Toronto Raptors: Kawhi Leonard’s redemption tale continues

After spending most of last year on the mend, Kawhi Leonard has spent this season reminding everyone of his greatness on the basketball court.

For as quiet and unassuming a personality as Kawhi Leonard gives off on a regular basis, he sure was one of the bigger talking points for most if not all of the 2017-18 NBA season.

The short version is Leonard felt his former team, the San Antonio Spurs, misdiagnosed an injury that wound up costing him all but nine games last season, and it was mostly due to that broken trust that led the former Finals MVP to demand a trade in the middle of June.

The entire ordeal had everyone picking sides. Some respected Leonard’s decision to trust his own body and not feel rushed back by a team that may not have had his best interests at heart. Others across the NBA world felt a Spurs organization with one of the best medical staffs in the business should be given the benefit of the doubt over a guy who failed to shed any light on what could certainly be dubbed a unique situation.

No matter where you may have fallen in judgment, there was no denying this entire saga painted Kawhi in a different light. The guy who was once a hard-working, Tim Duncan-like underdog developed into an egotistical drama queen.

Then, the saga ended. Kawhi was traded to the Toronto Raptors, gifted a fresh start on a perennial playoff contender. They didn’t care about his past, only the future, viewing him as the piece that could finally elevate the franchise to its first ever Finals appearance.

As there tends to be with most players, there was a level of skepticism regarding this pairing at first. Nobody knew whether or not Leonard was fully healthy after sitting out nearly a full season. Some had even believed his growth to superstar heights was a product of the Spurs way and that moving on from Gregg Popovich and company would tank his game.

Could the Raptors convince him to make Toronto a permanent home? Would his blatant desire for the sunny beaches of Los Angeles ultimately take away from the effort he’d put forth over the course of the season? These were all extremely valid concerns, and yet only time could provide the answers.

Having ground through nearly 50 games of the regular season, it’s safe to say the on-court concerns for the two-time Defensive Player of the Year were laughably ridiculous. Leonard hasn’t just played well in his first campaign outside of San Antonio, he’s elevated his level of play with career-higher high marks in points and rebounds while leading the Raptors to the second-best record in the league.

It’s been a hand-in-glove fit in head coach Nick Nurse’s offensive system. There aren’t may complex sets to run. Toronto simply puts Kawhi in the spots he operates best and allows him to go to work, even if it requires all 24 seconds of the shot clock.

In Leonard, the Raptors simply have a better version of their once beloved franchise player, DeMar DeRozan. Whereas the latter provided a sometimes inefficient dose of mid-range pull-ups and fadeaway jumpers, the former is more efficient from beyond the arc, making him a much tougher cover in the isolation sets they both love.

All this success doesn’t take away from the very real possibility of Kawhi playing elsewhere by this time next season. A lot of that decision may ultimately come down to what the Raptors do or don’t do in the postseason after years of underwhelming early exits.

None of that matters for now, though. What does is that Leonard has Toronto realistically thinking championship for the first time ever. The Raptors have given their newest star player the perfect platform to not only reclaim his place among the league’s elites, but to erase that ugly persona he took on less than a year ago by reminding everyone what made him so desirable to watch in the first place.