TORONTO – There’s an unmistakeable energy and excitement around the Toronto Raptors going into the new season, the likes of which the city hasn’t seen since 2019.
Everybody can feel it. Fans can feel it. The players can feel it. Even head coach Darko Rajakovic’s neighbour can feel it. It’s palpable.
“I have a neighbour, Stuart; he’s a pain in the ass,” Rajakovic joked on the eve of his team’s regular season opener. “Every day he’s asking me about the team and the guys and the buzz in the city. He’s a really good [barometer] for me with what’s going on in the city. We absolutely love what’s going on. It’s awesome to see that the city has a buzz about the team, has an excitement for the team. Everybody is looking forward to seeing what this team can do and how this team is going to perform.”
What most fans want at this time of year, particularly in markets that have tasted the highest level of success, is to know that their team has a shot. Could they theoretically be in the mix come April, May, and if everything breaks the right way, in June? That’s what it’s all about.
In the NBA’s parity era, more teams and more fan bases can convince themselves that they’ve got a real chance. Since the Raptors won the title in 2019, seven different teams have won the past seven championships, but a single reality remains: you need at least one bona fide superstar to reach the pinnacle.
The simplest explanation for Toronto’s optimistic outlook is the return of forward Kawhi Leonard. Even at his age (35) and with his extensive injury history, a healthy Leonard is still enough to vault you into the conversation. He’s that good. In fact, he’s arguably better than ever. That, in and of itself, is a good reason to get amped up for the season ahead.
“I don’t really go outside much,” said Leonard’s new co-star, Scottie Barnes. “Obviously, being on social media, people are super happy, excited about Kawhi being back. If I am out in public, I think that’s more of what people talk to me about, ‘How’s Kawhi?’ and things like that.”
No disrespect to Barnes, a rising star in his own right, but it’s been a while since the Raptors had a player of that magnitude, one that can captivate the hearts and minds of an entire fan base – the diehards, casuals, and nosy neighbours alike.
Not since, well, Leonard did it the first time around, when he picked up a Finals MVP in helping the Raptors beat the Golden State Warriors in the 2019 Finals.
And these fans were starving for it. On paper, last season should have been a lot more fun than it felt. A 16-win improvement over the season prior to snap a three-year playoff drought, culminating in a hard-fought seven-game series against a more experienced and heavily favoured opponent.
Sounds a lot like the fabled 2013-14 campaign, which launched the most successful run in franchise history and inspired a new generation of Raptors loyalists. So, why isn’t last year’s feel-good turnaround revered in the same way?
This market is older, wiser, and maybe a bit more cynical. Winning spoils, and once you’ve experienced a championship run, it can be hard to go back and appreciate the small incremental steps that it takes to get there. But mostly, people knew there was a ceiling to what the Brandon Ingram-led Raptors could be, and to his and their credit, they may have hit it.
Now, the Raptors owe Ingram a debt of gratitude. If not for his efforts to get healthy, reestablish himself as an all-star, and make Toronto a respectful and competitive destination again, it’s unlikely that Leonard would be getting ready to re-debut with the club. And if not for the reps they got against Cleveland last spring, this young group might not have the confidence and the experience they’ll need to push forward this season.
Last season was an important stepping stone to whatever comes next, but what comes next is the thing that most people are interested in. Raptors fans know what a Leonard-led team is capable of.
That’s not to say that getting there is going to be easy. The other thing about the NBA’s parity era, particularly in a suddenly loaded Eastern Conference, is that nothing is guaranteed.
FanDuel has the Raptors’ win total set at 46.5, basically what they finished with last season. One would assume that modest projection bakes in the expected load management of or possible missed time for Leonard, who hasn’t played more than 68 games in a decade.
And there are questions beyond the veteran forward’s health. Are they deep enough? Are the experienced enough? Do they have enough size behind Jakob Poeltl, who comes with his own injury concerns?
You can paint yourself a picture where Leonard matches last year’s 65-game total and, most importantly, is fresh going into the playoffs. Barnes picks up where he left off in the playoffs, RJ Barrett is highly motivated in a contract year, Poeltl and Immanuel Quickley stay healthy, and the continued development of Collin Murray-Boyles and Ja’Kobe Walter help the team tread water when Leonard rests.
It’s a plausible scenario and why Toronto has the sixth-best championship odds on FanDuel – behind the two Western Conference juggernauts, the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs, as well as the reigning champion New York Knicks, new-look Philadelphia 76ers, and the Boston Celtics from the East.
But the margin for error is thin in a conference that could feature 10 or 11 playoff-calibre teams.
“We have Kawhi, and that’s a really big part of that [excitement],” said the sophomore, Murray-Boyles. “We know that we have a target on our back, obviously, and the East is way better than it was, with the new additions and the trades and all that. So, it’s going to be really tough, and teams are gonna want to go at us. We have a really good defence, but teams are gonna want to try to break that down. Teams are going to game plan differently against us. So, we’re just taking that task head on, really having fun with this, and being real confident in what we’ve built over the summer.”
The Raptors are embracing the hype, as they should. Only Leonard and a couple of assistant coaches were around in 2019, but those who didn’t experience the championship firsthand have heard the stories and seen the clips. Most of this team was here last fall and saw how the city rallied around baseball’s Blue Jays during their World Series run.
But while Rajakovic appreciates the attention his team is getting, he’s quick to dismiss talk of heightened expectations.
On one hand, it’s naïve to think that a team would trade for a 35-year-old Leonard without expecting to compete for championships. On the other, it’s commendable to understand that, while simultaneously approaching the process like the Raptors’ fourth-year head coach always has.
There’s no denying that the expectations are higher than Rajakovic has faced since arriving in Toronto, and so is the pressure, but the steady-handed Serbian is taking it all in stride.
“It’s great to see where the city is at right now and how much excitement there is about the team, but our approach inside the team is not really changing,” he said. “We’ve got to focus on the most important thing and that’s taking care of business one day at a time.”
They’re setting their own expectations. Leonard may be Toronto’s North Star – the team’s best, oldest, and most accomplished player – but Barnes remains its heart. His NBA upbringing has come inside this locker room, and he’s learned how to lead it.
So, naturally, in the Raptors’ post-practice meeting on Tuesday morning, roughly 32 hours before tipping off their season at home against Chicago, it was the 25-year-old who was most vocal.
Barnes stressed the importance of staying in the present and not looking or planning too far ahead.
“I think we have the highest level of expectation,” the sixth-year star told the media afterwards. “We want to win the championship here and that’s our expectation every time we step on the floor, but it’s about how we can build that through every game. You just can’t get there overnight… We’re just going to focus on the moment.”
“That’s our mindset,” Rajakovic said. “We’re going to take it one game at a time. We’re going to prepare one game at a time and we’re going to compete one possession at a time. The culmination and the sum of that will be what we’re going to achieve as a team this year, but we cannot go far ahead and project what’s going to happen.”
There are a wide variety of potential outcomes, which is always going to be the case with teams led by a player as brilliant yet volatile as Leonard. That’s part of the fun. How good will these Raptors be? Nobody knows for sure, but they’ve got a chance to do something and become something special. That’s all you can ask for.