Toronto Raptors forward Kawhi Leonard (2) dribbles the ball up the floor during the third quarter at the Bell Centre.Eric Bolte/USA TODAY Sports via Reuters
It’s been just more than nine months since Kawhi Leonard last displayed his prodigious skills on the basketball court in a meaningful game, an injury absence that he has found tough to handle.
“Everything,” the soft-spoken 27-year-old responded after practice on Tuesday, when asked what he missed most about not being able to compete. “Bad calls, missing shots, making shots, winning games, high fives with teammates and just being competitive out there.
“Just everything, I love the game.”
Leonard will make his much-anticipated return to the court with a new team in a new country on Wednesday night when he suits up for the Toronto Raptors in their National Basketball Association regular-season opener against the Cleveland Cavaliers at the newly christened Scotiabank Arena.
And he will be playing before an amped up Raptors fan base whose expectations following a franchise-record 59 wins last season have never been higher.
“The good thing about this year is there’s a newness and so expectations are usually against what you did the prior year or what the same guys did before,” Raptors general manager Bobby Webster said. “This year there’s expectations, but no one knows what’s going to happen.”
The off-season addition of Leonard, considered one of the NBA’s elite performers, helped to generate most of the buzz that surrounds the Raptors as they embark into the 2018-19 campaign.
With LeBron James having shifted time zones from the Eastern Conference to the Western Conference with the Los Angeles Lakers, the East is viewed as being up for grabs and the Raptors are considered one of the favourites.
Much of that optimism has to do with the arrival of Leonard, the two-time NBA all-star and defensive player of the year who led the San Antonio Spurs to the NBA championship in 2014. He played just nine games last season with the Spurs before being sidelined with a quadriceps injury.
In the off-season, the disgruntled superstar was dealt to the Raptors in a franchise-altering deal, along with the sharpshooting Danny Green. In exchange, the Raptors shipped out franchise-favourite DeMar DeRozan and up-and-coming centre Jakob Poeltl.
Even with DeRozan gone, the addition of Leonard and Green provides the Raptors with an overall depth the franchise has never before had.
Nick Nurse, the long-time Raptors assistant who replaced the fired Dwane Casey as Toronto’s coach, said on Tuesday he hasn’t even been able to settle on his starting five heading into the first game against Cleveland.
“We got a little closer to who we’re going to run out there but we’re still not definite as to who the starters are,” Nurse said. “The pregame operations people aren’t too happy with me in organizing all that but so be it. They’ll be okay.”
The one thing you can count on is that Leonard will be in that starting five, along with point guard Kyle Lowry, the two veterans who the Raptors will be leaning on heavily this season to hopefully carry them deep into the playoffs.
Leonard said he feels 100 per cent after his long injury layoff but admitted it will take some time before he will start to feel totally at home in his new surroundings.
“The challenge is coming in to a new coaching standpoint and direction,” Leonard said. “It’s not the same offence that I’m used to. It’s a different coach, different style of play. I’m used to playing the same way for six years so that’s the challenge for me, just learning the new plays.”
The athletic Leonard said once the games start for real he does not believe the learning curve will be so tough.
“It’s not difficult but it doesn’t just come with you,” he said. “You don’t know what the plays are coming in.
“Now, it’s just a matter of time, with our spacing, seeing what guys do on the floor, seeing the defensive rotations we have. It’s a lot of details that come into the game rather than just coming out and shooting the ball.”
After five straight appearances in the postseason (but just one trip to the Eastern Conference finals, in 2016), Webster admitted it was a bit chancy to reshape the look of the Raptors.
“I think we valued continuity for a lot of years and I think that was a huge part of our success,” he said. “I think that’s a little bit of the risk we took in changing some pieces around. Ultimately, you want to put the best guys on the floor, and that’s where we feel comfortable.”