Kawhi Leonard's Impact on Raptors' 2026-27 Season
The Kawhi Leonard question hangs over everything. So let’s deal with it first.
With training camp less than three weeks away, Leonard is still, on paper, a Los Angeles Clipper. The franchise has been hammered: five draft picks docked, a $30 million fine, and looming long-term suspensions for Steve Ballmer and his top lieutenants after the NBA’s salary cap circumvention probe. Leonard’s share of the punishment? A $700,000 fine, a slap compared to what he gained through those phony endorsement deals the Clippers arranged.
Ballmer will be seething. How could he not be, watching Leonard walk out the side door and straight into what’s expected to be a lucrative extension with the Toronto Raptors?
Yet around the league, the mood is calm. The deal that sends Leonard to Toronto and Brandon Ingram and Gradey Dick to Los Angeles is still widely expected to get done. The holdup is procedural: the Clippers must formally appoint a new team governor and top basketball executive to sign off on major moves. Until that happens, the trade first agreed to on June 30 sits in limbo.
The logic hasn’t changed. The Clippers are starved for draft capital. Toronto is 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 the Raptors are the team he wants to sign an extension with, which makes any rival offer for what would likely be a one-year rental a non-starter.
There’s also familiarity on the Clippers’ side. General manager Trent Redden, expected to become the lead basketball decision-maker with Lawrence Frank suspended for six months, is the executive who ran point on the Raptors–Leonard talks in the first place.
The expectation remains: Leonard will be a Raptor. The only mystery is when the ink finally dries.
From Cleveland heartbreak to a franchise jolt
To understand how Toronto got here, you have to rewind to early May, to Cleveland, to Game 7.
The Raptors had just been bounced in the first round by the Cavaliers. They’d clawed back from 0-2 against a heavily favoured team that would go on to reach the Eastern Conference finals. They did it without Immanuel Quickley, sidelined with a hamstring injury, and with Brandon Ingram hobbling on a bad ankle that ultimately required surgery, harassed by a level of physical defence he never solved.
It stung. But it also revealed something.
That series suggested the Raptors were closer to real relevance than anyone thought. A 46-win regular season, a gutsy playoff push, a young core that didn’t blink. Toronto’s front office clearly saw enough. From there, they didn’t just nudge forward — they lunged, deciding to go almost all-in on a 35-year-old star with a fragile medical file to keep pace in a suddenly brutal Eastern Conference.
Training camp opens Sept. 29 in Quebec City, with the first pre-season game against Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Miami Heat on Oct. 3. Before that, it’s worth laying out exactly what this season is, and what it isn’t.
Can Leonard deliver another title?
The question in Toronto is not subtle: does Kawhi Leonard’s return make the Raptors champions again?
The move screams urgency. Leonard has played only 56 per cent of his teams’ games since 2017-18. At 35, this is a bet on the present, not the distant future. But the landscape around him has changed dramatically since he last wore a Raptors jersey.
The New York Knicks just stormed to a dominant NBA title and enter as favourites to repeat. The Philadelphia 76ers somehow walked out of free agency and the trade market with LeBron James and Jaylen Brown, plus depth that vaults them back into the inner circle of contenders. Miami added Antetokounmpo. Boston and Cleveland remain dangerous. The 2025 East champion Indiana Pacers get Tyrese Haliburton back healthy and fully expect to be in the fight again.
Even the tier below has teeth. Detroit is coming off a 60-win campaign. Atlanta, Orlando, Charlotte and a retooled Washington all have designs on the postseason.
Toronto’s leap last year came largely from pounding weaker teams. That cushion won’t be there this time. In that context, an NBA title — or even a Finals berth — is a massive ask, even if Leonard looks like peak Kawhi. A top-four finish in the East, given this field, would be a significant achievement.
Leonard or Barnes: whose team is this?
On instinct, you say Leonard is the best player on the roster. He’s coming off one of the finest offensive seasons of his career: 27.9 points per game for the Clippers and his seventh all-NBA nod.
But Scottie Barnes is no longer just the promising kid. He’s a problem.
Barnes earned first-team all-defence last season, then detonated in the first round against Cleveland: 24.1 points, 8.6 assists, 6.1 rebounds, 1.7 blocks and 1.1 steals across seven games. He played with a relentless, all-court fury that screamed all-NBA and even MVP potential if he can stretch that level over 82 games.
If Leonard simply repeats last season’s production and Barnes still has a real case as the Raptors’ best player, Toronto becomes something more than a nice story. They become a threat.
High points: November heat and an RJ bounce that touched the sky
For the first time in a while, the Raptors’ highlight reel runs long.
A nine-game win streak and a 13-wins-in-14 tear in November set the tone for everything that followed. They reached the NBA Cup quarterfinals. They walked into Oklahoma City in January and beat the defending champions on their floor. In April, they swept a baseball-style two-game set against the Heat at Scotiabank Arena to help lock down a top-five seed and finally returned to the postseason for the first time since 2021-22.
One moment still towers above the rest.
Game 6 against Cleveland. Season on the line. Overtime. RJ Barrett, the hometown kid from Mississauga, pulls up for a three that hits the back rim, rockets what felt like a dozen feet into the air, and drops straight down with 1.2 seconds left. The building exploded. The shot instantly drew comparisons to Leonard’s four-bounce dagger against the Sixers in 2019 — the same building, the same sense that physics had briefly bent in Toronto’s favour.
Barrett carved his own slice of franchise lore that night.
The cracks: elite opponents and a fading anchor
There weren’t many true low points, but the ones that surfaced mattered.
Toronto opened 1-4, with a couple of ugly blowouts. November’s surge buried those worries, yet another concern lingered: the Raptors could not beat the league’s very best. They went 1-12 against the top four teams in the East and 1-11 against the top six in the West.
