Kawhi Leonard Returns: Raptors Set for a Strong Comeback
Fred VanVleet has seen Toronto at its basketball peak. He knows exactly what a locked‑in Kawhi Leonard looks like. So when he talks about the Raptors with Kawhi back in uniform, people in that city listen.
“I mean, listen, they didn’t get worse,” VanVleet said with a grin at Kyle Lowry’s block party. “It didn’t get worse. I’m excited for the city. I’m excited for the organization. It’s good to see [Kawhi Leonard] back and yeah, they’ll be a damn good team, especially in the East. They’re going to be a tough out.”
That’s not empty nostalgia from a former teammate. It’s a warning shot to the conference.
“They didn’t get worse”
VanVleet, now running the show in Houston, watched the Raptors mortgage a serious chunk of their future to bring Leonard back to Canada. Toronto sent Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, two unprotected first-rounders in 2031 and 2033, a 2027 pick swap, and two future seconds to the Los Angeles Clippers to reunite with the two-time Finals MVP.
You don’t pay that price for sentiment. You pay it because you think you’re dangerous again.
Leonard returns at 35, no longer the mystery rental who landed in Toronto in 2018, but a proven closer joining a younger, re-tooled roster built around Scottie Barnes. The Raptors are betting that pairing a rising cornerstone with one of the most ruthless postseason performers of his generation can drag them back into relevance in the East.
VanVleet, who shared that 2019 title run with Leonard, doesn’t sound like a man doubting the wager.
The star who never wanted to stay
The irony, of course, is that the first time Leonard arrived in Toronto, he made it clear he never planned to stay.
“From day one, he said, ‘I don’t know why they traded for me. I don’t want to be here. I’m not staying here,’” VanVleet recalled on the Hello and Welcome podcast. “Now, Toronto put their best bid in, man. The city bowed down as we’ve never seen before, man.”
The franchise rolled out the red carpet. The city fell in love. Leonard still walked after delivering the greatest season in Raptors history.
“As for us regular people, we can look at it and say, man, how could you leave that?” VanVleet said. “But his mind was made up, man. Kawhi is Kawhi.”
That was the deal. Toronto rented a superstar who never pretended otherwise, and in return he gave them everything on the floor.
A run that changed lives
Leonard’s “business-like” playoff march in 2019 didn’t just change the Raptors’ trophy case. It changed careers.
VanVleet has said repeatedly that Leonard’s presence and that championship run altered his own trajectory, helping turn an undrafted guard into a key Finals performer and, eventually, a major-contract player in the league. The title elevated the franchise, but it also elevated the people around Leonard.
He remembers the standard. He remembers the belief.
“Kawhi [Leonard] changed my view on a lot of shi*t,” VanVleet said, before sharing one moment that stuck with him. He overheard a conversation after the championship, one he refuses to attribute directly, but the message was searing.
“The sentiment of the conversation was when we won the championship about all that sh*t is like, ‘I’m better than Kobe.’”
VanVleet’s first instinct matched that of a generation of fans.
“Right? I had the same reaction because Kobe is my man. Kobe, that’s it for me. That’s as good as it gets for me as a little kid up into a man, my eyes, what I seen.”
But Leonard’s résumé gives that kind of audacious self-belief some weight. Two championships, two Finals MVPs, on two different franchises. A playoff portfolio stacked with iconic moments, including the shot that bounced four times and broke Philadelphia’s heart.
Kawhi, Scottie, and the next act in Toronto
Now the Raptors are asking Leonard to write a second chapter in a city he once treated as a one-year stopover.
This time he steps into a different ecosystem. No Kyle Lowry, no Marc Gasol, no Serge Ibaka. Instead, it’s Barnes headlining the next generation, with Leonard as the veteran star who knows exactly what it takes to win there.
VanVleet’s message from afar is clear: with Kawhi back, Toronto isn’t just chasing respectability. It’s hunting again.
“They’ll be a damn good team,” he said. “They’re going to be a tough out.”
The last time Leonard wore Raptors colors, the season ended with a parade. Now, with the East reshaping and Toronto pushing its chips back in, the question hangs over the league: how much damage can a 35-year-old Kawhi still do in the place where he first became a legend?
