a return to Toronto in free agency in 2019. The Clippers, who went 42-40 and lost in the play-in tournament to the Golden State Warriors last season, now begin a full teardown.

The symmetry with 2018 is striking enough that analysts and commentators have noted it repeatedly since the deal became public. Eight years ago, Toronto was a strong regular-season team that could not break through in the playoffs. It traded its leading scorer, DeMar DeRozan, a recent lottery pick in Jakob Poeltl and draft capital for Leonard in the final year before his free agency. The result was an NBA title. Now, in 2026, Toronto is again a strong regular-season team that made noise before losing in the first round to the Cleveland Cavaliers. It has traded its leading scorer in Ingram, a recent lottery pick in Dick and draft capital for Leonard, again in the final year before his free agency.

Whether history repeats is an open question, but the personnel case for a strong Toronto team is real. The Raptors improved by 16 wins last season in their best offensive and defensive efficiency season in six years. Leonard, who maintained a career-high usage rate at 34 years old while playing 65 regular-season games, brings a scoring profile of the kind that Toronto has consistently lacked since the second iteration of the franchise’s championship window.

Leonard agreed to this deal for reasons ESPN sources described as grounded in familiarity and genuine competitive belief. The city of Toronto itself was a draw, as was the Raptors’ front office stability under executive vice president Bobby Webster. Most importantly, Leonard believes the Raptors can contend in the Eastern Conference. He will be eligible to sign up to a two-year, $123.7 million extension with his new team, according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks.

That extension eligibility was the single most critical variable shaping the entire trade. Leonard’s representatives had communicated to teams across the league that he was only willing to sign a contract extension with the Raptors, among teams outside Los Angeles, effectively collapsing his trade market down to one serious bidder. That leverage worked in Toronto’s favor in one sense, giving the Raptors a cleaner path to the deal without competition, but also created pressure to surrender meaningful assets since the Clippers knew Toronto was the only realistic taker willing to pay a full price.

Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank had said publicly in April, after his team’s early playoff exit, that the plan was to build around Leonard. “Our plan is to win with Kawhi,” he said at his end-of-season news conference. “At the appropriate time, we’ll sit down with Kawhi, and very similar to 2024, lay out our plan.” That plan unraveled when the Clippers made no long-term commitment to Leonard this offseason, sources told ESPN, leading Leonard’s camp to formally signal his openness to a Toronto return.

A separate but significant complication surrounds Leonard and the Clippers organization. The NBA has been investigating whether the Clippers circumvented the salary cap by channeling money to Leonard through a $28 million endorsement deal with green banking company Aspiration, which simultaneously held a $300 million, 23-year endorsement deal with the Clippers themselves. The outcome of that investigation could have implications for Leonard’s contract, though no formal ruling has been announced and the trade appears to have proceeded with full league awareness of the pending review.

For the Clippers, the Leonard trade is the final, formal acknowledgment that the organization is resetting. The franchise’s roster has been dramatically remade in a matter of months: James Harden and Ivica Zubac were moved at the trade deadline, Paul George left in free agency last summer, and now Leonard is headed to Toronto. Of the seven notable players assembled a year ago as part of an all-in championship attempt, only Brook Lopez remains. The Clippers now hold Ingram, a 28-year-old All-Star whose $40 million annual contract and recovery from a heel injury will shape what they can do next, alongside a collection of draft assets they hope to use in building a new core.

Toronto, meanwhile, wasted no time adding around Leonard’s return. The Raptors signed veteran forward Kyle Anderson, a former teammate of Leonard’s with the San Antonio Spurs, to a one-year deal. The team also confirmed a contract extension for head coach Darko Rajaković, ensuring coaching continuity as the franchise makes what is explicitly a win-now push with a player who will turn 35 during the coming season.

Scottie Barnes, Toronto’s rising young star, and Leonard together give the Raptors a forward pairing with the defensive versatility and offensive skill to compete with any team in the Eastern Conference. Whether Leonard’s body cooperates across a full playoff run, a concern that has shadowed every chapter of his career since his 2021-22 ACL season, remains the central risk in Toronto’s gamble. If he stays healthy, the Raptors have acquired one of the five best players in the NBA at a price that, relative to other recent superstar trades, analysts have described as closer to a bargain than an overpay.

