The Raptors and Clippers finally made the Kawhi Leonard trade official. Leonard will be a Raptor once again, while Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, and several picks will make their way to the Clippers.
For the Raptors, the addition of Leonard is most intriguing offensively. If he’s healthy, he should address their biggest issues and help them take their offense to the next level. However, even though he may not be the defender he was a few years ago anymore, Leonard’s fit with the Raptors’ defense is also fascinating.
Toronto had the fifth-best defensive rating in the NBA last season. Two of their few issues were defending top offenses and fouling. According to NBA.com’s John Schuhmann, the Raptors “ranked just twelfth defensively (117.3 allowed per 100) against the league’s top 10 offenses” and finished “23rd in opponent free throw rate.” The latter number also got worse in the playoffs.
Adding Leonard should help in both areas, making the Raptors’ defense truly terrifying.
Leonard helps address the Raptors’ weak spots
The Raptors are essentially replacing Ingram with Leonard in the starting lineup. Ingram didn’t foul a ton last season, averaging just 1.9 fouls per game, but he also wasn’t a defensive playmaker. Leonard is. He averages 1.7 steals per game for his career and fouled even less than Ingram last season with just 1.2 fouls per game.
Schuhmann broke down Leonard’s fouls in relation to his steals and blocks in his article about the trade for NBA.com. “This past season, Leonard had 122 steals, 27 blocks and just 78 personal fouls, with his ratio of blocks and steals per foul being the highest (by a wide margin) among 378 players who played at least 500 minutes,” he wrote.
Leonard is an upgrade over Ingram defensively, leaving the Raptors with very few weak links on that end of the floor. That, in turn, will help them be more effective against the top offensive teams in the NBA next season.
Another top-five finish in defensive rating is very well in the cards. They may not be the biggest team when Poeltl is on the bench, but Leonard, Scottie Barnes, and Collin Murray-Boyles are very switchable and strong. So, the Raptors will be able to get away with playing small a lot—which they will have to unless at least one of Nate Bittle, Trayce Jackson-Davis, and Trey Jemison III emerges as someone who can play solid backup center minutes regularly. Plus, if you put Jamal Shead and Ja’Kobe Walter next to the trio of Leonard, Barnes, and Murray-Boyles, you have a real death lineup defensively.
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