"Three-peat for sure": VanVleet wonders what if Kawhi stayed with Raptors

The 2019 Toronto Raptors will forever be remembered as one of the most remarkable pro sports teams in Canadian history.

Winning the country’s first-ever NBA title — and the first in a Big Four sport since the Toronto Blue Jays won the World Series in 1993 — that Raptors team had a special aura around them that few who watched will ever forget.

But for as much as they’re remembered for the great playoff success, an iconic buzzer-beater against the Philadelphia 76ers, and topping the Golden State Warriors in the final game ever at Oracle Arena, the team is also the centre of one of the great sports hypotheticals of all time: What if Kawhi Leonard stayed in Toronto?

Leonard, of course, departed for the Los Angeles Clippers organization that summer just weeks after winning the title on a three-year, $109 million contract.

Current Raptors point guard Fred VanVleet broached the topic with former teammate Serge Ibaka on a recent episode of the latter’s How Hungry are You? cooking show, with Ibaka asking him point-blank what the Raptors would’ve looked like should Leonard have re-signed.

“If Kawhi stayed, do we go back to back?” Ibaka said.

VanVleet one-upped him though, saying the Raptors could’ve won three NBA championships in a row.

“Three-peat. For sure,” VanVleet said. “It was just a perfect group of individuals, and we all understood everybody had the right mindset for their roles, I think definitely we would’ve won a few more.”

Fred Vanvleet says the Raptors would’ve 3-peated if Kawhi stayed: pic.twitter.com/MAXQ9CzXgx

— ‏ً (@enra6ed) November 28, 2022

Coming off the bench in all six games, VanVleet averaged 14.0 points, 2.7 rebounds, and 2.2 assists in the 2019 NBA Finals.

Meanwhile, Leonard averaged 28.5 points, 9.8 rebounds, and 4.2 assists in six games in the Finals, winning both his second title and second Finals MVP after doing so in 2014 with the San Antonio Spurs.

Ibaka followed it up by asking about which season was tougher: 2019-20, when the Raptors fell in seven games to the Boston Celtics in the second round of the playoffs, or 2020-21, when the Raptors missed the playoffs entirely while playing their home schedule out of Tampa, Florida.

VanVleet settled for the 2020 playoffs loss, taking place in the “bubble” in Orlando, Florida, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I really believed that we could’ve won a championship that year, we really should’ve won a championship that year and we should’ve all felt that and believed that,” VanVleet added.

While the current Raptors team is easily among the league’s most likeable rosters, it’s hard not to wonder what could’ve been had Leonard stuck around.

The full episode of VanVleet on How Hungry Are You? can be viewed below:

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