Toronto Raptors: Five things you need to know

• Nathan Jawai debuted for Toronto on January 21, 2009, the first Indigenous Australian to play in the NBA.
• Three Australians have worn Raptors colours: Jawai, Aron Baynes and David Andersen.
• Toronto went 46-36, returned to the playoffs and lost a Game 7 to Cleveland.

On January 21, 2009, a 209cm centre from remote Cape York checked into an NBA game for the Toronto Raptors.

Nathan Jawai played six games for Toronto that season and averaged 1.2 points. The numbers are not the point. He was the first Indigenous Australian to play in the NBA, and it happened here.

That is the reason this franchise matters to Australian basketball. Toronto gave the game one of its most significant Australian firsts, in a career that started in Cairns and ran through Belgrade, Kazan and Barcelona before coming home.

Two more Australians followed him into Raptors colours. Neither stayed long. Jawai did not either. But a door opened in Toronto that had never been open before.

Australians who have played for the Toronto Raptors

Nathan Jawai is the most historically significant Australian to play for this club, and one of the most significant to play in the league.

The Cairns Taipans big man averaged 17.3 points and 9.4 rebounds in the NBL in 2007-08 and was drafted 41st overall in 2008 by Indiana, with his rights traded immediately to Toronto. His debut on January 21, 2009 made him the first Indigenous Australian in the NBA.

He played six games for the Raptors, averaging 1.2 points and 0.5 rebounds, before moving to Minnesota. At 209cm and 130kg he was nicknamed the Aussie Shaq, and his game was built on overpowering people in the low post.

What came after the NBA was a career most Australians would take. Partizan Belgrade, UNICS Kazan and FC Barcelona in Europe, an NBL championship with the Perth Wildcats in 2015-16, then a return to Cairns.

His family tree is remarkable in its own right. Jawai is a cousin of Patty Mills, and his great uncle was the Indigenous land rights campaigner Eddie Mabo.

Aron Baynes signed with Toronto in November 2020 and played 53 games in the 2020-21 season, averaging 6.1 points and 5.2 rebounds.

His timing was unusual. That was the season Toronto played its home games in Tampa, Florida, because of pandemic border restrictions, which makes Baynes one of the few Australians to have played a full home season for a Canadian club without setting foot in Canada.

He had already won a championship with San Antonio in 2014 and went on to a 16-year NBA career across five clubs, plus a long run as a Boomers centre.

David Andersen was traded to Toronto in 2010 and played 11 games in the 2010-11 season, averaging 4.9 points and 3.1 rebounds.

The Melbourne-born big man was a stretch centre before the term existed, with a long European career that took in Virtus Bologna, CSKA Moscow and Barcelona, and NBA stops at Houston, Toronto and New Orleans.

2026-27 team snapshot

Toronto is back in the playoffs, has extended its coach, and is waiting on the NBA to decide whether it can complete the biggest trade of its offseason.

The Raptors went 46-36 last season, fifth in the Eastern Conference and third in the Atlantic Division, their first playoff appearance in four years. RJ Barrett led the scoring on 19.3 points a game and Scottie Barnes averaged 18.1, with Barnes and Brandon Ingram both named All-Stars.

The first round against Cleveland went the distance and was played short-handed. Immanuel Quickley missed all seven games with a hamstring problem and Ingram missed part of Game 5 and all of Games 6 and 7 before having surgery on a heel issue. Toronto still took the fourth-seeded Cavaliers to a decider before losing 114-102 in Cleveland on May 3.

Darko Rajakovic was rewarded with a multi-year extension announced on July 2, 2026. The 47-year-old Serbian was hired in 2023 to replace Nick Nurse and had won 25 and 30 games in his first two seasons before this jump.

"We're thrilled to extend Darko as head coach of the Toronto Raptors. Darko's strong development philosophy and commitment to a team-first culture shine through on a daily basis," general manager and executive vice president Bobby Webster said in a statement, reported by The Athletic.

Then there is Kawhi Leonard.

On June 30, 2026 the Raptors agreed a deal to bring back the man who delivered their only championship, sending Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, two first-round picks, a first-round pick swap and two second-round picks to the Los Angeles Clippers.

The trade has not been completed. The NBA warned Toronto it would inherit any consequences of the league investigation into Leonard and the Aspirations matter, which put the deal on hold. That investigation has now concluded, with the league working through the findings of the law firm it engaged.

"It's another waiting game. The investigation, I think, is over now. The NBA is kind of sifting through what the law firm they hired has found, whether there's a punishment or not that it wants to levy," The Athletic's Mike Vorkunov said, in comments published by Fox Sports.

Adam Silver has said he expects the matter resolved before the 2026-27 season begins. Toronto also added Allen Graves from Santa Clara at pick 19 and Jaden Bradley from Arizona at pick 50 in the 2026 draft.

Why the Raptors matter

Every NBA franchise has a story.

The Boston Celtics built a dynasty. The Los Angeles Lakers became basketball's glamour club. The San Antonio Spurs defined sustained excellence.

Toronto is the one that took the game somewhere else entirely.

The only club outside the United States, the first from outside it to win a championship, and a significant part of the reason Canada has become the biggest source of NBA talent outside America. The 2019 title changed what a generation of Canadian kids thought was possible, and the draft boards of the last five years show it.

