Kawhi Leonard and the Raptors' Bold Move to Compete

Kawhi Leonard is still, technically, a Los Angeles Clipper. Training camp is less than three weeks away, the deal with Toronto was agreed to back on June 30, and yet his name remains on the Clippers’ roster sheet.

The concern level in Toronto? Barely a flicker.

In Los Angeles, it’s a different story. Owner Steve Ballmer has watched his franchise get hammered: five draft picks docked, a $30 million fine, and looming lengthy suspensions for himself and his top two executives after the NBA’s salary-cap circumvention investigation. Leonard, by comparison, walks away with a $700,000 fine — a sliver of what he gained through those sham endorsement deals the Clippers arranged — and a clear path to a rich extension in Toronto.

That stings. Of course it does.

Yet around the league, the expectation hasn’t changed: Leonard is bound for the Raptors, Brandon Ingram and Gradey Dick are headed to the Clippers, and it’s a matter of signatures and staffing, not second thoughts. Los Angeles still has to appoint a team governor and a lead basketball executive to formally sign off, a delay that has left one of the summer’s biggest trades in limbo.

The logic is too strong to ignore. The Clippers are desperate for draft capital; the Raptors are sending two unprotected firsts, a first-round swap and two seconds — a package no one else has been willing to match. Leonard has made it clear he wants to extend in Toronto, which scares off any rival suitors who might consider paying that kind of price for a likely one-year rental.

It also helps that the man expected to take over basketball operations in Los Angeles, general manager Trent Redden, is the same executive who steered the Leonard-Raptors talks to begin with. The pathway is laid out. The timing is the only mystery.

A Game 7 exit, and a door that opened

The last snapshot of Toronto’s 2025-26 season came in Cleveland, in early May. Game 7. First round. A series that started as a mismatch and ended as a warning shot.

The Raptors had fallen behind 0-2 to the heavily favoured Cavaliers, then clawed back, stretched the series to the limit and bowed out with their starting point guard, Immanuel Quickley, sidelined by a hamstring injury and leading scorer Brandon Ingram hobbled by an ankle that would later require surgery. Cleveland went on to the Eastern Conference finals. Toronto went home with a sting of disappointment, but also a sense that something real was brewing.

They had won 46 games in the regular season. They had pushed a contender without a healthy backcourt. They had found something.

The front office clearly agreed. From that playoff platform, the Raptors didn’t tiptoe forward; they jumped. Trading for Leonard — and preparing to hand a 35-year-old with a long injury file a lucrative extension — is the definition of a franchise yelling “win now” in an Eastern Conference that has turned into a gauntlet.

Training camp opens Sept. 29 in Quebec City. Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Miami Heat roll in for the first pre-season game on Oct. 3. The Raptors are not easing into anything.

Can they win it all with Leonard back?

That’s the natural question. A team adding a seven-time all-NBA forward who just averaged a career-best 27.9 points per game doesn’t get to pretend it’s on a slow build.

But the league around them has shifted too. The New York Knicks didn’t just win the title; they dominated, and they’ll open as favourites to repeat. The Philadelphia 76ers somehow walked out of free agency with LeBron James, then swung a trade for Jaylen Brown and stacked their depth. Miami landed Antetokounmpo. Boston and Cleveland remain loaded. The Indiana Pacers, last year’s East champions, get all-NBA guard Tyrese Haliburton back healthy and expect to rejoin the fight.

Detroit is coming off a 60-win season. Atlanta, Orlando, Charlotte, even a rebuilt Washington, all have playoff ambitions. Toronto made its jump last year by pounding the soft spots on the schedule. Those soft spots are shrinking.

So yes, Leonard raises the ceiling. But an NBA title, or even a Finals berth, might still be a reach in this version of the East. A top-four finish would be an achievement, not a consolation prize.

Who’s the best player now?

On instinct, you say Leonard. He’s the proven superstar, fresh off a monstrous scoring season and another all-NBA nod. He’s the one with the ring that already sits in the Raptors’ trophy case.

