Imagine this…. travel back in your mind to the bygone, sparkling summer of 2019. Think of the media you consumed in the last glorious months before the world changed forever.

If you’re a fan of basketball, you were most certainly watching something that at one time seemed inconceivable: a team from Toronto, Canada, reveling in an NBA championship. And at the center of it all, cradling the Finals MVP trophy, was the iconic Kawhi Leonard.

The enigmatic superstar had just come off the best gun-for-hire season the league had ever seen, leading the Raptors to their only world championship in his lone year with the franchise. Having secured his first Finals MVP award a few seasons prior with the Spurs, he was regarded by many as the best basketball player in the world.