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After a Canadian tour that included stops in Quebec City and Vancouver, the Toronto Raptors finally make their return to Scotiabank Arena to take on the New York Knicks on Tuesday.

Tip-off is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. EST on Sportsnet.

Here are three storylines to consider ahead of the contest:

He’s back

As announced by Raptors Head Coach Darko Rajakovic during practice on Monday, Kawhi Leonard will be available against the defending champions. This potentially marks the first time Leonard has played in a Raptors uniform in Toronto since the team’s Game 5 loss to the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals.

While there won’t be a Nick Nurse in sight to call a momentum-halting timeout, expect Rajakovic to restrict Leonard to first-half minutes. Despite this, Leonard is seemingly on track for the regular-season.

“He went through practice (Monday),” said Rajakovic. “He’s feeling great.”

Last pre-season, Leonard played in three of four games for the Los Angeles Clippers, averaging roughly 21 minutes. After making his return from an ACL injury, Leonard appeared in two of four exhibition games in 2022-23. He averaged just over 16 minutes a contest.

Conditioning is key

When the Raptors wrapped up their 2025-26 season, Rajakovic noted that the team’s conditioning needed to improve. It came up again during Media Day on Sept. 28.

While the entire roster has seemingly worked on their endurance, one player who took that suggestion to heart was Jamal Shead, especially after his playoff experience. After averaging just over 21 minutes of action in his first two seasons in the league, Shead’s playing time ballooned to 32 minutes a game in the seven-game series against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Since then, Shead has focused on preparing his body for the demanding environment of playoff basketball.

“I think that I’m way ahead of where I was in my first two years,” said Shead during practice on Oct. 12. “I think I still can do a little bit more work…but I’m in a good spot.”

Toronto begins a stretch of three games in four nights to conclude the pre-season. To open the regular-season, the Raptors play three games in five nights. That’ll certainly be an early test of the team’s conditioning and depth.

“I’d rather have it now than we run into it for the first time after seven or eight games and all of our legs are not used to it,” said Shead. “We’ll get to see how in shape we are, where our bodies are.”

Shead’s increased playing time during the playoffs was primarily due to Immanuel Quickley’s injury. With several players currently dealing with early ailments – and Leonard primed for load management – it’s in everyone’s best interest to be ready to do more.

“Our team’s in a good spot, you don’t see us with just hands on knees everywhere,” said Shead. “Of course we’re going to get tired, we play really hard, but I think for the most part, we’re pretty good.”

The ‘King of New York’

The Knicks are expected to rest their starters on the second night of a back-to-back. They arrive in Toronto after defeating the Minnesota Timberwolves 122-104 on Oct. 12. Jalen Brunson was electric, recording 20 points, five rebounds, three assists and three steals in only 21 minutes of play.

After the Raptors play the Knicks again on Oct. 15 for their penultimate exhibition game, the teams play a mini-two-game series on Nov. 15 and 17. Both games will be played in Toronto.

Alphonso de Lamartine (who surely we all know and revere) wrote in his 1854 documentation of the French Revolution, “History teaches all things, even the future”. While the great Frenchman was writing of something with greater consequence than the Jazz’s projection for the 2027 season, the principle stands – if we would like a forecast for this upcoming season, we need only to understand the success of some of the team’s historical parallels.

Now, this is not a perfect science. For starters, the NBA is rapidly evolving; a team in 2026 cannot craft wins from the same formula that a team in 1986 could. Additionally, the game is complex enough that you will never find a 1-to-1 comparison for a player by scouring the history books. This is to say that the task is more strenuous than finding the team with the 1980s version of Lauri Markkanen and Keyonte George.

So, instead of drawing specifics from NBA history, we are going to look for general principles that link teams together. For example, the primary lesson that we learn from the French Revolution is not that we need to bolster the fortifications of the Bastille, but that when the government upholds unfair economic structures, people may seek radical change. The concept is timeless, even if the particulars of the playing field shift with time. So, while the Utah Jazz will undoubtedly shoot more three pointers than any of the team historical comparisons I discuss today, that difference in playstyle does not negate the concepts of basketball that connect the eras. Teams have needed and will continue to need playmakers, shooters, defenders. Teams that win the possession battle have been and will continue to be successful. Teams with a dynamic, creative coach have and will continue to exceed expectations. There is no historical team with Darryn Peterson and Ace Bailey, but that fact does not impede our ability to learn from history.

