The Heat made the kind of splash that grabs headlines all summer, but the Raptors may have done something more meaningful to the Eastern Conference race.
Miami landed two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo in a blockbuster deal, sending Tyler Herro, Kel’el Ware, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kasparas Jakucionis, three first-round picks, a pick swap in 2030, and a 2033 second-round pick to the Bucks. It’s a massive swing, and if Antetokounmpo stays healthy, it should lift the Heat. But as ESPN’s Brian Windhorst pointed out on NBA Today, that move still comes with a long runway.
“I know that the Giannis Antetokounmpo move was a power move by the Heat, and I think that they’re going to have time over the next couple of years to really build around that,” Windhorst said about the Raptors’ trade. “But when you talk about something that’s actually changed the balance of power in the Eastern Conference, it’s this move.”
That “move” was Toronto’s trade for Kawhi Leonard, and Windhorst’s point is hard to miss: this one changes things now. If Leonard stays healthy, the Raptors suddenly have a clean path toward the top of the East.
What makes Toronto dangerous is that it didn’t gut the roster to get him. The Raptors sent out Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, unprotected first-round picks in 2031 and 2033, second-round picks in 2030 and 2033, and a 2027 pick swap. That’s a serious price, but not the kind that leaves the team stripped bare.
Ingram mattered to Toronto’s regular-season success, but Leonard is the better player and brings far more in the postseason. Dick, meanwhile, had already fallen out of the rotation this season, so his inclusion wasn’t much of a blow. Toronto would have likely tried to move him anyway to clear the money needed for a meaningful free-agent addition.
The bigger point is what remains. With RJ Barrett, Scottie Barnes, Collin Murray-Boyles, Ja’Kobe Walter, and Jamal Shead still in place, the Raptors have kept their five most productive playoff contributors after Ingram went down, along with Immanuel Quickley.
That’s where Leonard can change the whole shape of the team. He can be the primary scorer - he averaged almost 28 points per game last season - while also fitting into a defense that already has real bite. It would also let Barnes shift more fully into the role he can thrive in: defensive disruptor and playmaker, rather than having to carry the kind of scoring burden he flashed in the playoffs over a full season.
And with the East still sorting itself out, Toronto’s timing matters. The Pistons may lose Jalen Duren this offseason, and Jaylen Brown’s future in Boston remains uncertain. Put all that together, and the Raptors look positioned to jump from fifth place into the top three with a legitimate shot at winning the conference.
In Other News...
Raptors May Have Quietly Turned Brandon Ingram Into A Front Office Masterclass
Torontos front office has spent the last year showing how quickly a big swing can turn into a bigger one. After bringing in Brandon Ingram at the 2025 trade deadline and committing to him with a three-year, $120 million extension, the Raptors looked as if they had found a long-term scoring answer to stabilize the roster and keep the post-Pascal Siakam era moving. Instead, Ingrams time in Toronto lasted just one season before he was moved again, and the latest twist has made the original deal feel less like a standalone move and more like one step in a much larger plan.
The sequence running from Siakam to Bruce Brown Jr. to Ingram and then to Kawhi Leonard is the part that makes this all stand out. Torontos path to getting Leonard back required patience, asset management and a willingness to keep reshuffling the deck even after making a major investment in Ingram, who had become a focal point of the roster. In hindsight, the Raptors may have used that short chapter with Ingram to position themselves for the reunion they wanted all along. [Read more 🡒]
Raptors Just Found A Painful Silver Lining In Their Draft Miss
Gradey Dick arrived in Toronto with the kind of shot-making upside that can make a draft night look smart in a hurry, and for a while there was reason to believe the Raptors had landed a useful part of their next core. But the longer view has been less flattering. His development stalled badly enough in the 2025-26 season that his role shrank, turning what once felt like a promising pick into a case study in how quickly a young players path can wobble.
Torontos bigger frustration is not just what happened with Dick, but what it missed while betting on him. Keyonte George, another 2023 draftee, has taken a far more meaningful leap and become a centerpiece type of player for Utah, which is the sort of comparison that lingers around a front office. Even after Dick moved on in the Kawhi Leonard deal, the Raptors are left weighing whether the real pain of the miss is the lost production, or the fact that a player they passed on is now the one looking like a long-term answer. [Read more 🡒]
Raptors Just Got A Worrying New Twist In Mamukelashvili Free Agency
Sandro Mamukelashvilis time on the Toronto Raptors books took another turn this week when he declined his $2.8 million player option, setting up an early path to 2026 NBA free agency. The move had the feel of a player testing a bigger market, and it comes after Mamukelashvili spent part of last season with Toronto following his earlier run in San Antonio.
The wrinkle for the Raptors is that interest around him does not appear to be limited to one lane, with the Los Angeles Lakers among the teams mentioned as potential suitors. For Toronto, that creates a familiar kind of offseason tension: a recent addition with room to grow, a decision point on the horizon and a market that could make keeping him far more complicated than it looked just a few weeks ago. [Read more 🡒]