It required five postseasons with no name before Masai Ujiri had seen enough.
The Toronto Raptors had tapped out with DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry anchoring the backcourt. In five seasons from 2013-14 to 2017-18, the Raptors won more regular-season matches than any other Eastern Conference team, but the Raptors saw more first-round exits compared to trips to the Eastern Conference finals, never reaching the NBA Finals.
And so, last July, Ujiri made his move. The Raptors traded DeRozan — the leading scorer in franchise history in the peak of his profession — along with Jakob Poeltl and a top-20 protected 2019 first-round pick into the San Antonio Spurs for Kawhi Leonard, Danny Green and money considerations. The Lowry-DeRozan backcourt was broken up, the athlete of the Year Dwane Casey was let go after seven seasons, and a new age in Toronto had started.
The results have, so far, been optimistic. Despite Leonard lost about a quarter of the year, the Raptors currently have greater championship odds than they did at this time this past year. As such, Ujiri’s home run swing put the rest of the league on notice. If DeRozan isn’t secure, who is? The same as Miami’s Big Three triggered the era of participant agency, the Raptors might have broken the seal to other perennial underachievers to follow suit.

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