2017-18 Record: 59-23 (first in East)
Players Added: Kawhi Leonard (trade), Danny Green (trade), Greg Monroe (free agent), Eric Moreland (free agent)
Players Lost: DeMar DeRozan (trade), Jakob Poeltl (trade), Alfonzo McKinnie (waived), Lorenzo Brown (free agent), Lucas Nogueira (free agent), Malcolm Miller (free agent)
Projected Team MVP: Kawhi Leonard
Just a warning: I’m gonna talk about Leonard a lot in this one. But yeah, he is easily their team MVP — with all due respect to Kyle Lowry and the bevy of talented, young players the Raptors boast — Leonard is the best two-way player on earth. He can be a dangerous primary option on offense, and there may not be a more devastating perimeter defender on defense. HOWEVER …
X-Factor: Kawhi Leonard
… we should probably acknowledge that he has not played basketball in more than a year without some type of injury to his quadriceps. Of course, there aren’t many basketball players on earth who are better than Leonard, so in the event that he is indeed back to fully being Kawhi Leonard, this is all for naught. But if he has the rust of someone who needs a while to get going — or worse, if he tweaks his quad again and has to miss an extended period of time — the Raptors could take a little to get going. Oh, and there’s no guarantee that he’s in Toronto beyond this season, but the franchise will cross that bridge when they get to it.
Best Case Scenario:
Masai Ujiri traded for Leonard because he wanted a superstar who can help the team compete for a title, so that’s the best case scenario. Leonard reminds everyone that he a potential MVP, which leads to him becoming the clear-cut No. 1 option in his new dig. Between himself, the leadership of guys like Lowry, Danny Green, Serge Ibaka, and Jonas Valanciunas, and Toronto’s second unit that very well might be the best in the league, the Raptors have perhaps the deepest roster in the NBA.
Behind all of those strengths, a versatile defense that should be among the best in the league, and the creative offensive mind of new head coach Nick Nurse, the Raptors has the top record in the Eastern Conference. They ride this wave to a conference title crown and challenge for Toronto’s first championship since 1993. Winning it might be a stretch, but they show they’re close enough that Leonard agrees to a max extension once the clock hits midnight on July 1, 2019.
Worst Case Scenario:
Leonard is either rusty, gets hurt, or is very obviously ready to head somewhere else after this season comes to an end. If it’s obvious the Leonard experiment never goes beyond being an experiment, whether it’s by the trade deadline or at the end of the season, Toronto has to hit reset. That means guys like Lowry and Ibaka — should teams want their contracts — play out their deals elsewhere. The same goes for Valanciunas, who has the ability to opt into the final year of his deal and make $17.6 million next season.
A rebuild isn’t the worst thing in the world, and a team like Toronto can pull one of pretty easily due to the fact that they have young players to build around like OG Anunoby, Pascal Siakam, and Fred VanVleet. The issue is that the Raptors are heading into this season with legitimate Eastern Conference and NBA championship aspirations, and there might not be a more painful way to end a season with those expectations than by having to press the reset button.
