It was difficult to know what had just happened on July 18 when Kawhi Leonard and fellow Spur Danny Green were traded to the Toronto Raptors for DeMar DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl, and draft considerations. The Raptors had traded their longest-tenured player, their leader, and seemingly their soul to the Spurs. After the Raptors had treated players like family, rather than assets, for so long, DeRozan was taken by surprise. He was upset, and media pressed Masai Ujiri at media day to apologize for trading DeRozan. It was all very strange, and a team that almost never garnered spotlights was thrust under one for its acquisition of the league’s quietest superstar.
The only certainty was that former Finals-MVP and Defensive Player of the Year Leonard was, at his best, a better player than DeRozan. Would it be enough? If the Raptors flamed out in the playoffs again, the trade would surely not be regarded fondly. To further complicate matters, Leonard had sat out the majority of the 2017-18 with a severe quadriceps injury. It was a fair question if Leonard would be the same player after injury, while some journalists reported that Leonard wouldn’t report to Canada. Certainly, hopes were higher than ever in franchise history, but don’t let the teleology of hindsight wash away the questions at the start of the year. Toronto didn’t know what it had in this team.
The regular season didn’t fully clarify matters. There were plenty of high points, of course. Leonard burst onto the scene, immediately becoming Toronto’s alpha scorer and closer. Toronto won the first nine games in which Leonard played. Leonard dominated Ben Simmons when the two played on October 30, forcing Simmons into 11 turnovers.
Nick Nurse remarked that Leonard was immediately healthy entering the season, far surpassing their expectations for his level of play. He and Alex McKechnie developed a load management program to keep Leonard healthy throughout the year, and though Leonard faced a nagging lower body injury towards the middle of the year, the program was excellent at keeping Leonard at his best.
Leonard scored 43 points against the Celtics, 44 points in a win over the Warriors, and 45 against the Wizards. Between November 12 and December 26, Leonard didn’t score fewer than 30 points in a game. Over the regular season, Leonard collected a no-look diving steal and a bouncing buzzer-beater game-winner over Portland that foreshadowed another baseline jumper to come in the playoffs.
Leonard combined Kobe Bryant’s midrange artistry with the physical dominance of LeBron James. He had explosive posters over Domantas Sabonis, Jarrett Allen, and Tristan Thompson. He established himself as perhaps the league’s strongest player for his size, barely moving during contact with ostensibly larger men, when they flew indiscriminately out of the picture.
Still, questions lingered.
Leonard perhaps too frequently turned to difficult midrange shots, isolating far more than any other player on the Raptors’ roster. When Leonard played, the team’s assist rate dropped while the rate of difficult 2-pointers rose, indicating that Leonard’s offense perhaps existed outside of the sphere of the rest of the team. Leonard didn’t guard opponents’ best players, leaving that job to Green or Pascal Siakam. Leonard also missed 24 games with a few small injuries, but mostly due to load management. Would he continue to take load management days in the playoffs? By the time the Raptors reached the playoffs, Toronto was considered a threat to win it all but teams like the Milwaukee Bucks and Houston Rockets were considered far likelier bets to dethrone the champion Warriors.
In hindsight, only one quote from Leonard mattered. He called the regular season 82 games of practice, and we responded with delight. His confidence was compelling! Looking back, it wasn’t simple bravado. Leonard did, in fact, hold the majority of his game in reserve. He was one of the best players in the NBA in the regular season, sure. He averaged 26.6 points, 7.3 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 1.8 steals, and 0.4 blocks per game, while notching incredible 49.6/37.1/85.4 shooting splits. He was one of the league’s most efficient high-usage options. But that was nothing compared to what was about to come.
The playoffs were a revelation. Leonard ascended to heights never before imagined by a Toronto Raptor, and that was only in the first round. Leonard improved with each series. When the dust settled, he had averaged 30.5 points, 9.1 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 1.7 steals, and 0.7 blocks per game on 49.0/37.9/88.4 shooting splits. He improved in every imaginable way in the playoffs.
He paced Toronto against the Orlando Magic with clutch shooting.
He dispatched the 76ers with the first game seven buzzer-beater in NBA history. It was the same shot that Vince Carter missed.
He dunked the Milwaukee Bucks into another dimension.
Leonard’s contributions extended beyond his highlight moments. Combining his awareness, athleticism, and monstrous strength, Leonard became arguably the best offensive rebounder in the NBA. His defense against Giannis Antetokounmpo turned the MVP into a shell-shock victim, and helped the Raptors win four straight. Leonard perfected the killer art of casually hitting a pull-up triple, orchestrating a stop, and cruelly hitting another shot to put a game out of reach.
Those are Greatest Of All Time-level sequences.
Questions still linger, even if they are no longer the big ones. Namely, will Kawhi Leonard continue to play in Toronto? That matters. Yes, the future matters. But the Toronto Raptors are NBA Champions, and that’s the most important thing of all. Kawhi Leonard was the single most important factor that raised the Raptors to their singular heights, and that alone makes his season a glowing success. The future, the past, everything pales in comparison to Leonard’s season. He wildly surpassed our expectations. The Raptors are the best team in the NBA, and Leonard is arguably the best player in the NBA. His season was stunning, and we never should have doubted. Rarely does the end of a story satisfy our desires so fully, but Leonard’s season was magnificent. I hope you enjoyed the ride because there’s more shenanigans on the way in coming days.
