Wasted youth dunks5/5/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() That brings us to 2023 and the current squad: they have little to no depth when looking at players and their skills. The depth from the Gay trade onwards allowed the Raptors to compete and have strong regular seasons with some post season runs & flame outs, sometimes in the same postseason! Ultimately it was depth that brought in the pieces needed to win a championship and, without COVID, who knows what would have happened the following year. In my opinion, the key to all of this was depth. They had one last kick at the can and underwhelmed again in the playoffs with a second round sweep by Lebron.Īfter the Lebronto embarrassment, the rest is history: Casey out/Nurse in, DeRozan out/Kawhi in, and one final trade mid season for Gasol to win it all. There wouldn’t be another trade for 1.5 seasons until February 2017 when Ross and a first were sent out for Ibaka.īy 2017, the Raptors had a deep squad with all-stars (Lowry & DD), solid role players (JV & Ibaka), and productive rookie contracts (OG, Norm, Pascal, FVV, Delon, Poeltl). Then the only meaningful moves for 2015-2016 was trading Vasquez for picks that would be Norm & OG (top 3 trade in Raptor history with Bargnani and Kawhi) and signing Carroll (ultimately a terrible move that cost a 2018 pick to remove). The Raptors had addition simply by subtracting Gay and restoring score sheets to the locker room.Īfter catching lightning in a bottle, the only (meaningful) move for 2014-2015 was Salmons for Lou Williams and Bebe. Lowry almost became a Knick but Dolan reneged last minute in absolute fear of a Masai hat trick after the Melo and Bargnani trades.Īnd then something magical happened…with the additions of Vasquez, Salmons, Hayes, and Patterson to the Lowry, DD, JV, Ross, & Amir core, the Raptors clicked and went on to win 48 games. This article is a nice trip down memory lane: Gay banned stat sheets and then Masai banned Gay in early December. With the Bargnani albatross gone, the Raptors started 2013-14 poorly. Masai’s first move was to fleece New York with Bargnani for essentially Steve Novak, a 2016 first (Poeltl) and a second. Colangelo was then demoted for the failure of the accelerated-rebuild and Masai was hired at the end of May 2013. This was the ultimate my-turn, your-turn basketball for 2 guys who only wanted to play mid-range. The 2012-2013 season ended with fools gold optimism as a team led by DeRozan and Gay finished winning 8 of 11 and 7 of 8 with an overall 34-48 record. Looking back through Basketball-Reference at Raptors rosters over the years, I see a similarity with the 2012-2014 years, essentially the very end of the Colangelo era and the start of Masai’s tenure as the head decision maker. Would anyone trade the current team and leadership for for the Babcock or Colangelo eras? That doesn’t necessarily provide people with much comfort given the majority of this franchise’s existence has been a dumpster fire, but I believe it is accurate. The HEAT game was a great example of what could/should be. I hate to say it because I really haven’t been enjoying games most of this season, but things aren’t all that bad in the big picture of the Raptors franchise existence. There have been a few threads lately that had me thinking about the current Raptor situation and the history of franchise back to ‘95. ![]()
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