The NBA's central nervous system the past two weeks has been the Thomas & Mack Center on the campus of UNLV. The 34-year-old arena, along with the smaller, adjacent Cox Pavilion, has been the host to the NBA's Las Vegas Summer League. Those two arenas are located just a couple miles east of the Las Vegas Strip, home to excess and indulgence, and to the temptation and the hope that the next pull from the slot machine or the next hand of Texas Hold 'Em or the next spin of the roulette wheel will turn into a big winner.
So perhaps it's no coincidence that just hours after the summer league games wrapped up Tuesday night, the Toronto Raptors went all-in on the upcoming season. Raptors president Masai Ujiri dealt All-Star and franchise cornerstone DeMar DeRozan for a top-five NBA player in Kawhi Leonard -- a 27-year-old two-way superstar, yes, but also one who is coming off an injury that limited him to nine games last season, who only has one year left on his contract before entering unrestricted free agency and who has expressed a desire to play basketball in only one city: Los Angeles.
In making the trade for the disgruntled San Antonio Spurs star, Ujiri took all his chips and pushed them to the middle of the table.
There is a scenario -- two, in fact -- where Ujiri wins in a very big way.
Scenario No. 1 is that swapping Leonard for DeRozan gives the Raptors the piece they've been missing in an era where they've had really good teams but never a truly great team -- five straight playoff appearances, but the last three snuffed by LeBron James' Cleveland Cavaliers. In this scenario, the Raptors find that elite piece that's been missing, and Leonard carries the Raptors to the franchise's first Finals appearance. Who knows, maybe lightning strikes and the Raptors can win a title. (More likely: Maybe lightning strikes and they steal a game from the Warriors.)
This scenario certainly seems possible, and is the one Ujiri is betting on. LeBron, the Raptors' long-time menace, has moved to the Western Conference. There are two rising powers in the East who ought to be improve from last season -- the Boston Celtics, who'll presumably have a healthy Gordon Hayward and a healthy Kyrie Irving, and the Philadelphia 76ers, whose talented young core of Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons ought to continue to progress, and who may even get something positive from Markelle Fultz. But assuming Leonard is healthy, the Raptors immediately become a better team in replacing an All-Star with a superstar after a franchise-record 59 wins. The East is up for grabs, and the Raptors are in as good of a position as anybody to snatch it.
(Side note: "Assuming Leonard is healthy" is a pretty important phrase here, and one that ups Ujiri's bet even more. Again, Leonard only played nine games last season; will he return as the same MVP-caliber player? Or will he be more a top-20, top-30 player -- like DeRozan? Then there's the idea that Leonard, who is reportedly not excited about playing in Toronto, will use his own doctors to avoid giving him a clean bill of health and sit out next season altogether. Drama!)
Scenario No. 2 is Ujiri's long-shot bet: That the Raptors and the city of Toronto can sway Leonard to stay there and sign a five-year, $190 million contract next summer. This seems close to impossible if Leonard lives up to his own words. He has said he wants to play in Los Angeles, specifically for the Lakers; Toronto is about as far from Los Angeles as you can get. And money doesn't seem to be the primary motivator for Leonard here. If it were, he would have signed the five-year, $221 million supermax extension that only the Spurs were able to give him. So Ujiri's financial leverage over the Lakers -- who can only offer Leonard a four-year, $141 million deal -- may not matter in the least.
But hey -- Paul George said he wanted to go to Los Angeles, too. And he's staying in Oklahoma City. George's decision was always more an anomaly than some sort of trend. It seems even more unlikely that Leonard would stay in Toronto than George in Oklahoma City. But, the Raptors now have a chance, and a full year to pitch themselves.
And for that year at least, this team has a chance to be great.
Last season, Toronto ranked third in offensive efficiency and seventh in defensive efficiency. (Only one other team, the Houston Rockets, ranked in the top seven in both.) The Raptors' defense, anchored by a young and emerging OG Anunoby and a past-his-prime Serge Ibaka, now has a shot at becoming one of the NBA's top defenses with Leonard on board. Kyle Lowry is a really, really good point guard, and excellent backcourt depth with Fred VanVleet and Delon Wright meant that last regular season Lowry played fewer minutes and was more fresh for the playoffs. Toronto still has one of the best benches in the game. The rest of the trade -- the Raptors shipping off Jakob Poeltl and a protected 2019 first-round pick, the Spurs waving goodbye to Danny Green -- is mostly filler, though Green's 3-point shooting should help a team that shifted its philosophy last season to taking more 3-pointers but still finished only 15th in the NBA in 3-point percentage.
For the 2018-19 season, the East is a three-way race: The Celtics, 76ers and Raptors. (Sorry, Bucks and Pacers, but you're on that next tier.)
And the Raptors might end up being the favorite.
That's what Ujiri was gambling on as summer league wrapped up in Vegas: One season where he can reward one of the NBA's best, most loyal fan bases with its first trip to the Finals. He's all in. This franchise's championship window is one year. If Leonard bolts in the offseason, the Raptors will head toward a rebuild.
As the NBA's Las Vegas Summer League was going on the past couple weeks, another huge sporting event was taking place a few miles away on the Las Vegas Strip. Nearly 8,000 poker players put up a $10,000 buy-in to compete in the no-limit Hold 'Em main event at the World Series of Poker. A 33-year-old Indiana man named John Cynn made the biggest bets of his life and came away the big winner, taking home $8.8 million.
On Wednesday, Ujiri made the biggest bet of his life. To win this bet, one of two things need to happen: The Raptors need to win the NBA title this season -- or, at the very least, make the Finals. Or Ujiri needs to convince Leonard, the Los Angeles native, to go all-in on Toronto.
Good luck. Ujiri is going to need it.
