There are two ways to look at the way the Toronto Raptors’ playoffs have gone so far.
The Toronto-positive way is “Kawhi Leonard has saved us.”
The Debbie Downer version is “Kawhi Leonard is playing his way out of this city, and everyone else on the team is helping him pack.”
Leonard is having a series for the ages against Philadelphia. He’s averaging almost 40 points on better than 60-per-cent shooting. Those are Michael Jordan numbers – and Jordan only managed it once. Leonard’s also playing better defence than the Finns when the Russians showed up.
League’s best two-way player? Definitely. League’s best player, period? That’s on the table.
Egoless, preposterously driven, unflappable, a long history of success, freakish physical talent and still only 27, Leonard is about as close as you can get to the perfect basketball player, were such a thing to be designed by a computer.
Given that and how things are going, why would he stay?
If some athletes are inscrutable, Leonard is opaque. Everything you read or hear about him, including this, is guesswork.
He is, by all accounts, friendly enough one-on-one, but once in a crowd he shuts down. Teammates like to talk about his sense of humour, but that’s a catch-all compliment for people who never speak – ‘He has a wry wit’ (i.e., when he does talk, it’s so surprising that people laugh).
He is, in the most mercenary sense of the word, a professional. He comes to work, does his job well and goes home. Where he does it doesn’t seem to matter all that much to him.
Money apparently does matter. Leonard was famously still driving a 20-year-old Chevy Tahoe when he’d already passed into the stupid-money phase of his career.
“It runs,” he told Sports Illustrated. “And it’s paid off.”
If you’re doing the psych profile, that’s what you have to go on – enjoys his work and his own company; knows his value. It’s not exactly the Rosetta Stone.
Even more than getting the best out of him, figuring out what motivates and contents Leonard has been the main thrust of the Raptors’ season.
It had seemingly gone well. Leonard praised the team’s organization and training set-up (the ostensible reason he broke up with the San Antonio Spurs). As much as he ever does, he seemed happy and comfortable.
He was given authority to determine when and how much he played. He was performing and healthy. He never said a cross word about anything to do with the city other than the fact he didn’t particularly enjoy winter. Who does?
It was assumed the hard work would be done by Raptors president Masai Ujiri, a man with a black belt in the martial art of persuading people to do things. As long as Ujiri had a year to whisper in Leonard’s ear – and everyone else didn’t actively alienate him – it was assumed the Raptors had a better than 50/50 shot of keeping him.
Then Philadelphia happened.
For most of the past week, Leonard’s been the only player to show up. Every other Raptor spends his shift looking over at him with a thought bubble hanging over his head that reads: “Are you going to take care of this or what?”
For the first time, Leonard’s frustration is bleeding out a little. He’s reacting to bad calls. After spending entire quarters watching teammates take jumpers like they’re shot putting, he’s been prone to small bouts of hero ball.
It’s clear he understands there is only one person he can count on: himself.
It had been a given all along that the further the Raptors got in the postseason, the better their chance of re-signing him in the summer.
That factor has gone from helpful to critical – and perhaps terminal.
Say Toronto loses to Philadelphia with Leonard playing at a LeBron-at-his-very-best level? Why in God’s name would he come back? To be the best in the world and lose again? Because that’s what he’d be setting himself up for.
Kyle Lowry isn’t going to change. Marc Gasol isn’t aging backward. Those players are untradeable or, at least, impossible to upgrade on the fly. Leonard can’t play this well every single playoff game, because no player in history has ever done that. Which means the most likely future trend is downward.
If the Raptors can’t figure it out right now, why wouldn’t Leonard leave and go to any one of the teams that will happily give him carte blanche to play, be and live however he likes?
NBA players exist in bubbles. They can contour their bubble however they’d like – car to gym, car to game, car to airport, car to home, mix and repeat. They need never interact with the outside world, and some don’t. When you live like that, one city is like any other.
I once asked someone in the Raptors set-up if, aside from basketball, Leonard has any hobbies or interests. Their answer: “Yes. Basketball.”
If that’s all Leonard cares about, the Toronto Raptors are currently giving him a very good reason to do it elsewhere.
Of course, the rest of the Raptors could still pull themselves together. A nice start would be Leonard having an average night, a couple of other Raptors having a good one and Toronto winning in any case. That would be reassuring.
Beating Philadelphia and moving to the conference final isn’t enough. Proving to Leonard that this team is more than him plus a few other guys is a bare minimum. He’s never said anything about it one way or the other, but common sense tells you that much.
This isn’t a good player with a few options. Leonard is the human answer to just about every basketball question. As such, he can make or break teams.
Everyone in the Toronto Raptors organization now has three games to prove to Leonard that he shouldn’t choose to break the one he’s on.