Seven years after he delivered Toronto its only championship and then left, Kawhi Leonard is a Raptor again. Scottie Barnes sounds like a man who cannot quite believe his luck.
“He’s Kawhi Leonard,” Barnes told reporters, in comments first reported by Josh Lewenberg of TSN. “He’s going to help us out in so many different ways. He’s a legend in the game. He’s going to be him and that’s obviously going to raise the roof for our team.”
How He Got Back, Because the Details Matter
This was not a free agent signing, and the distinction is the whole story. Toronto and the Clippers agreed to a trade on June 30. It did not finalize until September 14, held up for roughly two and a half months by an NBA investigation into salary cap circumvention involving the Clippers.
Toronto sent out Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick and draft picks. Then, separately, Leonard signed an extension that his agent Harrison Gaines disclosed to ESPN’s Shams Charania on September 22, with the team announcing it the next day. Reported terms are two years and $115 million covering this season and next, with a player option for 2028-29.
Leonard, for his part, wants the cap story buried. He said he wants to “move forward and focus on my time being a Toronto Raptor.”
He Is Still Excellent, Which Is the Surprising Part
The easy assumption is that Toronto bought nostalgia. The numbers say otherwise.
Leonard averaged 27.9 points last season, a career high at age 34, across 65 games with the Clippers. He added 6.4 rebounds and 3.6 assists while shooting 50.5 percent from the field and 38.7 percent from three. He made All-NBA Second Team, made the All-Star team and finished seventh in MVP voting.
That is not a declining player taking a victory lap. He remains a top-10 offensive player who happens to be 35 now.
His history here needs no explanation. Two Finals MVPs, in 2014 with San Antonio and 2019 with Toronto. Two Defensive Player of the Year awards. Seven All-Star appearances. The 2019 run is still the only banner the franchise has.
The Catch Everyone Already Knows
Sixty-five games was the most he had played in years, and Toronto is not pretending the body is fixed. The Raptors limited him in the first practice on September 29, managing his workload the same way they did during the 2019 title season.
That approach worked once. It produced a championship and a famously healthy Leonard in May and June. Running it back with a 35-year-old version is a bigger ask.
What It Costs Toronto if It Fails
The price was not just picks. Brandon Ingram was the centerpiece going out, and he has a partially torn Achilles that will keep him out of the start of the Clippers season. That takes some sting out of the trade in the short term, though it does not change what Toronto gave up.
Barnes is the player this actually hinges on. He is 25 and averaged 18.1 points, 7.5 rebounds and 5.9 assists over 80 games last season on a roughly $225 million extension. His 30.4 percent three-point shooting is the hole, and Leonard is the kind of gravity that hides it.
Barnes talking about the roof getting raised is the correct read. A healthy Leonard turns a play-in roster into a problem for the East. An unhealthy one turns Toronto into a team that traded its future for a highlight reel.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.