30 biggest questions for the 2018-19 NBA season

26. Can the Raptors coax out 2016-17 Kawhi?

Who knows, man.

Kawhi Leonard’s 2017-2018 season was one of the weirdest sagas in recent NBA history, and one of the only reasons we weren’t talking about it, even more, was the fact that an even weirder saga was taking place with Markelle Fultz in Philadelphia. Kawhi was going to be an enormous question mark no matter what, but throwing him onto a new team in a new conference multiplies it tenfold.

The Raptors, at least relative to several other teams, are a very stable organization with competent management and a seemingly good culture, which lends to the idea that Kawhi will probably like it and gel quickly. The only problem is that Leonard just left the most stable organization with some of the most competent management and best culture in the league. We’re not playing by normal rules here.

On the court, Leonard and Danny Green absolutely make this a better team than last year, provided Kawhi is healthy and even 75% of what he was before last season. He’s better than DeMar DeRozan at just about everything DeRozan was good at, and he’s much better at everything DeRozan was bad at. A lineup with Kyle Lowry, Green, Leonard, OG Anunoby and Serge Ibaka or Pascal Siakam has the potential to be one of the best five-man units on both ends of the ball across the entire league. With guys like Fred Van Vleet, CJ Miles, Delon Wright and Jonas Valunciunas in the fold as well, this is a scary deep team with the potential to win the East.

Looming over all of this is that Kawhi will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season with the ability to jet out of Toronto faster than you can say Susur’s Signature Singaporean Slaw. A year from now, Leonard could be inking a new deal with the Raptors after his third trip to the NBA Finals. Alternatively, he could be settling into his third NBA team after another strange odyssey of a season. Your guess is as good as mine.