The Raptors are cool again. Adding a seven-time all-NBA selection following one of the best seasons of his career will do that for a team.

Twelve months ago, the Raptors were coming off a 30-win season. The hope internally was they would get themselves into the mix for a spot in the Play-in Tournament. Playing meaningful basketball was the goal.

Instead, they won 46 games, finished fifth and very nearly upset the favoured Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round. And then they went out and (eventually) acquired Kawhi Leonard, conjuring memories of the Raptors 2019 championship season.

With training camp opening in Quebec City on Tuesday, expectations are higher and more immediate, as they should be when a team adds a 35-year-old superstar. The other day I outlined five reasons all the optimism around the Raptors is well placed, starting with the addition of Leonard, obviously, but also touching on the progress of the Raptors' young core, Scottie Barnes flashing superstar qualities in the playoffs and the rest. But the higher the expectations, the more room there is for disappointment.

In the end, every personnel move in pro sports is a gamble, but perhaps especially when so much is riding on a player (Leonard) who is starting his 15th season. Like a lot of people, I’m bullish on the Raptors prospects. I’m confident they will be scary on the defensive end, hoovering up opponents' possessions like the cookie monster, and Leonard’s clutch-time offence and half-court proficiency should be a skeleton key against the league’s top defences, a problem last season. But are there causes for concern? Areas that will require special attention? Absolutely. Let’s discuss: 

1. How much Leonard are the Raptors going to get? Let’s just get this out there now with the hopes that it will be a non-story as the season unfolds: Going back to 2017-18, Leonard has played in just 400 regular-season basketball games. He’s missed 318.

You could argue that in some ways it’s not as bad as that seems in that 200 of the 318 games he’s missed have been concentrated in three seasons: 2017-18 when he played just nine games for the Spurs in his last season in San Antonio due to an issue with his quadriceps tendon in his right leg; all of the 2021-22 season due to an ACL tear in his right knee suffered during the 2021 playoffs, and when he sat out most of the first half of the 2024-25 season after tearing his meniscus in his right knee during the 2024 playoffs.

But then you would have to acknowledge that even in the six other seasons Leonard has missed about a quarter of his team’s games. And if you are prone to a bit of cynicism you’d likely point out that the three seasons in the last nine that Leonard has played the most games have coincided with years he was up for a new contract: he was heading into free agency when he played 60 games for the Raptors in 2018-19; was up for a three-year, $152.4-million........

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