Then you look at Scottie Barnes and pause.

Barnes took a leap that was impossible to miss. He earned first-team all-defence for the first time, then tore through the Cavaliers in that first-round series: 24.1 points, 8.6 assists, 6.1 rebounds, 1.7 blocks, 1.1 steals over seven games. The numbers were loud. The way he played was louder — a snarling, all-court presence that screamed “future MVP candidate” if he can sustain anything close to that over 82 games.

If Leonard simply repeats last season’s production and Barnes still makes a credible case as the Raptors’ best player, Toronto won’t just be good. It will be a problem for everyone.

The highs: November heat and an RJ Barrett bounce that touched the rafters

For the first time in a while, Raptors fans had a season with more highs than caveats.

A nine-game winning streak and a 13-of-14 run in November changed everything. The Raptors went from a team feeling out its identity to one that punched first. They reached the NBA Cup quarterfinals. They went into Oklahoma City in January and beat the defending champions on their floor. In April, they swept a two-game, baseball-style set against Miami at Scotiabank Arena to help lock in a top-five seed. They made the playoffs for the first time since 2021-22.

One moment, though, sits above the rest.

Game 6 against Cleveland, back in Toronto, facing elimination. Overtime. Mississauga’s own RJ Barrett rises for a three that looks long the instant it leaves his hand. It smacks the back rim, rockets up what feels like 12 feet, hangs there for an eternity, then drops straight down with 1.2 seconds left.

Season saved. Arena detonated.

The building hadn’t shaken like that since Leonard’s four-bounce dagger against the Sixers in 2019. Barrett carved out his own piece of franchise lore in a single, ridiculous bounce.

The lows: elite teams, a creaky centre, and a reminder of the gap

The rough patches were fewer, but they mattered.

Toronto opened 1-4, absorbing some heavy defeats and a quick dose of doubt. November’s surge wiped that away, but another issue lingered: the Raptors struggled badly against the league’s elite. They went 1-12 against the top four teams in the East and 1-11 against the top six in the West. Their strong playoff showing eased some of those concerns, and Leonard’s arrival should help in those heavyweight matchups, but the record is a reminder of where they still stand.

Then there was Jakob Poeltl.

The veteran centre’s back flared up in training camp and never really settled. He played only 46 games, and most of those looked nothing like the steady, high-IQ anchor Toronto thought it had secured. In the playoffs, he drifted to the edge of the rotation, his impact dulled at both ends.

He turns 31 next month. His three-year, $84 million extension hasn’t even kicked in yet. The Raptors need him to look a lot more like the player they paid for.

New faces, familiar core

Once the Leonard trade becomes official, the Raptors’ roster will feel more like a renovation than a rebuild. The core stays largely intact. The coaching staff, led by Darko Rajakovic in his fourth season, remains stable, with one notable addition: Stephen Silas joins as an assistant, replacing James Wade.

Toronto projects to have 13 guaranteed contracts once Leonard is on the books. With the club brushing up against the $209 million first apron and facing a hard cap after the trade, a 14-man roster — the league minimum — seems the most realistic outcome.

Rookie Allen Graves turned heads at Summer League in Las Vegas with his all-around game and could force his way into the rotation. Veteran Kyle Anderson arrives to help fill the leadership void left by Garrett Temple, who moves into an assistant coaching role in Dallas. Anderson, who turns 33 this month, still has enough in his legs to contribute on the floor as well as in the locker room.

Who’s gone, and who will actually be missed?

Assuming the Leonard trade closes, Brandon Ingram and Gradey Dick will be out the door.

On paper, losing an all-star and your leading scorer should hurt. In practice, Leonard is a clear upgrade in almost every facet, and Ingram came with his own durability questions even in a season where he set a personal high in minutes played.