Their playoff fight eased some of that anxiety. Leonard’s arrival should help even more. But the numbers are a reminder: this group hasn’t yet proven it can consistently trade blows with the elite.
The most troubling storyline belonged to Jakob Poeltl. The veteran centre’s back started bothering him in training camp, and he never really recovered. He played only 46 games, often well below his usual level, then delivered a flat postseason that saw him drift to the margins of the rotation.
He turns 31 next month. His three-year, $84 million extension doesn’t even begin until this season. That combination — age, health, contract — makes his downturn one of the most pressing internal issues.
Familiar faces, familiar voice — and one very familiar star
Beyond Leonard, continuity rules. Darko Rajakovic enters year four with his staff largely intact. The lone notable change: Stephen Silas joins as an assistant, replacing James Wade.
The roster, once the Leonard trade is finalized, will feature 13 guaranteed contracts. With the Raptors brushing up against the $209 million first apron and hard-capped after the deal, they’re unlikely to carry more than the minimum 14 players.
Rookie Allen Graves turned heads at Summer League in Las Vegas with his all-around game. Veteran Kyle Anderson arrives to absorb some of the leadership load Garrett Temple carried so naturally, with the added benefit that Anderson, at 33 this month, can still help on the floor.
For Raptors fans, Leonard isn’t a new face at all. He’s the ghost of the greatest season in franchise history walking back through the door.
Departures: talent out, timeline in
Once the trade is done, Brandon Ingram and Gradey Dick will be gone. On paper, that’s a lot of production out the door.
Ingram was an all-star last year and led Toronto in scoring. Dick, 22, entered the season with real expectations before losing his spot in the rotation to Ja’Kobe Walter, Jamison Battle and even two-way guard AJ Lawson during the playoffs.
Context matters. Leonard is simply better than Ingram in almost every facet of the game, and Ingram came with his own injury questions despite logging a career high in minutes in Toronto. If Leonard can give the Raptors 60 to 65 games and be healthy when it matters, the on-court loss will be minimal.
Dick wanted a fresh start and should get opportunities on a rebuilding Clippers team. Temple has made the natural shift from de facto coach to official assistant in Dallas. Big-man specialist Mike Batiste returns to Europe as an assistant with his former EuroLeague club. Lawson heads overseas after four seasons of chasing a permanent NBA home.
Who pops next? Walter and Murray-Boyles circle the runway
Every team with serious ambition needs internal jumps. Toronto has a couple of intriguing candidates.
Start with Ja’Kobe Walter. The third-year wing caught fire after the All-Star break, averaging nearly 10 points in 27 games, swiping 42 steals and drilling 47.6 per cent of his threes off the bench. If that shooting holds and his defence continues to sharpen, he could quietly raise the Raptors’ floor by stabilizing bench units and spacing the floor around Barnes and Leonard.
Then there’s Collin Murray-Boyles. The second-year big man might have been Toronto’s second-best player in the playoffs, anchoring possessions with his defence while gutting through multiple thumb injuries. Give him a healthy hand and another year of reps, and he becomes the kind of switchable, disruptive big that can tilt a series.
One raises the floor. The other might raise the ceiling.
Heat on the sideline, heat at the point
The pressure meter spikes in two places.
Darko Rajakovic has coached three different Raptors teams in three years: a teardown, a build-up, and last season’s plucky upstart. This year is different. With Leonard in the fold, Barnes entering his sixth season and a projected starting five earning $173 million, the grace period is gone. From the first day of camp in Quebec City, this is a team judged on results, not vibes.
Then there’s Immanuel Quickley.
He was the headliner in the trade that sent OG Anunoby to the Knicks. RJ Barrett has blossomed in Toronto. Quickley has not. He’s been fine, sometimes hurt, often ordinary — not the decisive, high-end lead guard a contender needs. Anunoby already owns a ring.
If the Raptors plan to make real noise now and in the years ahead, Quickley has to prove he can run a team with serious ambitions, not just spot up around them.
Circle these dates
One regular-season game in November already feels like a playoff event.
On Nov. 2, the Raptors visit the Intuit Dome. Leonard, in Raptors colours, faces the franchise that spent a decade of draft capital and traded away two-time MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to bring him and Paul George together back in 2019 — and got one modest Western Conference finals run for their trouble.
Will he get booed? Count on it. The only twist: Toronto plays the Clippers on the second night of a back-to-back. Load management jokes will write themselves.
November is loaded with early tests. The Knicks, fresh off their title, visit Toronto for back-to-back games on Nov. 15 and 17. A trip to Detroit on Nov. 20 could decide whether the Raptors advance to the NBA Cup knockout round.
The star power keeps coming. Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs arrive Dec. 16. LeBron James and the Sixers come through on Jan. 10. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder hit Scotiabank Arena on March 10.
No. 7 to the rafters
On Jan. 10, before LeBron and the Sixers take the floor, Toronto will stop and look up.
Kyle Lowry’s No. 7 will rise to the rafters, the second number retired in franchise history, joining Vince Carter’s No. 15. The "GROAT" — the greatest Raptor of all time — will be honoured as the franchise’s all-time leader in assists, steals, three-pointers, wins and playoff wins.
The ceremony caps a full-on Lowry celebration. On Sept. 18, a celebrity golf tournament. A block party at Jurassic Park. On Sept. 19, a fundraising gala. A weekend to remember the player who dragged the Raptors from afterthought to champion and defined an era with his stubborn, joyful defiance.
By the time his jersey settles into place high above the court, Leonard should be in uniform, Barnes in his prime, and the Raptors deep into their boldest gamble since Lowry and Leonard first shared a locker room.
The question now is simple and ruthless: in an Eastern Conference this unforgiving, is that gamble enough?