In this article, I will attempt to find three teams from NBA history similar in construction to the 2026-2027 Utah Jazz. One of these teams will be the worst-case scenario; where has a team gone wrong with a make-up similar to Utah? Another will a more likely, closer to 50th percentile outcome; if we simulate Utah’s season 100 times, what type of success will we most often encounter? Finally, a best-case scenario; if everything clicks, just how good can this team be? As I look for comparisons, I will not be taking age or career trajectory into account. For example, none of these teams need to have a player with as much potential as Darryn Peterson, but we are trying to find a team with a player that plays like current Darryn Peterson. Finally, before we jump into things, let me reiterate one more time – none of the team or player comparisons I make are 1-to-1, so do not come for my throat if the historical player that I say plays the Lauri Markkanen role is, in your opinion, better or worse than Lauri Markkanen. We’re just trying to have a good time.

Worst case outcome: 2006-2007 Milwaukee Bucks

Record: 28-54

Key Players: Michael Redd, Mo Williams, Andrew Bogut

Offensive Rating: 107.0 (12 out of 30)

Defensive Rating: 111.7 (29 out of 30)

Season Outcome: Lottery

This was the most encouraging aspect of my historical studies – it was very, very difficult to find a team with the Jazz’s level of talent that truly failed. The Bucks are the team that with the least clean comparison to the Jazz. That isn’t to say that I’m totally off-base here. This is a team who found offensive success with fairly limited playmaking and the lack of a tier 1 star. Additionally, this is a team that simply could not hang defensively, even with the presence of a genuine defensive anchor (Andrew Bogut was young, but already quite impactful on that end). Michael Redd fills the Lauri Markkanen role as a sturdy wing who devastates teams with off-ball scoring. Mo Williams functions as the Keyonte George: a smaller guard who is additive to a good offense but who can’t keep one afloat on his own. Charlie Bell, the teams starting shooting guard, was a solid off-ball shooter with some playmaking juice (about what I’m expecting from DP in year one). The Bucks had solid offensive pieces, but it wasn’t enough to build a genuinely competitive team.

The holes in this comparison are admittedly obvious. For one, the comparison between Andrew Bogut and Jaren Jackson Jr. is a major stretch. Even if Bogut was already effective as a defender in his rookie year, and thus filled the archetype of a real anchor on a bad defense, the offensive gap is so substantial – who knows how good the 2007 Bucks would’ve been if Andrew Bogut was stretching the floor and giving them a fairly efficient 20 points per game? On top of that, the Bucks bench was not nearly as impressive as what I project the Jazz’s to be. A current dilemma the Jazz seem to be facing is having too many competent bench wings (Sensabaugh, Green, Okogie, Svi, Ace, Hinson). I think the majority of those guys would be getting a guaranteed 20 minutes off of the bench for Milwaukee. That is especially true when taking the Bucks’ injuries into account – Michael Redd missed 29 games, Mo missed 14, Bogut missed 16, and backup power forward Charlie Villanueva missed 43. This, again, is encouraging. A team that I view as less talented than the Jazz still needed to suffer significant injury to end the season with only 28 wins – the season before, when Redd played 80 games, the Bucks found a way to sneak into the playoffs. The fact that it is difficult to find an unsuccessful team that was both (a) healthy and (b) as talented as the Jazz is history’s way of teaching us that teams like the Jazz tend to win games. If everything goes wrong (Lauri injured, Keyonte taking a step-back, only minor improvements from Ace), sure, maybe the Jazz fare like the 2007 bucks, but the former’s advantages of the latter makes that seem unlikely.

Summary: A loose comparison built off the precedent an off-ball scoring wing, effective point guard, and defensive anchor failing to lead to wins. Jazz are much stronger on the margins, and the Bucks have no answer for Jaren Jackson Jr.

Median outcome: 1997-1998 Minnesota Timberwolves

Record: 45-37

Key Players: Kevin Garnett, Stephon Marbury, Tom Gugliotta

Offensive Rating: 107.8 (7 out of 29)

Defensive Rating: 107.1 (23 out of 29)

Season outcome: Lost to the Supersonics in the first round, 2-3

The parallel here is much stronger. This Timberwolves team built a strong offense off of ball movement – they ranked 3rd in the league in total assists in 1998, and averaged the 2nd most points per game without any one scorer reaching 21 PPG. Similarly to what many of us are predicting with the Jazz, this offensive cohesion did not translate to defensive success, even with the presence of an anchor like Kevin Garnett (who was young, but still an all-star).

