Toronto closes the preseason Thursday at Detroit two days after a 120-122 loss at New York, where Scottie Barnes scored 23 points in a game New York closed out in the final 27 seconds on two free throws and a backcourt turnover working in its favor. The finale caps a preseason built around a question this franchise has never had to answer before: what happens when the star who left once comes back and chooses to stay.
A History of Exits
Vince Carter was traded to New Jersey in 2004. Chris Bosh left for Miami in free agency in July 2010. Kawhi Leonard left in free agency the summer after he delivered the 2019 championship in his only season here. Pascal Siakam was traded to Indiana in 2024. Every era since the 1995 expansion has ended with the best player walking away, and each time the roster has been handed to whoever was left — now Scottie Barnes, the fourth pick in 2021.
The One Who Came Back
Leonard's first stint began with a 2018 trade of DeMar DeRozan, built by general manager Masai Ujiri, and ended with the title and his exit in the same year. This year ran differently. Leonard agreed to join the Clippers in June, a move the league investigated before fining him $700,000 on September 2. The trade sending him back to Toronto closed September 14, and he signed an extension soon after — the first time in this history that a star who left has come back and put his name on a new deal. Rajakovic has built this version of the team around that return: a defense-first group with Barnes and Leonard as its two-way anchors, not one shot-creator carrying everything.
Who Stays Next
Two more names sit under that same question. RJ Barrett's extension talks were called not serious in a late-September hoopsrumors report, and his name resurfaced without new detail in an October 9 Atlantic Notes piece. Jakob Poeltl's situation has been tied to Leonard's and Jamal Shead's own extensions since an October 1 notes piece, with nothing specific since. Detroit is only the preseason finale before the October 21 opener against the Bulls, but what happens with Barrett and Poeltl will decide whether Leonard's return changes the pattern or just adds one exception to it.
Why did Kawhi Leonard leave the Raptors after the 2019 title?
He left in free agency the same summer Toronto won the championship, closing out his only season with the team until his return and new contract extension this year.
Is Jakob Poeltl getting a new contract with the Raptors?
It's unresolved. An October 1 notes piece tied his situation to extensions for Kawhi Leonard and Jamal Shead, and nothing specific has followed since.