In total, about 30 unique adverts appeared promoting child sexual abuse, although some of these were shared by multiple accounts.

The alias account was also shown about 20 ads featuring adult pornography.

The distribution of both child sexual abuse material and adult pornography are criminal offences in India, while Meta’s policy states that ads must not contain adult nudity, genitals or content that sexually exploits or endangers children. The BBC has reported all of the ads and the Telegram channels to the Indian authorities.

One ad showed a boy and girl, both of whom appeared to be about 12 years old, engaging in a sexual act.

Another showed a man with his arm around a girl, with text saying he was 52 and the girl was 12. “Click to watch more,” it said, linking out to a Telegram channel.

The BBC reported an advert to Instagram showing a very young girl in tears, with wording indicating that she had been sexually assaulted.

But 24 hours later, Instagram replied saying it hadn’t removed the advert because “our review team found that the advertiser’s ad does not go against our community standards”.

Meta later told the BBC that “no system is perfect, and our review process may not detect all policy violations”.

“We continue to run proactive detection technology on ads once they’re live, and anyone can report an ad to us that they think breaks our rules,” Meta said.

It added that when it becomes aware of apparent child exploitation it reports it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), in compliance with the law. The NCMEC is the centralised global reporting system for the online sexual exploitation of children.

We reported two channels to Telegram for selling child sexual abuse videos.

One of them was subsequently taken down and replaced with a message saying: “This group can’t be displayed because it violated Telegram’s Terms of Service,” but the other continued to post new videos for sale.

Critics have previously accused the platform of not doing enough to prevent the sharing of criminal content.

The Dubai-based company is not a member of either the NCMEC or the Internet Watch Foundation, which also works with most online platforms to find, report and remove such material.

Telegram told the BBC that the company uses both automated and human moderation to eradicate child sexual abuse material (CSAM) from the app, and as a result it says it has “virtually eliminated the public spread of CSAM from its platform”.

As India’s first-quarter earnings season gets underway, investors are preparing for a series of management commentaries that could set the tone for markets over the coming quarters. While sectors such as banking, manufacturing, auto ancillaries and healthcare are expected to deliver steady performance, the spotlight will also be on whether information technology companies revise their growth outlook amid a challenging global environment.

Narendra Solanki from Anand Rathi Shares & Stock Brokers believes the upcoming results will largely reinforce the strength of domestic-facing sectors, while export-oriented industries like IT may continue to face pressure.

IT Likely to Remain Under Pressure
The IT sector is expected to remain in focus this earnings season as investors assess the impact of artificial intelligence-led disruption, delayed client spending and global uncertainty on growth prospects.According to Solanki, caution remains warranted despite attractive valuations.

“Results are around the corner, and the first results will start coming from the 9th. Coming to the IT sector, our positioning is neutral to cautious, especially in this quarter. The sector is currently facing multiple headwinds, right from AI disruption to the West Asia crisis. We are also seeing deals being delayed, with clients not committing upfront, so deal closures are not happening at the pace we used to see. These factors are likely to continue impacting the IT sector in the near term,” he said.
While near-term challenges remain, he believes the second half of the financial year could witness an improvement.
“One thing is certain: the second half is going to be better than the first half. However, one key risk remains whether there is any possibility of trimming the FY27 growth guidance, especially at the higher end. That is something the market should watch carefully in the management commentaries this quarter. The top-end guidance of around 2.5% to 3.5% now looks difficult, especially after recent commentary from Accenture. That is why our stance remains neutral to cautious in Q1,” he said.
FMCG May Spring a Positive Surprise
While markets have largely been optimistic on sectors such as auto ancillaries, manufacturing and power transmission & distribution, Solanki believes the biggest surprise could emerge from FMCG and discretionary consumption.

He points to easing inflation, lower crude oil prices and resilient demand trends as factors that could support stronger-than-expected earnings.

