Kawhi Leonard will be a Toronto Raptor again. Has that sunk in yet? It’s a weird sentence, for sure.While we wait for the terms of his likely extension with the club to come out, which will bring its own set of long-term questions, there is the near future to consider. Leonard raises the Raptors’ ceiling exponentially. His health concerns are real, but it’s not as if Brandon Ingram’s weren’t, too. A more-injured-than-not Leonard would undermine the Raptors’ grandest ambitions, but those ambitions wouldn’t exist without him.Although the Raptors will be limited in what they can do this offseason, more so than in future seasons, those ambitions begin this year. The New York Knicks should be the clear favourites in the Eastern Conference, but slotting in someone who supplied 0.212 win shares per 48 minutes (Leonard) for someone who was at 0.084 (Ingram) is massive. (For reference, Scottie Barnes was at 0.140 last year. Win shares is just one stat, but it is reasonably representative of per-minute productivity.)As the news starts to become official, I wanted to get into some issues specific to this season that I haven’t touched on yet.How the Kawhi Leonard trade makes the Raptors a contenderEsfandiar BaraheniThe rotationWith the announcement that the Raptors are signing second-round pick Jaden Bradley to a two-way contract on Monday, they now have 13 players on the main roster and two signed to two-way spots. They have at least one (and possibly two) main roster spot to fill before the regular season, and another two-way spot.Here is the positional depth chart.
With Kawhi Leonard coming, several questions about the 2026-27 Raptors linger
Where do the Raptors stand heading into NBA Summer League? Eric Koreen takes a look.
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