Kawhi Leonard Scores 21 in 16 Minutes in His Raptors Return, Seven Years After Leaving

Kawhi Leonard wore a Toronto Raptors uniform in a game on Tuesday night for the first time since Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals, and the wait had lasted longer than the seven years. Toronto agreed to bring him back from the Los Angeles Clippers on June 30, then spent more than two months unable to complete its own trade while the league investigated the Clippers. When he finally walked out at Scotiabank Arena, The Canadian Press reports, he got the loudest ovation of the introductions.

What did Leonard do in his first game back?

He played 16 minutes, all before half-time, and bent the game anyway. Sportsnet reports he scored a team-high 21 points on 12 shots, hit four of his eight three-point attempts, and added five rebounds and two steals, starting with a defensive play on Knicks guard Jose Alvarado that set the tone for the night. Toronto won 148-98, with Scottie Barnes and Collin Murray-Boyles scoring 19 each. Leonard said afterwards that it felt good to be out there and that he still wants to get in better shape, Sportsnet reports.

Why did this homecoming take all summer to happen?

Because the trade was hostage to an investigation. Sportsnet reports Toronto tried to acquire Leonard on June 30, only for the deal to wait on the NBA’s inquiry into salary cap circumvention by the Clippers on his behalf. The Canadian Press reports the league severely punished the team, owner Steve Ballmer and several executives, while Leonard himself received a relatively small fine. Only once the punishments were issued could the trade be completed, sending Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, two unprotected first-round picks, a 2027 pick swap and two second-round picks to Los Angeles. Toronto then signed Leonard to a two-year, $115 million extension.

Why did he sit out the first two pre-season games?

The delay followed him into camp. Sportsnet reports the late completion set back Leonard’s readiness, and the club held him out of its first two exhibitions for what it called reconditioning. Coach Darko Rajakovic said before Tuesday’s game that the minutes would be limited, and that it mattered to him that the return happened at home, in front of Toronto fans, rather than on a road trip. It was the Raptors’ only home game of the pre-season, which turned a routine exhibition into the one night the crowd had been waiting for since the summer.

How much should anyone read into a 50-point win?

Less than the ovation suggests, and Sportsnet is honest about why. The Knicks had played in New York on Monday and left their starters at home rather than run them out on the second night of a pre-season back-to-back. Almost none of the players Leonard faced will be on the floor when these teams meet for real. That caveat puts this night in the same family as the league’s other October storylines, where the meaning sits in the detail rather than the scoreline: Golden State still cannot say where Kristaps Porzingis is, Jalen Brunson picked up a flopping technical and called it nonsense, and Scottie Barnes took the first push-off call of the new emphasis. Leonard’s 21 points came against reserves. His reception, and the seven-year gap it closed, did not need starters to be real.

What happens next for Leonard and the Raptors?

Toronto finishes the pre-season on the road against the Knicks and Detroit, then opens the season at home against Chicago on October 21, Sportsnet reports. Leonard is expected to appear at least once more before then as the club builds his minutes up from 16. The longer question is the one the trade itself posed: a 35-year-old with two Finals MVPs, signed through his age-37 season, on a team whose young core, Barnes and Murray-Boyles among them, now has to learn to play around him. Tuesday answered none of that. It just ended the wait, which, after the summer this deal had, was the story on its own. It sits alongside the night Draymond Green passed on a warning to a rookie guard as the kind of pre-season moment that tells fans where a team’s season will actually be argued about.