When we were champs
One year after defeating Warriors, the high of winning a championship has yet to fade
One year ago today, the Raptors’ win set off a wave of jubilation across the country. Doug Smith looks back on that dizzying run and how it changed the team forever,
It’s something you can feel but can’t touch.
It’s something deep inside, something intangible but important, a validation of sorts that is held privately but is far reaching.
It’s it’s hard to really explain. It’s just there. Everywhere.
It was a year ago Saturday the Raptors won the NBA championship for the first time in the quarter-century history of the franchise, touching off a nationwide celebration and creating memories that will last a lifetime.
It touched the players deeply because members of that team will forever be known as champions, but it really was so much bigger.
“The way people were talking to me when they saw me, everywhere I went, it was like we changed their lives,” said Serge Ibaka, the Raptors forward so central to the team’s title. “You know, to us it’s just a game. We love this game. But I didn’t know how impactful it was for a lot of Canadians.
“And going to the airport, to the restaurant or anywhere, the way people were talking to me, the way people were reacting, thanking me with my teammates, all those things, to me it was like, ‘Wow.’ “Sometimes (with) these things you don’t know, but after it changes some people’s lives or it’s helping some people, it was just amazing. That was one of the amazing things and even till now it’s still happening. Even till now.”
That would be one of the great residual effects of a championship run — the stature it’s given the players, the team, in the greater community.
One only needs to remember the hundreds of thousands of fans packing outdoor viewing areas from coast to coast each game night to understand it, and the memory of up to two million people lining the celebratory parade route. The outpouring of love because a team won a championship was allencompassing. And personal as well. “I like when the kids make notes or make you a drawing or something. It’s so pure and genuine,” said Fred VanVleet, whose 12-point fourth quarter in Game 6 against Golden State will go down as one of the most clutch performances in Toronto sports history.
“That’s the most precious thing. I have two small children so I understand it, but having someone else’s kid who really idolizes you and loves watching you and it brings them joy, that always touches me a little bit.”
The championship-clinching game — the last played in the venerable Oracle Arena in Oakland — was a chaotic, emotional jumble.
Kyle Lowry was other-worldly good, scoring Toronto’s first 11 points and finishing the first half with 21while pitching in six rebounds and six assists in his 22 minutes.
VanVleet was extraordinary in the fourth quarter, his 12 points helping seal the win and elevating his reputation even more.
His play was indicative of the history of the franchise in many ways. VanVleet was a guy who believed in himself when few others did, performing at the highest level when the stakes were most important.
“I think we all know I play with a lot of confidence and that was just one of those moments where it all led up to it working,” he said. “Every shot I took was literally (a shot) I’ve worked on thousands and thousands and thousands of times.
“I wasn‘t out there doing anything out of the ordinary, anything really super spectacular. (I was) just making the right reads, playing how I usually play and the ball was going in.”
The final few seconds are etched in everyone’s minds. An egregious Danny Green turnover that gave Golden State one last chance to tie the game, a missed Stephen Curry desperation three-pointer, a scramble for a loose ball, the Warriors calling a timeout that they didn’t have, which led to a Raptors technical foul free throw. One more desperation shot, Lowry catching the ball and clutching it like it was his child. And then bedlam. “Kyle just wanted to keep playing ‘We Are the Champions’ over and over and over again on the speaker,” VanVleet recalls of the bus ride back to the team’s San Francisco hotel from Oakland. “Everybody is a little under the influence, heading to get something to eat, get changed and just realizing we had the rest of the summer to enjoy this.
“Our team was really serious and locked in when it was time to play and time to win, but then when it was time to have fun we let loose. We’ve got some guys who really enjoy themselves on our team, so that was fun.” Some more than others. “The bus ride was a blur,” Norm Powell said. “I was pretty drunk from drinking all the champagne and I don’t even like beer, but I was chugging beer, so I was pretty drunk from there. It was a blur and I just remember it being really loud. Everybody was trying to plan something really quick like, “Is this open? Is that open?” and trying to figure out what we were doing. But, yeah, the bus ride was just crazy. Everybody was just celebrating.”
