Raptors Are Totally Vindicated for Resting Kawhi Leonard Throughout the Regular Season

We hear your take that "load management" is a lame excuse to sit out a star player in regular season games and raise you the idea of being on the brink of delivering a city its first NBA Championship in franchise history.

That's exactly where things currently stand with Kawhi Leonard, who sat out a hefty number of regular season contests with the Raptors in 2018-19 in light of his injury woes the year before. And while it was a bit controversial to limit him to 66 contests -- just five more than LeBron James, mind -- the three-time All-Star's legs were all the fresher once the postseason came around. And it shows.

Yeah, we'll go out on a limb and say that this widely-criticized strategy was executed perfectly.

The NBA regular season featuress 82 games. Friday night's Game 4 of the NBA Finals stood as contest No. 82 of Leonard's season. And it was one of his best.

Kawhi became the fourth player in Finals history to total 36 points in a game without committing a single turnover. The other names on that list? Kevin Durant, Shaquille O'Neal, and Michael Jordan.

On top of that, only three players in NBA history have posted more 30-point games in a single postseason than Kawhi's 14 in 2019: Kobe Bryant, Hakeem Olajuwon, and MJ.

For the postseason, the 2014 Finals MVP is averaging over 31 points and 9 rebounds on 49.8% shooting from the floor and a 39% clip from three. He's also leading all playoff participants in minutes, points, rebounds, field goals, free throws, and steals.

AND he has his Raptors on the verge of dethroning arguably the greatest basketball powerhouse ever assembled.

Sit down, haters. The potential importance of sitting out irrelevant regular season games cannot be stressed enough. This was a stroke of genius.