“Broadly, sectors like auto ancillaries, manufacturing and power T&D should continue to perform well. The surprising factor may come from the FMCG pack, where markets are currently cautious. However, there have been decent price hikes in the FMCG space, overall inflation has come down, crude oil prices have softened, and both rural and urban demand have shown resilience. So, there can be a positive surprise, especially in the FMCG or discretionary space,” he said.

He also expects domestic manufacturing, healthcare and banking to remain strong performers.

“Auto and auto ancillaries should continue to perform well. The hospitals segment within healthcare should also perform well. Banks are expected to remain strong, with overall credit growth at around 7.7%. Industrial growth data is also promising, so overall the domestic manufacturing sector should continue to perform well,” he said.

PSU Banks Continue to Outshine
Among financials, Solanki continues to favour public sector banks over their private-sector counterparts, citing consistent earnings growth, improving profitability and healthy asset quality.

“Compared with private banks, we remain committed to public sector banks because they have continuously posted better growth over the last seven straight quarters, and there is no reason for that momentum to stop. Return ratios are improving, asset quality continues to remain good, and provisioning has been very healthy, with more than an 80% provisioning run rate. We do not see any near-term risk and continue to favour public sector banks over private banks,” he said.

Real Estate Rally May Be Nearing a Pause
Although real estate stocks have staged a sharp recovery, Solanki believes much of the optimism has already been reflected in valuations. Rising inventory levels could begin to weigh on the sector in the coming quarters.

“Most of the rally has already been done. If you look at inventory build-up, it has risen from 14 months to 18 months, which is the first alarming sign. The good part of the rally is behind us, and after one or two quarters we could start seeing some consolidation or slack in the sector. Unsold inventory is steadily rising and now stands at around 18 months, which could impact the second quarter,” he said.

Management Guidance Will Be the Biggest Trigger
Beyond the headline earnings numbers, Solanki believes management guidance will play a decisive role in shaping investor sentiment, particularly in the IT sector where expectations may still be too optimistic.

“As I mentioned earlier, IT may be trading at historically lower valuations in terms of price-to-earnings ratios, but any cut in guidance by companies, especially in the first half, may not yet be fully priced in by the market. That will remain one of the key things to watch in the management commentaries,” he said.

The Bottom Line
The Q1 earnings season is shaping up as a test of sectoral divergence rather than broad-based strength. Domestic themes—including PSU banks, manufacturing, healthcare and auto ancillaries—are expected to remain resilient, while FMCG could emerge as an unexpected outperformer. In contrast, IT companies face heightened scrutiny, with investors closely tracking demand commentary and any revisions to growth guidance that could influence market sentiment in the months ahead.

The Cook Government has known for more than a year this moment might arrive.

When former AFL star Nicky Winmar was charged over an alleged assault last May, a political risk emerged alongside the criminal proceedings.

Winmar is not just another sporting great; He is the only individual honoured with a permanent statue at Optus Stadium, a monument supported by the State Government to commemorate his defining stand against racism in Australian football. It was unveiled by then-Premier Mark McGowan.

Now that Winmar has been convicted of assault offences against a female, the government can no longer avoid the question.

Does the statue stay?

Whatever answer it gives will come with political consequences.

If the government leaves the statue in place, critics will ask why Western Australia’s premier sporting venue continues to honour a man convicted of assaulting a woman. 

Ministers regularly speak about respect for women and the importance of tackling family and domestic violence. Those statements will inevitably be measured against the decision they make about Winmar.

But removing the statue presents an equally difficult political challenge.

Winmar remains one of Australia’s most significant Indigenous sporting figures. His stand against racism in 1993 changed Australian football and became part of the nation’s broader story about race and reconciliation. 

Imagine, for a minute, Winmar’s became just the second statue to be taken down in Western Australia because of the poor behaviour of the subject. The first featured Captain James Stirling, who led the 1834 Pinjarra Massacre for which Governor Chris Dawson has recently apologised.

Statues of John Septimus Roe (a member of the massacre party who didn’t fire a shot and also the surveyor-general charged with carving up land stolen from the Indigenous people) and the Explorer’s Monument at Fremantle that commemorates Maitland Brown (who led a punitive raid in which up to 40 Indigenous people were killed in retribution for the murder of three explorers) are still standing.

