The first night of a new season is usually about hope, but this one also carried a strange kind of memory. When the Toronto Raptors met the Chicago Bulls at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto on Wednesday, October 21, 2026, the biggest storyline was not just the opener itself. It was Kawhi Leonard coming back to the Raptors roster for his first game with the team since Game 6 of the 2019 Finals.
That alone gave Toronto a different kind of ceiling. The Raptors brought back most of last year’s 46-36 team, the group that already finished strong enough to put Leonard on second team All-NBA, and then added another elite piece to the mix. In a league where continuity matters, Toronto entered the opener looking like a team with both structure and a new layer of talent.
The Bulls, meanwhile, had the more complicated assignment. They came in with a new coach, a rookie in the starting five and a frontcourt described as banged-up. They were also said to have only one player short of a full 15-man roster, which is another way of saying the depth chart was intact enough to compete, but not necessarily stable enough to absorb every problem that appears in a long season. Chicago had beaten Minnesota 133-116 in the preseason finale on Friday, but preseason form only goes so far once the games count.
Leonard changes the shape of Toronto
The return of Leonard is less about nostalgia than functionality. He is not being added to a team that is trying to discover itself; he is being added to one that already finished 46-36 and knows what it wants to be. That matters because a roster like this does not need a full reset. It needs a player who can tilt the highest-leverage possessions, especially when the game tightens and the margins shrink.
Toronto’s mix already includes Immanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett, Scottie Barnes and Jakob Poeltl, which gives the Raptors a strong base on both ends. Leonard does not replace that foundation. He makes it more dangerous. The question for Chicago was never just whether it could score enough points in a season opener. It was whether it could keep Toronto from turning a familiar roster into a more complete one.
The Bulls had their own answers to figure out. Chicago’s starting group against Milwaukee included Josh Giddey, Matas Buzelis, Jalen Smith, Buddy Hield and Tre Jones, a lineup that reflects both experimentation and the reality of a roster still being shaped. A rookie in the five can be a source of energy, but it can also be a source of volatility, especially against a team that can punish every defensive mistake.
Splitter’s comments before the opener captured the problem well enough: the Bulls cannot stick if they are not organized, and this kind of game can become “a different game” very quickly. That is especially true against a Raptors team that can lean on Leonard when the possession breaks down and on Barnes when the game turns into a sequence of reads instead of scripted actions.
The opener did not just ask who was better on paper. It asked whether Chicago could survive the first real test of its new shape, and whether Toronto could show that last season’s 46 wins were a floor, not a ceiling. Leonard’s return gives the Raptors a sharper edge. For the Bulls, the challenge was simpler and harder at the same time: stay connected long enough to make the game competitive.
That is the real meaning of a season opener like this. The calendar says October, but the subtext is already about February, May and whether one team has the pieces to keep rising while the other is still trying to settle into place.