There are cleaner player comparisons among these two teams, as well. A young Garnett is a solid 90’s equivalent of Jaren Jackson Jr. (with some additional rebounding juice) and Tom Gugliotta, with his floor-spacing (to the deep mid-range, but still) and off-ball movement, being reminiscent of Lauri Markkanen. Backcourt ballhandling duties for the Timberwolves were very much reserved to their two point guards – Stephon Marbury and Terry Porter – which is similar to the offensive load we can expect Keyonte George and Isaiah Collier to carry when they are on the court. Anthony Peeler provides some of the passing and shooting and Darryn Peterson, Sam Mitchell brings the defensive intensity of either Okogie or Green, and like the Jazz, the T-wolves employed a few very large players whose primary goal was to be imposing and pull down rebounds. Eras shift the roles a bit, but the general ideas of players permeate across both squads. There are some key differences between the team (Nurkic is more skilled a center than any of the Minnesota bigs, and Garnett+Gugliotta are much better passers than their Jazz equivalents), but their core principle of “shot creating guard dishing to two forwards who are most effective at the receiving end of plays” is very comparable.

The result of the Timberwolves season is very telling. First, I believe it emphasizes the importance of Lauri Markkanen. Tom Gugliotta went down with injury near the halfway point of the year, and the added offensive pressure put upon the rest of the players really hurt their proficiency. I watched some of their first round series against the Supersonics, and I could tell that without their stabilizing offensive force, newly overtasked players began to flounder. It is not some novel observation that a team losing their leading scorer will struggle, but I did find it interesting that the same held true in a context similar to Utah’s; losing a scorer, even if they are primarily off-ball and your attack is balanced, can be very difficult to overcome. Still, this team fought until the very end, and put up a strong fight against the heavily favored Supersonics. If they had another ballhandler, the story might’ve gone differently. However, with Marbury forced to fend for himself against the incessant pressure of Gary Payton, he put up horrendous efficiency, and Seattle was able to advance.

Summary: Gugliotta, Marbury, and a young Garnett make up a similar big three to Utah’s Markk, George, and JJJ. While injuries were likely the deciding factor in their season, their lack of ballhandling should be a sign that the Jazz may need to pick up another initiator before they face the pesky hands of OKC or San Antonio.

Best case outcome: 2003-2004 Sacramento Kings

Record: 55-27

Key Players: Peja Stojakovic, Mike Bibby, Brad Miller, Vlade Divac, Doug Christie

Offensive Rating: 110.2 (2 out of 29)

Defensive Rating: 104.9 (21 out of 29)

Season outcome: Lost to the Timberwolves in the second round, 3-4

A man can dream, right?

This is about as good a team that didn’t play defense that there is in NBA history. 2004 Peja Stojakovic is likely the greatest individual season of any Lauri Markkanen comparison. Mike Bibby shows the benefits that can come as Keyonte’s dynamic offense ages and matures. Doug Christie’s union of 3, D, and playmaking could very well be replicated by a rookie Darryn Peterson. Vlade Divac, as a clever ground-bound anchor, likely sees shades of himself if he ever catches any Jusuf Nurkic minutes on TV. Brad Miller was stretching the floor, playing both big positions, and playing positive defense years before JJJ modernized that archetype for Memphis. And even though Bobby Jackson leans more into scoring than playmaking, he and Isaiah Collier effectively fill the same bench change-of-pace role. Fittingly, this Sacramento team that many said was ahead of its time finds its parallel in a 2027 squad.

For some, the success of this team is a mystery. With Chris Webber hurt most of the year (and when he returned, he was really a shell of himself), a traditional #1 scoring option could not be found. Peja led the team in points, but he isn’t a player that you can toss the ball to and ask to create consistent offense. Bibby, Christie, and Miller were all strong players, but were considered to be best when impacted by the gravity of a bigger star. Above all else, the Kings are an example of a team being greater than the sum of its parts, and that formula is what optimistic Jazz fans are betting on this year if the team is to exceed expectations. With a legendary coach and a near-unstoppable high-low, dribble handoff offense (we’ll miss you Jusuf Nurkic), the Kings were able to get the absolute most out of each of their offensive weapons. Go back and watch some of their highlights – some of their sets for Peja are eerily similar to what the Jazz run for Lauri Markkanen. If the Jazz are to make a substantial jump, it will be through the hivemind-esque cohesion exemplified by the Sacramento Kings (before Chris Webber came back from injury, at least).

