Can Kawhi Leonard Turn the Toronto Raptors Into Contenders?

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Wes Goldberg (1:37)

The other team that we talked about getting better, clearly the Toronto Raptors, 46 and 36 Last year, they add Kawhi Leonard, they lose Brandon Ingram and Grady Dick in a couple of first round picks. No big deal. You add a guy whose ceiling is as high as anybody else's in the league. But I do think the main question with Kawhi is, what are you actually getting here?

As I know, that said, Toronto clearly got better. My only question is, at the end of the day, how much better? Right? Yeah. There's no real way to know.

Es Baraheni (2:06)

Yeah. It's kind of impossible to know because you don't know which version of Kawhi you're getting. Like if you look at his games played over the last three years, like he had last year, he played 65 games. The year before that, 37 The year before that, 68, you know? And it's like, so which which version of this guy are you getting? Are you getting the 60 plus games? Are you getting the 30-ish, 40-ish games? Like that's, I think that's the make or break for this Raptor season. I will say, I think the Raptors, their roster is a little bit more prepared for Kawhi missing time than the Clippers have been the last few seasons, or maybe the last couple of seasons. Like it really fell down a cliff when Kawhi wasn't playing for the Clippers, especially last year.

And so I kind of wonder, can the Raptors hold down the fort in the games that Kawhi will miss time? Because Kawhi will miss time. He's not going to play in back-to-backs. If we're going back to what the recipe was for the Raptors in 2019 when they acquired Kawhi, he didn't play in back-to-backs. He didn't play in the three games and four nights type of thing. He always missed one of those games. So he's probably aiming for that 65 game mark. But I'm assuming like their goal is like 60 to 65 games, something along those lines. If they get to it, great. I think they're one of the best teams in the conference. I think again, the difference between Brandon Ingram and Kawhi Leonard is vast. Like you're just, I would say you're going from a guy who's like a top 50ish, 60ish guy in the NBA to one of the 10 to 15 best players in the sport. And to your point, a guy who can like elevate himself to the best player in the league at any point in time.

But the questions are always injury concerns. The questions are always just if he can stay on the floor consistently. I think from a roster perspective, they should probably be one of the best defensive teams in the league between Kawhi, Scotty, Colin Murray Boyles. They just have a lot of really good defenders at the point of attack with Jamal Shad and Jacoby Walter. They should lean on that to win in the regular season at a pretty good rate, I think. Their defense will be able to carry them to wins. And if they get any sort of progression from Scotty Barnes, who's still super young and had a really, really impressive series versus the Cavaliers, if he can build on that and break through another ceiling.