The Province

Risky business

Huge decision for Raps going all in on dealing for Davis

- SCOTT STINSON sstinson@postmedia.com @scott_stinson

It was a little less than three years ago, and Masai Ujiri was asked how important it was to his team to win a playoff series.

It seemed like a layup. Of course it was important. The Raptors, under Ujiri’s guidance, had become a strong regular-season team with a habit of pooping itself in the playoffs. Surely they had to prove that they were real, no? This whole pooping themselves thing had become awkward.

And yet, the Raptors president said that day at the team’s practice facility that he was judging success by a lot more than wins and losses. He pointed to the way the franchise had been steadied under corporate owners that provided financial muscle and let the sports people do sports things. He noted the all-star game that had been held in Toronto that winter, a success all around except for the hilariousl­y cold temperatur­es, and highlighte­d the addition of the Raptors’ developmen­t league team, and the very gleaming practice building in which he was making his comments.

The point the team president was making, and I am paraphrasi­ng here, is that it was silly to judge the merits of the Raptors project simply on whether the team could win some playoff games.

It was a fair argument. This was a franchise that in almost two decades had managed precious little on-court success. There were countless embarrassm­ents, from Andrea Bargiani to Hedo Turkgolu to Rafael Arujo, and even the good Raptors, Tracy McGrady, Vince Carter, Chris Bosh, left to have better success elsewhere. Just not being a total train wreck, as the Raptors had at least managed by the spring of 2016, was indeed something.

This week has shown, though, just how far the goal posts have moved. Wins, and in particular wins in this very season, mean everything.

That the Raptors would be mentioned as one of the possible suitors for New Orleans star Anthony Davis is, on one level, not all that surprising. He’s one of the very best players in the NBA, an agile giant of a man who would make literally any team better. The list of teams that should consider trading for him, now that he made his desire to leave the Pelicans public, is basically a list of all the teams. And the Raptors, given that they already pushed all their chips in on this season in the trade for Kawhi Leonard, are already incentiviz­ed to get as good as possible before next month’s trade deadline. This might be their only shot at a run to the NBA Finals, if things don’t work out once Leonard hits free agency in the summer.

And yet, considerin­g the package of assets that the Raptors would have to offer to land Davis, a word comes to mind. That word is: Yikes.

Assume that their offer would have to begin with Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, one of Serge Ibaka or Jonas Valanciuna­s and probably one of the team’s young guards. Fine so far, when the return is a superstar talent who would instantly be the best player in franchise history. But then what if Leonard leaves? What if he leaves and then Davis says he would do the same in the summer of 2020? The Raptors would be left with a ton of holes, a bunch of a cap space, and a VERY cranky Kyle Lowry. As much as it makes sense to go after Davis when they already went for broke with the Leonard trade, that was less of an all-in trade than it is often considered. The price of getting Kawhi Leonard, even as a one-season rental, was the loss of DeMar DeRozan, a franchise icon who, management had come to realize, had plateaued as a player. It was no minor thing that on multiple occasions last spring, the team played some of its best playoff basketball with DeRozan on the bench. Losing Leonard would still be a huge blow, but the team would be able to rebuild around the young talent that Ujiri has collected over the years. But if much of that young talent was shipped out for Davis, there would be no such Plan B. The whole thing would hinge on playoff success this spring, and then recruitmen­t success in the summer, with the latter being greatly helped by the former. There is all-in, in the sense that you would be left broke at the poker table, and then there is all-in, in the sense that you would lose the car, the house, and be taking offers on the children.

It is, in other words, tremendous­ly risky. Not long ago, I would never have imagined that the Raptors would do it. There was, they had proven, great value in being a strong team with loyal fans. All those sellouts, regular playoff appearance­s, a burnished reputation around the league, with the Toronto franchise no longer the outpost with bad cable options.

That is, evidently, enough of that. The Raptors are almost certainly long shots to land Davis, and to instantly become title contenders. But that they would even consider such a move, with all the downside risk it entails, is telling. This season isn’t another chapter in a long-term story. It’s the part where the whole thing is figured out, the villain revealed, the heroes triumph (or die tragically).

The trade deadline is in less than two weeks, and there is much plotting to be done.

 ?? — AP ?? Trading for Pelicans’ Anthony Davis likely would cost the Raptors Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby, just for starters.
— AP Trading for Pelicans’ Anthony Davis likely would cost the Raptors Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby, just for starters.
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