Because of Webber, it is difficult to analyze the result of the Kings 2004 season. While Webber was out, the Kings had a scorching 42-15 record, or a 60 win pace. When Webber returned, they finished the regular season 13-12. It feels counterintuitive to assume that the Kings would’ve performed better in the playoffs without Webber, but it also seems obvious when you look at the actual results. Something had clicked during the 2003-2004 regular season, and by adding Webber into the lineup was the equivalent of throwing a grenade into the middle of it all. Had things stayed the way they were during those first 57 games, I would not have been surprised at all if the Kings found themselves in the finals playing the Pistons in 2004. Instead, they lost to the Timberwolves, partially because a dilapidated Chris Webber allowed Kevin Garnett to have the best series of his life. Nevertheless, the 2004 Kings provide a proof of concept – this is what the Jazz are gunning for until Darryn Peterson becomes the undebatable superstar that many of us believe he can be.

Summary: The Kings are the precedent. With a roster construction similar to Jazz, they meshed together to the tune of a 60 win pace without Chris Webber, all without a superstar or a strong defense. If it works, it’ll look like this.

Which historical team do you see in the 2026-2027 Utah Jazz? How do you feel about my comparisons? Let me know below!

“Quack, Quack, Quack, Quack.”

The puck stops here! Or it needs to if the Phoenix Suns want to have a shot at winning a playoff series this season. The here that I’m talking about is the glass.

After an unexpected first-round playoff appearance, the Suns are back, hoping to improve upon last season, one that established a culture and new direction for the organization after the short-lived Kevin Durant era. It was a season that greatly exceeded national and local expectations, yet fizzled when the competition ratcheted up in the postseason. 

In that final stretch run, the Suns’ stalwart seven-footer and leading rebounder Mark Williams finally succumbed to the injury bug, as has far too often been his fate over the course of his career, leaving a second year Oso Ighodaro, a sprinkling of Khaman Malauch and a whole lot of small ball to replace his vacated minutes. 

During this Mark-less stretch, the Suns struggled to compete on the glass. Larger teams had their way with the Suns, including a disappointing Houston team that swept the Suns in the regular season series. Houston will be back, and bigger, with the return of Steven Adams, and they won’t be the only team in the West with a clear size advantage over the Suns. From Wemby to Kessler Walker, from Gobert to the double big lineup in OKC, the Suns are going to need to figure out how to close out defensive possessions with a rebound if they want to be the team they envision.

The Suns expect to be a team that gets out in transition, a team that relies on downhill rim pressure and foul shots (uh-oh) rather than the great equalizer that is the three-ball. They can no longer afford to get worked on the glass and expect to win, especially in the playoffs where giving up an offensive rebound in the closing possessions is enough to end games. The problem of size has limited the Phoenix Suns’ championship potential for years, long before the arrival of Ishbia, Gregory and Ott.

One of the all-time great fictional teams, the Mighty Ducks, found themselves in a similar situation as this year’s Phoenix Suns. Returning off a Cinderella season with new, more challenging goals, the Ducks were quickly derailed by the size and physicality of the brutal Icelandic Junior National team. In the end, they overcame their limitations. Not through the individual efforts of any one player but through the collective efforts of a team and their coach. 

The Phoenix Suns must take a similar approach to solving their rebounding woes, or watch the goals we set for them this offseason sink into the cold Icelandic sea.

Just like Gordan Bombay, the mastermind behind the Triple Deke and Flying “V” formation in D2, Jordan Ott returns to the Phoenix Suns for his second go-around as an NBA head coach with a number of puzzles that still need to be solved. 

How do they optimize the scoring talents of Devin Booker and Jalen Green with a roster that requires at least one of them to facilitate? How does Ott incorporate the new talent that’s been added to the roster into an established culture while allowing the team space to morph into something new? How does he adjust the offense to account for likely inconsistent three-point production from his starting five? All of these are important questions, but to me the issue that really limits the potential of what the Suns can be, a top-ten defense that causes havoc plays to generate transition opportunities, is finding a way to be a better defensive rebounding team. Mark Williams is once again out of the lineup, so Jordan Ott will have to get creative in order to cover up the defensive rebounding deficiencies of his young, promising centers, neither of which appears ready to replace Mark Williams’ rebounding production.

Ott will need to prioritize defensive rebounding as he tinkers with lineups in order to find the most effective rotations, specifically in who he pairs with Oso and Malauch as they grow into their roles.

Oso might need to be paired up with length so lineups that feature Dillon Brooks at the four might be better suited for a different center, whereas a pairing player like Ryan Dunn with Obo might be a better fit.  Malauch provides length but still lacks the strength and processing speed to get into and hold position, so he needs to be paired with strength, like Miles Bridges or rebounding guards who can get to balls that are out of his reach, such as Collin or Goodie.

