SIMMONS: Toronto doesn’t care how Kawhi Leonard got here, only that he continues to win

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George Springer came to the Blue Jays after his name was attached to one of the most heinous cheating scandals in Major League history.

And nobody seemed to care that he helped fix the World Series — because suddenly he was a Blue Jay, and because suddenly, he was one of us.

It will be no different for Kawhi Leonard, fortunate to not begin the season suspended by the NBA, a central figure in one of the largest payola scandals in the history of basketball. Last night, looking his age and a step slower than he did the first time he was a Raptor, everything Leonard did managed on opening night drew applause.

He was announced as part of the starting lineup. Big Applause. He scored his first basket. Big applause. He hit his first three-point bucket of the season. More applause. He set up his first score in a dreadful opening night of this NBA game. Still applause. And when the crowd at Scotiabank Arena thought his night was over prematurely – he was like the aging rock star who came out for another encore after the encore had already been played – he got applause and a few more minutes of play.

And then his night was over. The Raptors obliterated the rather hapless Chicago Bulls 135-92. And yes, more applause for that as well.

The evening began with T-shirts on all the seats at Scotiabank. The T-shirt had the magical franchise slogan, We The North, the words appeared over the great photographed hand of Kawhi. He is, at this stage of his career, at this point back in Toronto for a second stint, still a larger-than-life character with a pair of larger-than-life-sized hands.

The win Wednesday night only mattered because it was one notch on belt for the first of 82 games. It was a pad the stats kind of night for Raptors players and in particular for Leonard, who looked nothing like the Leonard we last saw in Raptors colours on the night of the championship celebration in Oakland in 2019.

Well-balanced scoring

Leonard played 23 minutes against the Bulls, who are coached by his former teammate Tiago Splitter. He scored 23 points. He didn’t shoot particularly well — hitting on five of his 17 shots — but ended up tying with Scottie Barnes and Immanuel Quickley, all of them ending up with 23 points.

RJ Barrett played 26 minutes and scored 20 himself — with coach Darko Rajakovic doing his own version of load management for all his starting players on opening night.

In other place around the NBA this season, Leonard will be viewed as an unpunished villain of some kind, who kind of got away with taking home extra money the salary cap didn’t account for.

But here in Toronto, we’ll look the other way. Because sport is better when you contend rather than simply fit in.

And really, why should anyone care that the Clippers cheated. Just as no one cared how Springer made his way to Toronto and what he had managed previously with garbage cans.

Springer came on to hit one of the most electric home runs in Blue Jays history and really in Canadian baseball history. And he will be a Blue Jays hero for the rest of his life.

Kawhi has already made his history here. If there is indeed more to be made here, no one around here — or across the country — is about the argue about the circumstances.

Not unlike Springer, what will matter for Leonard is his in-season production and his health. The better Springer felt, the better the Blue Jays played.

What will matter with Leonard is getting to the playoffs and ready to contribute some 30 minutes a night. What will matter is how much he plays in the season — maybe 60 games, maybe 65: He played 60 games in his first season with the Raptors. The Raps won 42 of them.

How many games will Kawhi play this season?

Then he played in 24 playoff games, winning 16 of them. That was victory in just under 70% of Raptor games. If he’s anywhere near those numbers, second time around, even as his game looks a little bit different stylistically, no one will give a damn how or why he got here.

Leonard taught Toronto a sporting lesson in 2019. He demonstrated, so clearly and demonstratively, how to win and what it was to win. He did it in the biggest and largest moments and the greatest stage. He did it as much in the offensive end as he did  in the defensive end.

And he did it when it mattered the most. Wednesday night did not matter the most. The optimistic Raptors took on the going nowhere Bulls. They won by 43. They led by 20 after the first quarter. The game looked more pre-season than regular season but the Raptors can’t control their own schedule.

Opening night was a freebie of sorts, courtesy of the NBA.

Kawhi Leonard smiled at the beginning, smiled at the end Wednesday night, shook hands with his old teammates coach Splitter and Norm Powell and in between he searched for what used to be his game. He found part of it, not all of it. He has six months to get where he needs to be. As he walked out of the dressing room after his first Raptors win, second time around, he said: “See you tomorrow, gang.”

That’s the new Kawhi, our Kawhi, so full of colour and conversation.

ssimmons@postmedia.com