Nothin’ But Nets Milos Raonic had 10 points on 5-of-8 shooting for Team Canada in the N.B.A.’s 2016 Celebrity All-Star Game in Toronto. Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images Marc Stein I go to the United States Open every year because I am a tennis nerd in the extreme who instantly deemed it one of world’s greatest sporting events on my maiden visit to the big city as a naive high school kid in 1986. But I also like to go because I enjoy talking basketball with tennis players. I relish the opportunity, in adulthood, to get introduced to athletes like men’s No. 25 seed Milos Raonic, who seemed genuinely appreciative that I asked him to interrupt his preparations for his sport’s final major championship of the year so we could spend 10 minutes dissecting his beloved Toronto Raptors’ acquisition of Kawhi Leonard. “A pleasure,” Raonic said of the invitation to talk hoops. Raonic was born in the former Yugoslavia in 1990, moved to Ontario as a young boy when his family wanted to escape the political unrest in the region and got hooked on the Raptors as an 8-year-old when a certain Vince Carter arrived in Canada. Yet he actually regards Tim Duncan as his all-time favorite player and has always been a big Gregg Popovich admirer, too. “The Big Fundamental did it for me,” Raonic said of Duncan. “A no-nonsense guy who just went out there and did his job.” A Raptors fan who can’t resist keeping an eye on the Spurs? Who better than Raonic, then, to ask about the risk Toronto has taken by dealing the steady DeMar DeRozan for an unquestioned superstar in Leonard, who has only one year left on his contract? “Other than the way DeRozan was made to feel about it — because I think he’s been our best franchise player to this point — I was extremely excited about it,” Raonic said. “We had to go get Kawhi. In Toronto, we’ve never had a finals M.V.P. We could never get past LeBron and the Cavs. We were stagnant. I think something big needed to happen, because we probably weren’t going to go any farther. “As a Raptors fan, who cares about the regular season? If they won 60 games next season — if they won 65 games — no one would care unless they did well in the playoffs.” But how mad will he be if Leonard, as so many Canadians already fear, bolts in free agency in July 2019 after the team surrendered DeRozan to get him? “I won’t be — but I think he’s going to stay,” Raonic said. Raonic insists that “the level of appreciation” Leonard is about to receive from the Raptors’ famously fervent fan base gives his team greater hope than many south-of-the-border skeptics would suspect. “And if he wants that big shoe deal, Toronto is that kind of market,” Raonic said. Whether or not you agree with that read, there’s no disputing Raonic’s love for the sport. “I never skated,” Raonic said, making it clear that he followed basketball the closest in his youth while developing the prowess with a racket that would ultimately take him as high as No. 3 in the world. It turns out that the 2016 celebrity game at All-Star Weekend in Toronto is the only organized basketball game he has ever played in — but Raonic told me he took a pain-killing injection after tearing his adductor muscle in the semifinals of the Australian Open a month earlier to ensure he could participate. “I had a shot just to sort of numb the discomfort,” Raonic said. “I was playing that thing no matter what.” The 6-foot-5 big server managed to squeeze home a dunk that night — despite his physical limitations — off a pass from former Raptors star Tracy McGrady. And he insists that his finishing around the rim would look much more impressive now if he got another chance. Yet he rejected my proposal for an ATP Tour dunk contest — or even a televised pickup game featuring only tennis players — because he said even the hoops lovers on the circuit would balk. “It could never happen,” Raonic said. “Tennis players are very self-centered, and no one wants to risk their career. That’s the simplest way to put it.” For a bit of variety while coping with the tour grind, Raonic actually does some of his fitness work in strictly controlled basketball drills together with various members of his team, including the legendary Goran Ivanisevic. But that’s as far as it goes. “Have to protect your fingers and ankles,” Raonic said.