It will certainly take some experimenting in the beginning of the season, but it can’t be pushed aside if the Suns want to earn a playoff seed that gives them a chance to advance. Luckily, like the Mighty Ducks in the Junior Goodwill Games, the Suns have added some pieces for Ott to add to the mix. The first will open up a level of physicality the Suns haven’t tapped into since the early nineties.

When Team USA needed to beef up, they went to the streets of Chicago to find Dean Portman to play next to Fulton Reed. The two came together to form the Bash Brothers, the unruly, frequently penalized, enforcers of the Mighty Ducks.

The Suns added Miles Bridges, and in doing so, they are able to play Dillon Brooks at the three, which seems a better fit for his stature. Beyond their physical attributes, both players play with an edge and aggressiveness that lends itself to success on the boards. Can Dillon and Miles come together as veterans and leaders on this team to not only provide that grit and intention through their play on the court but permeate it through the locker room to the Suns’ young forwards? A player like Ryan Dunn, who was one of the better defensive rebounders on the team last year and who’s looking to carve out a role on this team, could stand to benefit substantially from the Bash Brothers mindset. Now that Mark Williams is sidelined, the Suns will need all the help they can get.

Yet the Bash Brothers aren’t the only direction Ott can turn to fortify his front court. He has at his disposal a unique weapon in the war of the boards. The Mighty Ducks found an edge when they discovered Tyler Russ and his Knuckle Puck. The Phoenix Suns have Jordan Goodwin.

Now that Russel Westbrook has aged out of relevance in the NBA, there really is no other player in the league like Jordan Goodwin. He’s physical, crafty, and determined, finding any opening to sneak into places a 6’3” journeyman should never tread and snatch a basketball out of the hands of an unsuspecting opponent. As Khaman works to find his flow, having a guard like Jordan Goodwin, or to a lesser extent Collin Gillespie, to swoop in on balls that bounce away from the young seven-footer could cover up some of his deficiencies in positioning as he develops his processing speed.

While so much of Goodie’s success is tied to rebounding on the offensive end, could Goodie expand his impact on the defensive glass in order to shore up the front court when the starters go to the bench, ensuring that defensive stops don’t turn into open threes and easy buckets?

Goodie is Goodie; rain, sleet, or snow. He’s put in years of work to get there, but for Oso and Khaman that’s just not the case.

The toughest call for Gordon Bombay in the Goodwill Games ended up being the move that won the tournament. Replacing his veteran goalie, Golberg, while he was on a heater, with a talented goalie from Maine, Julie “the Cat” Gaffney.

In the biggest moment, a shootout, against the Icelandic team’s best scorer, Bombay made the move to insert the Cat because of the shooter’s vain tendency to go glove side. While Goldberg was a player Bombay had leaned on through both movies, the Cat was known for her quick glove. Situationally changing goalies made sense.

Oso earned Ott’s trust over the course of last season. Ott knows he can depend on Oso to be where he needs to be and loves the defensive upside of his switchability. Yet situationally there are matchups where it will make sense to start and skew the minutes towards Malauch.

Flat out, Oso is not big enough to hold up against the league’s strongest centers. You can not win a playoff game against the Nuggets with Oso matching up against Jokic. Ott needs to be flexible and willing to play through the mistakes that come with starting a young center. Losses that may come in the beginning of the year will turn to valuable experience that will be paid forward in the back half of the season.

On the flip side, it may not make sense to play Malauch against teams that are going to bomb threes that lead to a lot of long rebounds. The Suns are blessed with diversity at the center position. Ott should lean into that.

I personally would like to see some double big lineups, where Oso is setting screens on offense and Khaman is on the three-point line stretching the floor, and defensively Khaman is taking the center and anchoring the defense, and Oso is guarding the four. I’m not going to stick Oso out there to guard MPJ or some of the more athletic fours in the league, but if Houston wants to run out Adams and Sengun, Phoenix might have an answer in KhOso.

None of these answers even need to be permanent. They just need to hold things together until they get Mark Williams back. Mark, like Adam Banks on the Mighty Ducks, is a known commodity, and if the Suns don’t fall apart before he returns, having him fresh for the back half of the season and hopefully available for the playoffs could make his injury a blessing in disguise.

Plenty of questions still remain, and their answers will only be revealed on the court, but one thing I know for certain is that if the Suns can’t improve their rebounding, they won’t be winning a playoff series. Not in this Western Conference. Not without the three-point shot. The Suns are going in the direction of the rest of the NBA in emphasizing it, but do they have the pieces to do so successfully? Ott will certainly have more to work with than in his inaugural season, but there’s a lot of ground to make up. There’s no one player that can fix this, and just like the Mighty Ducks, the Suns must learn to fly together.