The Toronto Raptors bet on themselves last July, and while the big payout came in the form of the franchise’s first ever NBA championship, the belief they could earn the trust of Kawhi Leonard by employing his services for an entire season may now have them in position to secure his commitment for at least a run at defending the title.

Speaking on First Things First for FS1 Thursday morning, Cris Carter, who has known Leonard since he finished his college career at San Diego State, reported that while the 28-year-old superstar isn’t leaning in any particular direction as of yet, the one aspect of Leonard’s decision process that Toronto remains ahead of both L.A. teams in is trust.

“Kawhi makes a lot of decisions based on trust ... Toronto has that over everyone,” Carter said. “The doctors, the coaching staff, the city, he’s comfortable.

“Kawhi trusts his career with the Toronto Raptors and the Lakers and Clippers are going to have to convince him and take some of that trust for him to decide to play basketball with them moving forward.”

"I think Kawhi is going to make an announcement on Friday. As of yesterday at 6 PM, no team had an edge." — @criscarter80 pic.twitter.com/SCZN9FmSKz — First Things First (@FTFonFS1) July 4, 2019

Carter also opined that Leonard could make a decision as soon as Friday, July 5.

After the Raptors acquired Leonard via trade, there was a concerted effort made to understand the right quadriceps tendinopathy injury that forced him to miss all but nine games of the 2017-18 season for the San Antonio Spurs. They then laid out a plan to manage his load, which involved sitting out one half of back-to-backs and minimizing the stress on his body to the tune of 22 missed regular season games.

The team proved he didn’t need to worry about his absence impacting the team negatively, either, going 17-5 in games that he missed.

After Toronto won the championship, Leonard specifically pointed out that he had a head coach in Nick Nurse who shared the same mindset as him with regards to putting all their energy and effort towards winning a title, and that he was happy to have done something special for the city of Toronto and country of Canada.

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