Six-time NBA All-Star DeMar DeRozan began his career with the Toronto Raptors, where he spent nine seasons.

Despite making five postseason appearances with Toronto, DeRozan was unable to lead the team to the NBA Finals. This was largely due to LeBron James and his dominance with the Cleveland Cavaliers, which is why DeRozan believes he could have led Toronto to the championship in 2019.

DeRozan was traded to the San Antonio Spurs as part of the Kawhi Leonard deal and watched his former team win the championship in his first season elsewhere. When asked by ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, DeRozan said he believes the outcome would have been the same in 2019 even if he had stayed in Toronto.

“The only one we couldn’t beat was LeBron,” DeRozan said. “That’s just how it was. And I felt like we hadn’t done well the year before, we just needed one more piece of the puzzle to move us up. And that piece of the puzzle was LeBron going west. I didn’t get a chance to see what would have happened… I’m sure it would have turned out the same way.”

While it’s understandable that DeRozan had confidence in himself and the team he played for for nearly a decade, Leonard’s performance this postseason was historic.

With an average of 34.7 points and 9.9 rebounds at a 53 percent shooting rate in the Eastern Conference semifinals, Leonard was able to lead Toronto to victory over a very good Philadelphia 76ers team. If the Raptors hadn’t had Leonard, they probably would have been eliminated in the second round in 2019.

In the 2019 playoffs, Leonard scored the third-most points (732) in a postseason run in NBA history, only LeBron James and Michael Jordan were better.

Now with the LA Clippers, Leonard still hopes to return to the NBA Finals.

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