2026-27 Season Preview: Toronto Raptors

Scottie Barnes, RJ Barrett and the Raptors welcome Kawhi Leonard to the roster this season.

Offseason Recap

•

Last Season

: 46-36 (5th in East, lost in First Round)

• Key Additions

: Kyle Anderson, Jaden Bradley, Allen Graves, Kawhi Leonard

Every Raptors move this offseason

Season Outlook

Seven years after he led the Raptors to their only NBA championship,

Kawhi Leonard is back

. And he’s here, once again, to make a good team great.

The Raptors took a huge step forward last season. On offense, only the Charlotte Hornets saw a bigger jump (from the season prior) in points scored per 100 possessions. And on defense, Toronto climbed into the top five. Scottie Barnes became one of the best two-way players in the league and RJ Barrett followed up his most efficient regular season with a terrific playoff series.

The fifth-seeded Raptors gave the Cleveland Cavaliers a challenge in the first round, but they’re still one of five Eastern Conference teams that haven’t won a playoff series since 2020. And so, Leonard is back to (again) take them to the next level. Of course, over those six years since the Raptors last made it past the first round, he was available for only 22 of a possible 37 playoff games with the LA Clippers.

But no franchise managed his health better than this one. And this roster can certainly win regular-season games without him as they try to keep him fresh for April and May.

Breakout Candidate: Collin Murray-Boyles

Murray-Boyles broke out in the playoffs, when he was

one of only three rookies

– VJ Edgecombe and Dylan Harper were the others – to average more than 20 minutes per game. His 27.3 minutes per game in the Raptors’ first-round loss to Cleveland were up from 21.9 in the regular season and more than starting center Jakob Poeltl averaged (19.2).

The rookie shot 66%, while also averaging 1.3 steals and 1.1 blocks in those 27.3 minutes. And he was on the floor down the stretch of the three games that were within five points in the last five.

Now we see what the 21-year-old can do with that experience and with a summer of work. He didn’t make any 3-pointers in the playoffs, but Murray-Boyles shot 17-for-50 (34%) from beyond the arc in the regular season. So there’s a chance he can be a decent floor spacer alongside Leonard and Barnes, and that trio would be remarkably stout and switchable on defense.

1 Number To Know

6.4

— The Raptors outscored their opponents by 6.4 fast-break points per game, the biggest differential for any team in the last seven seasons. They led the league with

18.9 fast break points per game

and ranked second with just

12.5 allowed per game

.

The Raptors got 16.5% of their points, the league’s highest rate, from fast breaks. But only the Pacers shot less effectively in the last six seconds of the shot clock last season. That’s where Leonard, one of the league’s best late-clock scorers, comes in. His effective field goal percentage of 53.0% in the last six seconds of the shot clock over the last three years ranks ninth among 131 players with at least 250 late-clock field goal attempts over that stretch.

If the Raptors can continue to dominate in transition (on both ends of the floor), while improving their late-clock offense, they’ll compete with the best teams in the Eastern Conference.

5 Must-See Matchups

Nov. 2: Raptors vs. Clippers

— The Raptors are the first Eastern Conference team to make a trip out West, so Leonard makes his return to the Intuit Dome in the seventh game of the season.

Nov. 15: Knicks vs. Raptors

— The Raptors have lost 13 straight games to the Knicks, with their five losses last season coming by an average of 19.6 points. The first two meetings this season are a two-game set in Toronto.

Dec. 16: Spurs vs. Raptors

— Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs are the biggest show in the league, and they’ve won their last five meetings with the Raptors. They’ll make their lone visit to Toronto on a Wednesday in December.

Jan. 5: Raptors vs. Cavaliers

— All four meetings between the Raptors and the team that eliminated them will take place in a span of six weeks, starting with a Jan. 5 meeting in Cleveland. The much bigger difference between wins and losses in their first-round series was on the Cavs’ end of the floor.

Jan 10: 76ers vs. Raptors

— The last time Leonard was in Toronto, this matchup produced an epic, seven-game series. This will be the second of four meetings, with the first (a rest-disadvantage game for the Raptors) coming in Philadelphia on Nov. 12.

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Complete Regular Season Schedule

Preseason Storylines

This is a totally different team than the one Leonard won a championship with seven years ago. So Barnes, Barrett and Immanuel Quickley will need to figure out how to best complement the Raptors’ returning star. Are they running a lot of actions through Leonard? Is he setting screens for Barnes?

With Quickley having missed 16 of the Raptors’ last 19 games (including the entire first-round series vs. Cleveland) last season, his health and mobility will be worth keeping an eye on. And we’ll see how much Murray-Boyles plays alongside Barnes and Leonard, and if that trio (three guys no taller than 6-foot-8) can hold its own on the glass.

Complete Preseason Schedule

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John Schuhmann has covered the NBA for more than 20 years. You can e-mail him

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