Dick never built on his promising second year. By the time the playoffs rolled around, he’d been leapfrogged in the rotation by Ja’Kobe Walter, Jamison Battle and even two-way guard AJ Lawson. At 22, he wanted a fresh start. A rebuilding Clippers team should give him that.

Temple transitions fully into coaching after essentially moonlighting as one in Toronto. Big-man specialist Mike Batiste returns to Europe to join his old EuroLeague club as an assistant. Lawson heads overseas after four years of trying to cement an NBA role.

Breakout watch: Walter, Murray-Boyles, and the kids behind the stars

Ja’Kobe Walter already had a mini-breakout after the all-star break. Now the question is whether he can turn that surge into a season.

Over his final 27 games, the third-year wing averaged nearly 10 points, swiped 42 steals and drilled 47.6 percent of his threes off the bench. If the defence continues to sharpen and the shooting holds anywhere near that level, he becomes a vital piece in a deep, competitive rotation. He doesn’t just raise the ceiling; he stabilizes the floor.

Then there’s Collin Murray-Boyles.

The second-year big man spent much of the season battling thumb injuries, but when the playoffs arrived, he emerged as arguably Toronto’s second-best player. He defended with force and versatility, changed possessions with his energy and looked like the kind of frontcourt presence every contender needs. Give him a healthy hand and another year of experience, and he could be the surprise that nudges Toronto from “dangerous” to “genuinely scary.”

Who feels the heat?

Plenty of eyes will settle on Rajakovic.

His first three years came with built-in caveats: a teardown, a build-up, a fun, overachieving group. Those days are over. With Leonard on board, Barnes entering his sixth season, and a projected starting five earning $173 million, the Raptors are past the point of moral victories and “good steps.”

Then there’s Quickley.

He arrived as the centrepiece in the trade that sent OG Anunoby to the Knicks, with RJ Barrett as the co-headliner. Barrett has thrived in Toronto colours. Quickley has not. Injuries have clipped his rhythm, and his play has hovered closer to “solid” than “solution.”

Anunoby already owns a championship ring. If the Raptors want to chase another, Quickley has to prove he can steer a team with real ambitions, not just space the floor and hit shots in spurts.

Circle these dates

The regular season will offer its share of tests, but one early game jumps off the calendar: Nov. 2 at the Intuit Dome.

Raptors at Clippers. Leonard back in Los Angeles.

He joins the Clippers in 2019, costs them 10 first-round picks when you trace out the Paul George deal and the Shai Gilgeous-Alexander trade, delivers one flimsy Western Conference finals run and leaves with the franchise in chaos. Will he get booed? You can count on it.

There’s one twist: Toronto plays the night before. A back-to-back. Given Leonard’s history, the spectre of load management will hang over that trip too.

November doesn’t ease up. The Knicks visit Scotiabank Arena for a two-game set on Nov. 15 and 17. On Nov. 20, the Raptors go to Detroit for a game that could decide their fate in the NBA Cup group stage. Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs arrive on Dec. 16. LeBron and the Sixers come to town on Jan. 10. Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder roll in on March 10.

No more No. 7

One more night will matter for reasons that go beyond standings and seedings.

On Jan. 10, before the Raptors host the 76ers, Kyle Lowry’s No. 7 will rise to the rafters, joining Vince Carter’s No. 15. The “GROAT” becomes the second player in franchise history to have his jersey retired, a formal acknowledgement of the guard who left as the club’s all-time leader in assists, steals, threes, wins and playoff wins.

The ceremony will cap a full-blown Lowry celebration. The weekend of Sept. 18-19 features a celebrity golf tournament, a block party at Jurassic Park and a fundraising gala. It’s a reminder of what a finished story looks like in Toronto: a star comes, wins, leaves a mark and gets immortalized.

Leonard has already written one unforgettable chapter here. Barnes is writing his in real time. The front office has pushed its chips in again.

The question now isn’t whether the Raptors are relevant. It’s how far this version — older, bolder, and suddenly very expensive — can push the Eastern Conference before the window snaps shut.