Tag: nba finals

The Raptors Are NBA Champions: Why There Shouldn’t Be An Asterisk By Their Title

After 6 intense and drama filled games, the Toronto Raptors are NBA champions for the first time in franchise history. However, some may put an asterisk by the Raptors championship due to the many injuries that the Warriors had. Injuries before and during the finals plagued Golden State.

First Kevin Durant was out for the first 4 games of the finals with a calf injury. When he came back, Durant played 12 minutes of the game and was playing very well. He score 11 points before he ruptured his achilles. Kevon Looney was playing through a chest injury for several games in the finals and Klay Thompson scored 30 points in games 6 before he tore his ACL and was forced to leave the game.

However, these injuries should not discount the Raptors championship. The Raptors fought hard and got through an incredible amount of adversity to get to a championship. Kawhi Leonard had a circus of a season last year with the Spurs in which he barley played. Leonard had to prove that he was still one of the best in the league. Kyle Lowry has been with the Raptors through out all of their playoff woes which often came at the hand of Lebron James. Fred VanVleet went undrafted and was the last player to make the Raptors 15 man roster in his rookie year. Even Nick Nurse, Raptors head coach, had adversity that he had to over come. He replaced last years coach of the year in Dwane Casey, and has been trying to prove himself as an NBA coach, let alone a championship caliber coach.

However, despite all the adversity and all the road blocks, the Toronto Raptors are NBA champions. Kawhi Leonard averaged 19 points per game in the playoffs and won the finals MVP. Kyle Lowry woke up in these playoffs and was a key player in the Raptors championship win even scoring 15 points in the first quarter alone in game 6. Fred VanVleet has been a cornerstone for the Raptors for the entire season and performed very well in the finals after his child was born. Nick Nurse was brilliant in his coaching, making the necessary decisions and even bringing out a box-and-1 defense on Golden State, which worked.

Let’s not forget that the Warriors are still a formidable team with out Kevin Durant. Obviously, the Warriors are not a better team with out Kevin Durant and not having to worry about him definitely helped the Raptors. But the Raptors were essentially playing the same Warriors team who went 73-9 in the 2015-2016 season. The Warriors still had Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Andre Iguodala, as well and some solid players off the bench. They also had Kevon Looney who, while he was injured, was a solid big man for the Warriors in the finals.

Over all, we should not discount the Raptors championship win just because the Warriors had some key players injured. The Injuries the Warriors suffered certainly didn’t hurt the Raptors but, in the end, it was the Raptors heart, determination, skill, and hard play that won them the chip. Congratulations to the Toronto Raptors. Your 2019 NBA Champions.

How Masai Ujiri Made The Raptors A Contender

In 1995, The Toronto Raptors franchise was born. In their inaugural season the Raptors won 21 games. For years the Raptors have been the laughing stock of the NBA. Conspiracies to keep the Raptors out of the finals have even raced through the ranks of Toronto basketball fans. So how did a franchise that felt more like the NBA’s weird cousin than it did an actual NBA team get to the NBA finals in 24 years? The answer is simple. Masai Ujiri.

Masai Ujiri is the General Manager of the Toronto Raptors and is possibly the best General manager in the NBA today. He took a franchise that seemed like it was stuck in the second round of the playoffs and turned them into not only a contender, but a genuine threat to the Golden State Warriors. He did this by taking risks that many GM’s in the league would consider insane.

His first risk was perhaps the biggest one he took. Ujiri fired the Raptors head coach, Dwane Casey. This caught the NBA by surprise. Dwane Casey had just had a historic season with the Raptors. Not only had he led the Raptors to their winningest season in franchise history, with 59 wins. but he was also a candidate for coach of the year, an award that he would later win. Everyone knew the Raptors needed a change to move up to the next level, but to fire the best coach in franchise history? What could Ujiri be thinking?

After firing Dwane Casey, Ujiri named Nick Nurse as the Raptors next head coach. Nurse had a lot of experience as a basketball coach, coaching high school, college, and having championship success in the G-league. However, the most NBA coaching experience he had was 5 years as an assistant coach with the Raptors. Masai Ujiri had just fired the best coach in franchise history for the assistant coach.

The next risk Ujiri took was trading DeMar DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl, and a 2019 protected first round pick to the Spurs for Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green. This was risky for two reasons. DeMar DeRozan was the face of the Toronto franchise. What he meant to that city and that franchise is difficult to describe. He gave his heart and soul to the Raptors organization and their fans. Losing Poeltl, Green, and the pick wasn’t a big deal for the Raptors, but loosing DeRozan was like loosing a loved one and DeRozen wasn’t happy about it either.

The biggest part of the trade was the Raptors receiving Kawhi Leonard. Kawhi had made a mess of the situation in San Antonio, stating that he was unhappy with how the Spurs staff had handled his injury and that he wanted out. The Spurs didn’t want to trade one of the best players in the league to any western conference competition, so they traded him to Toronto. Kawhi had made it clear that he wanted to go to LA, so it was pretty much a forgone conclusion that wherever Kawhi went that wasn’t LA, he would be there for 1 season before moving on.

Masai Ujiri had just traded the most beloved Raptors player and a 4-time all-star for a superstar who would more than likely only be there for a year. Kawhi was clearly not happy about the trade and with DeRozen leaving Kyle Lowry and Ujiri’s relationship deteriorated. Lowry and Ujiri, reportedly, didn’t even talk outside of a professional situation for a good portion of the first half of the season. So, Ujiri traded DeMar DeRozen, a beloved Raptors player and the best on the team and he damaged his relationship with the second best player on the team. All for a player who would probably leave after a year.

The last risk that Masai Ujiri took was trading Jonas Valanciunas, Delon Wright, C.J. Miles and a 2024 second-round pick to the Memphis Grizzlies for Marc Gasol. The Grizzlies were clearly in the beginning stages of a rebuild and wanted to get Gasol out of Memphis. This was not a bad trade by any means. The Raptors may have lost Valanciunas and some role players but they gained a former defensive player of the year in Gasol. This was less of a risk and more of a move that required Gasol to perform to make the trade worth it.

If even one of these risks went wrong Ujiri would look like a terrible GM. Luckily for him, they all panned out. Gasol has performed great in the playoffs and was instrumental in the Raptors defeat of the Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers with his excellent defense on Joel Embiid. Nick Nurse has proven himself to be a fantastic coach. He has made the necessary adjustments in the playoffs that Dwane Casey wasn’t able to. He has coached the Raptors into a historic post-season and is on the verge of winning an NBA championship as a rookie head coach. And Kawhi Leonard is looking better and better in his Raptors uniform. While he hasn’t made a commitment to stay with the Raptors I believe that the chances are looking good that he will stay. Not only that but he has performed incredibly for the Raptors, hitting game winners and averaging 30.7 points-per-game with 50.1% shooting in the playoffs.

With Game 1 of the NBA finals having just concluded and the Raptors essentially dominating the Warriors on both ends of the floor, a Raptors in 6 prediction doesn’t sound so crazy anymore. All these risks that Masai Ujiri took have not only paid off; they just might help the Raptors win their first NBA Championship in franchise history.