VANCOUVER – There is nothing casual about Kawhi Leonard. For a player of his pedigree, an exhibition game should be a glorified pick-up run. The goal is to get a sweat, get some touches and most importantly, not to get hurt.
But Leonard didn’t turn himself from an unheralded mid first-round pick out of lightly-regarded San Diego State and into one of the top five players in the NBA by being casual.
He showed plenty of signs why the Raptors will be well-served having added the two-way dynamo to the fold during his debut as Toronto opened their exhibition season against the Portland Trail Blazers.
“Yeah, you know it’s going to take time to get my rhythm,” he said afterwards. “But I felt great being out there and being out to compete. Just having fun.”
And he showed no signs that he’s anything other than fully committed to the cause and ready to play at peak effort.
The 27-year-old only played nine games last season with the San Antonio Spurs, the last on Jan. 13, due to a quadriceps injury. He hadn’t run 5-on-5 until this past Tuesday, the first day of training camp with his new team.
He could be forgiven for easing his way into things.
But Leonard need not ask for forgiveness. The former 2014 Finals MVP didn’t ease his way into anything as he put up 12 points and dished three assists and added a steal in 19 minutes of floor time. There were some signs of rust: an 85 per cent free-throw shooter for his career, Leonard was just 6-of-11 from the line; a career 38.6 per cent three-point shooter, he missed all four of his triples. But there was far more compelling evidence that Leonard is healthy and ready to resume the level of play he reached prior to his thigh injury when he finished third in the NBA in MVP voting for the 2016-17 season.
In the Raptors 122-104 win in front of a sold-out crowd of 18,654 where his every move was greeted with a roar, it was clear Leonard was here to compete, not just work up a sweat.
He took the first shot of the Raptors highly-anticipated 2018-19 season – missing a difficult pull-up three going to his right off the dribble late in the shot clock – and otherwise seemed intent on setting the tone.
Leonard’s first basket came off a pump-fake at the three-point line that led to a wide-open pull-up jumper. His next came on a post-move that Hakeem Olajuwon would have been proud of as he pumped and pivoted and laid the ball up softly with his left hand.
But, in some ways, Leonard’s most telling moments came in between plays.
He turned to the ball over on a dribble move and grimaced before rehearsing the move again against air as the play was getting reset. A wide-open missed corner three saw him miming his shooting motion in another pause in the action.
And if there were any more proof needed that Leonard might only know one way to play – hard – he attacked the rim fearlessly on a couple of different possessions, getting fouled hard each time.
“It didn’t feel like they were hard fouls,” he said. “It was just a normal NBA game to me.”
Something that Leonard takes seriously, even in the exhibition season.
It’s a quality that Raptors fans are going to lap up. Not that it’s fair to spend the season — or even the pre-season — making comparisons to the franchise icon that was sent away for the superstar who made his Raptors debut in Vancouver, but they are different players.
DeRozan picked his spots at times, letting the games come to him. Defensively, quite often the game never did. Based on his career to date and his showing against Portland, that won’t be an issue for Leonard regardless of whether his stay in Toronto is one season or many more beyond that.
On one of his first possessions defensively, Leonard found himself alone on the weak side between two Portland players playing above the three-point line. With the ball at the wing, Leonard bluffed hard and then scrambled back to the corner, correctly anticipating the pass which he deflected with one of his giant mitts. It was a nothing play other than not very many NBA players make it very routinely. A moment later, Leonard picked off Nik Stauskas and took it the length of the floor for the score. Offensively, he showed hints of a complete arsenal.
“He can do everything,” said Raptors rookie head coach Nick Nurse. “He can come off pin downs and score, he can bring it in transition and make plays, he can play screen and roll and he can post. There’s not any part of offence he can’t play so we’ll probably use most parts of offence to get him the ball.”
Rookie Raptors head coach Nick Nurse didn’t seem like he was going to be making too much of his first pre-season game running an NBA team.
With all 20 training camp invitees dressed – with more players than bench seats at least three or four had to find seats on the floor during the game – Nurse said he planned to flip-flop his lineups at will.
With OG Anunoby away from the team for personal reasons, Nurse started Leonard with Kyle Lowry, Serge Ibaka, newcomer Danny Green and C.J. Miles, but he was hardly religious about anything after that.
"We’re going to mix up the starting lineups," he said. "Probably start a whole different group the second half — maybe not whole different, but different-ish, three out of the five will be different to start the second half. I’m just looking at a whole bunch of different combinations, maybe get the guys into some other positions that we want to make sure we look at."
In all, 13 Raptors saw the floor for at least 10 minutes and none more than 21.
But one plan he stuck to was getting Leonard a good dose of playing time with Lowry. The two played every minute of their 19 together, and there were plenty of encouraging signs.
“They were good,” said Nurse. “I think there were a couple of pretty cool sequences where they found each other in areas and I think that’s neat.
“I think everybody saw Kawhi, he was shaking off some rust, right? But you can obviously see the level that he has and I think he looks like we’re all running around really fast and he gets it and everything goes into slow motion. It’s kind of a gift for guys that are as good as him and it’s neat to watch too.”
Leonard initiated a lot of the offence like he’d been doing it in Toronto for years. “I have been playing like that my last three years [in San Antonio],” said Leonard. “It’s just what I do.”
On one play, Leonard penetrated but stopped short of forcing a shot. Instead, as the help came, he pitched it behind to Lowry who rifled the ball to the weak-side corner for a wide-open VanVleet three.
Prettier still: An outlet pass by Jonas Valanciunas to Lowry, who made a no-look pass to Leonard in transition who in turn flipped it back to Lowry. Lowry was trying to one-touch it back to Leonard for the exclamation point but he was fouled first – one of 73 fouls the whistle happy crew called, the one downer on the night. Robbed of a chance to finish the play, Leonard could only slap hands with Lowry and smile.
It was one of the few moments that Leonard dropped his all-business, all the time approach, but even in a small sample size of an otherwise meaningless game, there were plenty of reasons for everyone else to smile at what lies ahead.
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