And that is where the Cook Government finds itself wedged.

This is a government that has already discovered how politically volatile Indigenous issues can become. The Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act remains one of the defining political failures of its time in government, leaving ministers understandably cautious about decisions that intersect with Indigenous recognition and symbolism.

Against that backdrop, removing one of the city’s most prominent statues of an Indigenous person would be politically risky.

Leaving it untouched may prove no less so, and doubtless they will wait for the appeal period to expire before making the call.

Meanwhile, the AFL is no less wedged. The country’s highest-profile sporting body commissioned the statue and, presumably, still has a stake in its appearance at the stadium. Its position on this matter, given the slew of issues it has had with the poor behaviour of men, deserves scrutiny.

“We’ve experienced someone struggling to put food on the table for their children and they decided to put their horse to sleep,” Fiona Long said.

The National Equine Welfare Council (NEWC) found that more than 80% of equine owners across the UK, external were concerned about the continued pressure of increased costs of equine-keeping.

Five percent were considering euthanising their horse due to rising costs, with owners unable to afford the farrier and regular vet call-outs.

It was more common and affordable to have horses in the past but these days it was a “luxury” as the cost of grass seed, bales of hay and vet prices rise, Long said.

“A big bale of hay was £10 around 30 years ago, now it’s £90. Livery costs were static for around 20 years before owners started putting up prices two years ago,” she added.

The farm co-owner said that offering lower prices was a way to “give back” to horses and allow them to continue living for years after they stop being ridden.

“Horses aren’t a hobby, they are a lifestyle and they offer us so much fulfilment, so for them to be horses themselves, that’s giving back to them,” staff member Jo Woods said.

The shares of power equipment suppliers like Hitachi Energy, GE Vernova T&D India and others crashed up to 10% on Friday morning despite the overall market uptrend, after media reports said that the government has granted two-year exemption to four Chinese electrical equipment companies to participate in government tenders for critical power projects.

Hitachi Energy India shares tumbled nearly 8% to Rs 31,150 apiece, while those of GE Vernova T&D India crashed around 10% to Rs 4,361 apiece. Siemens Energy India shares dropped over 6%, while CG Power and Industrial Solutions plunged over 7%. Cummins India shares fell 2% on Friday morning.

Chinese power equipment suppliers to participate in govt tenders

The government granted exemptions to four Chinese companies, namely TBEA Energy, Nanjing ‌Electric India, ⁠New ⁠Northeast Electric India and Taikai Electric (India), for a period of two years, allowing them to supply electrical equipment in India and participate in the tenders, the order from India’s Ministry of Finance dated June 24 and reviewed by Reuters said. The reported government notification highlighted that the exemption should not be treated as a precedent for other companies.

Earlier this year, Reuters reported citing government officials that India has begun easing its restrictions on buying Chinese equipment after a deadly 2020 border clash, allowing state-run power and coal companies to start limited imports as shortages and project delays mount.

Following the 2020 clash, Indian government mandated that Chinese bidders must register with a government panel and secure political and security clearances before competing for any state contract. However, the report had then said that India has now begun to allow state-run entities to procure a power-transmission component from China without ⁠government approval.

Also Read | India eases curbs on Chinese equipment imports for power, coal as projects delayed

India-China ties

This comes at a time when India and China are beginning to rebuild their commercial ties. China has overtaken the US to emerge as India’s largest trading partner in 2025-26, with bilateral trade reaching $151.1 billion, while the country’s trade deficit with Beijing widened to an all-time high of $112.16 billion during the period, according to the Indian Commerce Ministry data.

India’s exports to China rose 36.66% to $19.47 billion during the last fiscal year, while imports increased 16% to $131.63 billion. The trade deficit swelled to an all-time high of $112.6 billion in 2025-26 as against $99.2 billion in 2024-25.
Also Read | Indian envoy holds talks with senior Chinese commerce ministry official on trade ties(With inputs from agencies)

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)