what happened to...the toronto raptors (pt. 3)

Welcome back to Part 3! 

The Raptors were at the pinnacle of the sporting world. Having just won a championship, crushing the Warriors, and being on the verge of a potential dynasty with Leonard meant times couldn’t have been better for Raptors fans.

When basketball pundits say that free agents choose to stay away from Toronto because of its undesirable weather, hefty government taxes and hassle living north of the border, they mean it. Kawhi Leonard’s departure in the summer of 2019 was no exception. Kawhi’s exodus to his home-state California, to team up with fellow star Paul George in what people expected to be one of the best two-way duos in the league, known for their defense and scoring capability was one of the most impactful decisions in the history of the franchise. It meant that the Raptors were without a bonafide superstar (sorry Pascal fans, he was close, an aspiring superstar, but not a game-changer in the same sense of the word as Kawhi) and would have to develop their young core in order to compete for a championship in the future. Reports later surfaced that Kawhi would have considered staying if the Raptors would pull off a trade to bring George north of the border, but Masai Ujiri would not part ways with precious prospect and rising star Pascal Siakam. In some ways, losing out on the George and Kawhi tandem was better for the future of the franchise, as it would have marked the beginning of a Raptors dynasty without Siakam, and would have left very little cap room to manoeuver to add complementary pieces if the two both signed long term super max deals. In order to contend, the Raptors would have to search elsewhere. 

Nonetheless, who said contending was the only path forward for this team?

THE PANDEMIC

The Raptors championship is significant because it was won in the season before major sports leagues were put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic in March of 2020. Did you know that the NBA was the first team to suspend all activities after Jazz Center Rudy Gobert contracted COVID after parading around the media room touching all of the mics he could possibly get his hands on. In astonishing fashion, the NBA resumed play in June of that same year at Walt Disney World’s sports complex where teams would be quarantined to the hotel residence and court. Too bad for sports fans, NBA players at Disney were not open to the public, although I would have asked my parents to delay our Florida by a few months to see some of the league’s brightest stars in the same place at the same time. That season, the Raptors squeaked into their seventh consecutive playoff appearance and swept the Brooklyn Nets in the first playoff sweep in franchise history. Frankly, I have no memory of this series and couldn’t tell you why the Raptors team was so dominant, but do remember the gutting loss at the hands of the Boston Celtics in the seventh game of the next round after a last second three from VanVleet was off the mark. Overall, a forgetful display in the 2020 playoffs that would mark the end of the Raptors team who basked in the sun just a year earlier and the end of the glory years.

Things don’t get much better from there. 2021-2022 was close to a gong show where the Raptors failed to make the playoffs for the first time in a long while. Some of those Raptors games at the end of that season were close to unwatchable because of the mix of lackadaisical offense and an inability to play defense. Raptors fans just had to turn off the cable TV for a period of weeks on the way to the NBA Draft.

THE DRAFT

Masai Ujiri has a history of stellar draft selections. Ujiri drafted Siakam with the 27th pick in 2016 and OG Anunoby with the 23rd pick in 2017 which is the equivalent of pulling two needles out of the haystack that is NBA prospect pools. He even drafted Jakob Poetl with the 9th pick in Siakam’s same draft class, a player who is now a formidable offensive player and above average rim-protector with the Spurs. To say that there were high expectations with the Raptors fourth pick would be an understatement. It’s now hard to believe that Raptors fans were outraged at his choice of Scottie Barnes over Jalen Suggs with the fourth pick, although Scottie’s recent play may justify those feelings. At the times, Suggs was seen as the consensus pick, but Ujiri took another shot in the dark, and with a stroke of luck, drafted the future rookie of the year and left the Orlando magic with an injury riddled suggs who has yet to average more than 15 points a game in either of his first two seasons. 

The future looked bright with Barnes joining an already talented core of Anunoby, Siakam and Vanvleet.

SO, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE TORONTO RAPTORS?

That brings us to the title of this mini-series 

And it’s well worth posing considering Barnes exceeded expectations in his first year, Siakam was incrementally improving year-after year, and the team narrowly lost to the 76ers in the playoffs of last year, a tough grind that only left the franchise waiting for more.