The NBA is a league defined by legacy. Who has a ring, and who doesn’t. Who beat who in what finals, and what makes them the real G-O-A-T. Fans don’t just care who the best player was at any given time, but rather, what they represented, what they meant to a city, and whether or not they stuck around for the long haul. If a player is lucky, the team invites them back when they’re old and grey to sit courtside and pose for photos, as younger men play in the colours they wore in decades past. If they’re luckier,
when they go back to the stadium they sweat and bled in throughout their twenties and thirties, they’ll be able to look up and see a banner with their jersey number on it, maybe even the year they hoisted the Larry O’Brien for their team.
And if they’re the luckiest, then maybe, just maybe, their likeness will be immortalized in stone and granite in front of the arena, a monument to their greatness like they’re some kind of god of basketball. Or, if they’re really unlucky, they hire a sculptor who screws up their face, and people squint in the Miami sunlight trying to see if that really is them. Sorry D Wade.
Toronto has never really had a player get to a point where that was a concern. Vince Carter was a young love who left the franchise too early for it to count. His jersey number hangs in the rafters of Scotiabank Arena, but there’s a threshold of meaning to the organization that he never quite crossed. DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry never got it done together, and while in time, they will both go on to receive those same honours, the Compton-Philly tandem did not immortalize themselves in the annals of basketball history. And then, there was Kawhi Leonard… Kawhi, who had the greatest single season with the greatest single team in franchise history, who brought the franchise its first championship before leaving for sunny California, and home. A few months ago, Kawhi Leonard’s legacy in Toronto would have been a confusing mess for the next generations of fans to parse out, before ultimately deciding that he was simply the one who got away, a “what if” who was no good dwelling on.
Obviously, things are different now.
Shams Charania has indicated that Kawhi Leonard believes he has reached the final destination of his NBA career. In other words? The Klaw will retire a Toronto Raptor.
“Mercenary” was a term thrown around to describe Leonard, selling his talents to the highest bidder (and in the case of the Aspiration accusations, perhaps taking the latter sentiment a little too literally). But, by coming home to Toronto, Kawhi is not merely ring chasing with an established core, but attempting to establish an undisputed legacy of service to a singular team. Toronto is a place of family ties for Leonard: his son was born here, and he has a Scarborough basketball court dedicated to him. And, the cheers of fans proved that the people of Toronto wants Kawhi in town just as much, if not more, than he does. Leonard, who left both San Antonio and Los Angeles under messy circumstances, might get to write an ending to his story where things don’t go up in flames. And Toronto might finally have a superstar that they didn’t draft or trade for, but rather, who chose them.
The story between Kawhi Leonard and the Toronto Raptors can be best understood as a burning romance a-la The Notebook. There are moments of passion, and long periods of distance, and people hurt, and are hurt in turn. But ultimately, the storybook ending for Leonard’s career could only really happen in Toronto, where he won his most important championship. And the Raptors, while they certainly could have ascended to the heights of the National Basketball Association without him, are both advantaged by Leonard’s return, and might very well have some psychological scars from 2019 finally healed. Leonard gets a real legacy rooted in a single place, and Toronto (maybe) gets a championship, but certainly gets the gratification of knowing they were chosen by the player who seemed like he never would.
