Kawhi Leonard: a hero’s complicated return to the Toronto Raptors

The reunion between one of the best players of his generation and the team he helped make an NBA champion is an opportunity to change narratives

When Kawhi Leonard became a Toronto Raptor for the first time in the summer of 2018, he looked shellshocked. “There’s just more questions you have to ask me in order for me to tell you about myself,” he said, introducing himself to an organization and city he reportedly had no interest in joining.

Leonard had fallen out with his former team, the San Antonio Spurs – one of the most respected franchises in professional sports – due to differences in opinion about an injury that had limited him to just nine games in the 2017-18 season. The Los Angeles native had hoped to end up in southern California, but instead the Raptors risked it all by swapping franchise cornerstone DeMar DeRozan for one year of an injured, malcontent Leonard. It worked: Leonard led the Raptors to their maiden championship on the back of a historic playoff run, averaging 30.5 points, 9.1 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.7 steals en route. Leonard won his second finals MVP to go alongside the one he had claimed with the Spurs when he helped them to the title in 2014.

“The narrative of not wanting to come to this city is gone,” the team’s president, Masai Ujiri, said at that 2018 press conference, speaking to insecure Raptors fans who had watched American players like Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady, and Chris Bosh leave Toronto since the franchise opened its doors in 1995. “We should move past that. Believe in this city. Believe in yourselves … We are proud of who we are.”