For Australian readers the significance is narrower but not smaller. This is where an Indigenous Australian first played in the NBA, and where a young player from Cape York found out he belonged in the same building as the best in the world.

Expansion and the Vince Carter years

Toronto entered the NBA in 1995 alongside Vancouver, and spent its first seasons doing what expansion teams do.

Vince Carter changed that. He arrived in 1998, won the 2000 Slam Dunk Contest with a performance still shown as the standard, and dragged the club to its first playoff appearance that same year. Toronto fans responded by turning the building into one of the loudest in the league.

Carter's exit in 2004 was messy and the club spent the following decade in the middle, good enough to make playoffs and not good enough to win them.

Masai Ujiri and the front office that built it

Toronto hired Masai Ujiri as team president in 2013 and the franchise changed shape.

Ujiri built around Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, made the Eastern Conference finals in 2016, and then made the decision that defined him. In 2018 he traded DeRozan, a beloved franchise player, for Kawhi Leonard, who had played nine games the previous season and was one year from free agency.

Ujiri left after the 2025 draft and is now president of the Dallas Mavericks. Bobby Webster runs basketball operations in Toronto.

Kawhi Leonard and the 2019 championship

The gamble worked immediately.

Leonard was extraordinary through the 2019 postseason, including a series-ending shot against Philadelphia that bounced on the rim four times before dropping. Toronto came from 2-0 down against Milwaukee in the conference finals and then beat Golden State in six games in the NBA Finals.

Leonard was Finals MVP. Kyle Lowry, Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet and Marc Gasol all played significant roles. It remains the only championship won by a club outside the United States.

Leonard left for the Clippers that offseason. Seven years later, Toronto is trying to bring him back.

The rebuild under Darko Rajakovic

What followed the title was a slow unwinding.

Lowry, Siakam and VanVleet all left. Nick Nurse was dismissed in 2023 and Rajakovic took over a roster in transition. Two seasons of 25 and 30 wins followed, with the 2024-25 campaign wrecked by injuries, including a Brandon Ingram trade acquisition who did not play a game for the club that year.

Last season was the turn. Scottie Barnes, the 2022 Rookie of the Year, became the player the rebuild was designed around, and Toronto won 46 games and took a Game 7 on the road.

The greatest Raptors of all time

Vince Carter is the most important player in franchise history, the one who made Toronto a basketball city.

Kyle Lowry is the most decorated, a six-time All-Star across nine seasons and the emotional centre of the championship team.

Kawhi Leonard played one season and won the title, which is a fair trade in anyone's accounting.

DeMar DeRozan and Pascal Siakam carried different eras, and Scottie Barnes is the present.

And Nathan Jawai, for six games in early 2009, put Indigenous Australia on an NBA floor for the first time.

[PHOTO: Kawhi Leonard with the 2019 Finals MVP trophy. Caption: "Kawhi Leonard after the Toronto Raptors beat the Golden State Warriors in six games to win the 2019 NBA Finals, the only championship won by a club based outside the United States. Leonard was named Finals MVP and left for the Los Angeles Clippers that offseason. Photo: [agency]/Getty Images."]

Five Fast Facts

1. Nathan Jawai made his NBA debut for Toronto on January 21, 2009, the first Indigenous Australian to play in the league.

2. Three Australians have played for the Raptors: Jawai, Aron Baynes and David Andersen.

3. Toronto is the only NBA club based outside the United States and the only one from outside it to win a championship.

4. The Raptors played their 2020-21 home games in Tampa, Florida, which was Aron Baynes' season with the club.

5. The first game in NBA history was played in Toronto on November 1, 1946, between the Huskies and the New York Knickerbockers.

Historical Timeline

• 1946: The first game in NBA history is played in Toronto.
• 1995: The Raptors enter the NBA as an expansion team.
• 1998: Vince Carter arrives in Toronto.
• 2000: Carter wins the Slam Dunk Contest and Toronto makes a first playoff appearance.
• 2008: Draft rights to Nathan Jawai are traded to Toronto.
• 2009: Jawai debuts, the first Indigenous Australian in the NBA.
• 2011: David Andersen plays 11 games for the club.
• 2013: Masai Ujiri is hired as team president.
• 2018: Trade DeMar DeRozan for Kawhi Leonard.
• 2019: Beat Golden State in six games to win the NBA championship.
• 2020: Sign Aron Baynes and play a season of home games in Tampa.
• 2022: Scottie Barnes wins Rookie of the Year.
• 2023: Darko Rajakovic replaces Nick Nurse as head coach.
• 2026: Return to the playoffs at 46-36 and agree a trade to bring back Kawhi Leonard.

Looking ahead

Toronto has a coach on a new contract, a 46-win season behind it, and a trade sitting in the league office.

If Leonard arrives, the Raptors have a genuine second star next to Scottie Barnes and a reason to think about a deep playoff run rather than a first-round exit. If he does not, they have given up nothing and still have Barnes, Barrett, Quickley and a rebuild that is working.

Either way, this is the healthiest the franchise has looked since the title.

There is no Australian on the roster and no obvious one coming. What Toronto has instead is a piece of Australian basketball history that no other club can claim. On January 21, 2009, in a Raptors jersey, an Indigenous Australian played in the NBA for the first time.