The celebration was like none other. Team members — players, coaches, staff members, anonymous support staff that had toiled behind the scenes to make winning possible — spent days in the San Francisco area and then Las Vegas letting loose after an intense 10-week playoff run.
The parade in Toronto was unparalleled. Two million fans lined the route from the practice facility to City Hall, giddy with excitement, overcome with pride.
Marc Gasol chugged bottles of wine on a float. Lowry chanted “five more years” in a futile attempt to convince Kawhi Leonard this was home. The outpouring of emotion during the speeches might not experienced again because it’s unlikely millions will gather the same way in the post-COVID-19 times that approach.
“I didn’t expect to see so many people during the bus ride, it was like ‘Wow,’ ” Ibaka said. “It was my first time winning a championship, so I didn’t really know what it’s like, what to expect.
“Any time we kept going on the road, we kept seeing a lot of people. I was like, ‘OK, maybe after this block there’s going to be less people and we will go faster.’ No. It was so slow because there were so many people. It was just amazing. It was amazing. It was a beautiful moment to be part of.”
It was beautiful because it was so diverse, so representative of what Canada is today. The team has players from around the world — the U.S., Spain, England, Republic of the Congo, Cameroon — and it showed in its support.
“There’s something about this team that reaches out to every person in this world, just something unique about it,” team president Masai Ujiri said shortly after the championship.
“It’s crazy what we represent here and it’s something that we’re proud of — we’re really, really proud of — because it’s something that identifies with what Toronto is: diversity. It’s what (former U.S. president Barack Obama) said to me when he came to the games, ‘Wow, look at the people.’
“To look at different types of people at the game is unique to come to a Raptors game and it trickles down. We can take it to another level because more youth are going to identify with that forever.”
A year later you can see the residual effect of the championship in tangible ways.
The franchise is now seen in a different light around much of the NBA. Having a group that has the mental toughness and skill to survive the intensity of a run to a championship sets it apart. Free agents notice winning and they notice championships and that pedigree helps with recruiting.
The Raptors were good — very good, for many years — before last year’s run but the organization is looked at differently with a championship to its credit.
“I think it’s given the team the standard of being one of the best teams in the league,” Ibaka said. “That provides for the team importance.
“You have that mentality that this is a championship organization. I think it’s huge for the team.”
It was particularly huge for the Raptors given their history. The sense that they were somehow under-achievers was real among large segments of basketball fans after they had failed to get out of the East year after year, primarily because of the presence of LeBron James in Cleveland. There was never any shame in losing to a James-led team but the perception had become reality. And the hurt was real.
“Obviously, I’ve not been here for that many years,” forward Pascal Siakam said, “but the years that I’ve been here, seeing, ‘Oh, they never do anything in the playoffs’ or ‘They never do this’ or ‘Kyle or all these people, DeMar, (they can’t win)’ ... (It means a lot) to be able to be in that generation that changed everything, to be able to go out there in the playoffs, win a championship.”
Ujiri addressed it in his first media session after the championship and you can feel it to this day. A ‘take that’ kind of attitude.
“It should not be a mockery of ‘we’re in the cold and people don’t want to come here’ and all that nonsense,” Ujiri said. “That’s past. No one is talking that nonsense now.”
The Raptors don’t talk an awful lot about what the championship did for them, but if you’re close to the team, you can sense it.
They know they have what it takes to win it all; the quiet confidence that they will persevere is legitimate. With another playoff season approaching, that feeling, those memories, the lessons learned will stand them in good stead.
They won’t flaunt it, but they know it.
“I thought that kind of having the title, kind of on your shoulders the whole year, would be a big thing to carry around and it hasn’t at all — like zero,” head coach Nick Nurse said. “Like, we don’t talk about it. It’s such a good group of focusing in on the opponent at hand and getting ready for the next one and I know, when the ball goes up, I don’t think about being the defending champions.”
But it’s there. No question. And it will show itself again.
“I mean we are right in the same position that we were a year ago going into it,” Nurse said.
“Nobody was talking about us … they weren’t really talking about us as a serious threat and long may it continue. We are looking forward to it.”