{"id":857221,"date":"2026-10-12T18:33:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T18:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/857221\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T18:33:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T18:33:15","slug":"raptors-kawhi-leonard-expected-to-make-pre-season-debut-against-knicks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/857221\/","title":{"rendered":"Raptors&#8217; Kawhi Leonard expected to make pre-season debut against Knicks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The two-time Finals MVP is expected to make his pre-season debut Tuesday against the New York Knicks (Sportsnet, Sportsnet+, 7 p.m. ET \/ 4 p.m. PT) after head coach Darko Rajakovic <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/zulfi_sheikh\/status\/2109700315260084225?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">told reporters<\/a> on Monday that Leonard will be available.<\/p>\n<p>Leonard missed the Raptors&#8217; first two exhibition contests as he ramps up to live game action after a summer in which he was limited due to the delayed trade from the Los Angeles Clippers.<\/p>\n<p>The deal \u2014\u00a0which sent Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick and multiple draft picks the other way \u2014\u00a0was finalized in September.<\/p>\n<p>Leonard was a full participant in practice on Monday, Rajakovic said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He feels great,&#8221; the coach added.<\/p>\n<p>The game against the Knicks will mark the first glimpse of Leonard pairing with Raptors star Scottie Barnes.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;ll have two more opportunities to build chemistry with his new teammates when the Raptors wrap their pre-season Thursday against the Knicks and Friday against the Detroit Pistons.<\/p>\n<p>Toronto then opens its regular season Oct. 21 against the Chicago Bulls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The two-time Finals MVP is expected to make his pre-season debut Tuesday against the New York Knicks (Sportsnet,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3789],"tags":[7,559,4034,192,4032,251,135,4033,4031,6],"class_list":["post-857221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-clippers","tag-basketball","tag-clippers","tag-la","tag-la-clippers","tag-laclippers","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-clippers","tag-losangeles","tag-losangelesclippers","tag-nba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117429377631996082","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}