NBA champion Tristan Thompson heaped praise on the Toronto Raptors and also made an interesting comparison between their current roster and the team that won the championship for them in 2019.
The team from the North made the playoffs last season and took the Cleveland Cavaliers to seven games before losing, which showed that they had a lot of potential. To help them get back into contention, the front office decided to add a familiar face in Kawhi Leonard. His trade was extremely complicated, but the NBA finally approved it last month.
The addition of Leonard definitely makes the Raptors a team to watch out for in the Eastern Conference. While they have a lot of young players, former Cavaliers centre Tristan Thompson has drawn a comparison between their current team to the 2019 roster that helped the city of Toronto win its first NBA championship.
Thompson was on the Cavaliers team when Leonard's Raptors were making noise in the Eastern Conference.
The two-time Finals MVP played only 60 games as the Raptors wanted the best of him in the playoffs. This move paid off well, as Leonard put up some big performances in their run to the championship.
However, it was not all about Leonard, and they had some solid players like Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, Marc Gasol, Danny Green and Fred VanVleet, who were all contributing to the team.
"They have size, can guard one through five, they can guard all positions like this is exactly how their team was when they won a championship… they have a lot of the pieces to compete with the other teams in the East in terms of size," Thompson said on NBA TV's show The Association.
Aside from Kawhi, the Raptors have players like Scottie Barnes, RJ Barrett and Collin Murray-Boyles, who can all operate at a high level on both sides of the floor.
This gives Leonard the license to play a lot more freely and play his game, which is something the 2019 Raptors team were able to do. Obviously, the current roster does not have guards like Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet, but Immanuel Quickley and Jamal Shead bring something different to the team. However, if the experiment with their guards fails, the Raptors are also in a strong position to execute a trade, which they will not hesitate to do if that is what will help them increase their chances of winning a championship.
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