Knicks Drawing Raptors in Preseason Is a Sneaky Gift to Begin Title Defense

The Eastern Conference will be better next season. The 76ers traded for Jaylen Brown and signed LeBron James. The Celtics, while they lost the aforementioned Brown, have constructed a roster that fits better and doubles down on Joe Mazzulla's possession-and three-point prioritizing system.

The Heat traded for Giannis Antetokounmpo. The Pacers will have franchise star Tyrese Haliburton back. The Cavaliers, Pistons, Hawks, and Magic should all still be good too. And we've yet to even get to the team that could be the biggest and most serious threat to the Knicks' repeat championship aspirations, the Raptors.

Assuming their trade for Kawhi Leonard eventually gets finalized, they'll have the roster that could give the Knicks the most trouble. The 76ers will have the more intriguing names on paper. On talent alone, nobody could be blamed for choosing them as the biggest roadblock.

But the Raptors with Leonard make so much more sense. The former Finals MVP will give a young and feisty, but often offensively lacking roster some much-needed star power on both ends. And the end result is a team that fits better than the 76ers offensively while having a defense that provides much more resistance than the 76ers' does.

Leonard's shot-making, especially on off-the-dribble threes, will cover a lot of the offensive holes the Raptors had last year. And his defense, combined with a roster that was already among the better defensive units last season, should make for a tough matchup on any night.

Preseason games don't often mean much. And they definitely have very little impact on how a team will look or perform come postseason time. But for a Knicks team looking to win back-to-back championships, getting an early look at one of their biggest threats could be a nice gift. The Knicks are scheduled to play the Raptors twice (October 13 in Toronto and October 15 at Madison Square Garden).

Knicks could get early look at new-look Raptors before season

Regardless of how useful or useless it ends up being, the game, even in a small sample size, could give the Knicks some very early scouting material on the Raptors.

How will the rotations look? How will they start out the game, matching up with the Knicks defensively? How will the Raptors utilize Leonard alongside Scottie Barnes and RJ Barrett offensively?

And on the Knicks' end, how can they score against a defense that features so many good-to-great defenders? How will they look to defend Leonard and the rest of the Raptors?

There are so many questions that could potentially be answered. Not all of them will yield a clear-cut answer. There's a good possibility that most of those answers remain unknown for the foreseeable future.

And in a league where even regular season data often gets thrown out the window come postseason time, preseason games might as well be a crapshoot. But it's clear that if the Leonard trade does go through, the Raptors will be one of, if not the largest, threats to the Knicks this upcoming season.

That being said, every little bit of information could be useful. Whether it's for the postseason or regular-season games, getting data on what to do and what not to do against them could have some meaningful ramifications.

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