Fred VanVleet predicts Raptors would have won 'a few more' championships if Kawhi Leonard stayed

Gilbert McGregor

Fred VanVleet predicts Raptors would have won 'a few more' championships if Kawhi Leonard stayed image

What if he stayed? It's a question that will likely stay on the minds of Raptors fans for the rest of eternity after Kawhi Leonard left Toronto as a free agent just weeks after leading the franchise to its first-ever NBA title in historic fashion.

In late November, Fred VanVleet joined in on the hypothetical fun during an appearance on Serge Ibaka's "How Hungry Are You?" series, which has already provided plenty of exciting moments through the first few episodes of Season 5.

"Three-peat for sure," VanVleet told Ibaka when asked what would have happened had Leonard stayed.

"It was just a perfect group of individuals," he added. "We all understood — everybody had the right mindset for their roles. I think, definitely, we would have won a few more."

MORE: Serge Ibaka asks Giannis Antetokounmpo if he will one day join Raptors

VanVleet might be onto something.

The Raptors' title defense looked a little different than most, but they ran the same roster back for the 2019-20 season sans Leonard and Danny Green. Despite losing their Finals MVP to free agency, Toronto finished with a 53-19 record in the pandemic-shortened season, good for the best single-season winning percentage in franchise history (.736) and the East's second seed.

At the "NBA Bubble" at Walt Disney World, the Raptors came within one win of the Eastern Conference Finals, falling in Game 7 of the East Semifinals to the third-seeded Celtics. Under normal circumstances, that Game 7 would have been played at Scotiabank Arena rather than a neutral location, which likely had a large hand in the outcome of the series.

Even without Leonard, VanVleet tells Ibaka that he "really believed that we could've won a championship that year," had the Raptors made it past the Celtics.

In retrospect, Toronto's 2019 championship roster was even better than it appeared at the time. VanVleet has since blossomed into an All-Star, Pascal Siakam is now a perennial candidate for All-NBA consideration and "depth pieces" O.G. Anunoby, Chris Boucher and Norman Powell have each made massive developmental leaps since the team's title win.

MORE: O.G. Anunoby building case to be NBA's best two-way threat

On top of the growth shown by the roster's younger core, Kyle Lowry showed he had plenty left in the tank during the team's run in 2020, as did Serge Ibaka and Marc Gasol. 

As with any hypothetical, there are plenty of variables that would have likely impacted certain players' development, but it's impossible to envision anything less than another Finals appearance with that same cast around Leonard.

We'll never know the true answer, but it will always be fun to think about.

Gilbert McGregor

Gilbert McGregor Photo

Gilbert McGregor first joined The Sporting News in 2018 as a content producer for Global editions of NBA.com. Before covering the game, McGregor played basketball collegiately at Wake Forest, graduating with a Communication degree in 2016. McGregor began covering the NBA during the 2017-18 season and has been on hand for a number of league events.