RAPTORS SETTLE FOR CONTROLLED DEMOLITION
Ujiri knew changes needed to be made to the lineup, but he still likes what he has
After the Toronto Raptors found themselves on the receiving end of a four-game thumping from the Cleveland Cavaliers in May, the looming question was whether Masai Ujiri would keep his core together or whether he would blow it up.
Two months later: a little of Column A, a little of Column B.
The Raptors president spoke on Tuesday after the team (finally) made official the signing of Indiana shooter C.J. Miles, which put a cap on what has been an eventful off-season. It started with Ujiri and new GM Bobby Webster bringing back Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka on three-year deals, which was the moment at which it was clear the front office wasn’t about to flush the key pieces of the best teams the Toronto Raptors have ever had. The tank-now, win-later strategy was officially dead.
But from that point on, Ujiri has been like a card player who can’t stand to fold: action, action, action. Out went DeMarre Carroll, Cory Joseph, Patrick Patterson and P.J. Tucker, and in came Miles and assorted spare parts, with the rest of the lost minutes expected to go to assorted young Raptors who have previously spent a lot of time working on creative handshakes and other essential bench roles. Ujiri didn’t blow things up, not when the key players — and coach Dwane Casey — are all back, but he pulled off something of a controlled demolition.
Ujiri’s plan is to try to win with the group he has in the short term, while finding out if the various young pieces he has assembled will be enough to keep the Raptors competitive for years to come.
This may not even have been the plan a month ago, as Ujiri acknowledged that he has talked to a lot of different teams about a lot of different possibilities, but it’s the plan on which he has landed.
“When the season ends, everybody says, ‘this is the year it’s going to be crazy,’” Ujiri said Tuesday at the Raptors’ practice facility. “All you can do is wait and see what comes at you.”
What came at him, eventually, was that Lowry and Ibaka were willing to sign big-dollar deals at just three-year commitments, which meant the Raptors wouldn’t have to saddle themselves with the kind of contract that would be doomed to one day be moved as salary-cap ballast.
It meant that with those two, plus DeMar DeRozan and, at least for now, Jonas Valanciunas, the Raptors would have a group of good-to-great NBA players. It doesn’t match the superteams of Golden State or Cleveland, but that was never going to happen anyway. There is value in being pretty damn good and seeing what that gets you, which was ultimately the path that Ujiri and team chose.
The rest of what happened might end up being more interesting, by clearing the decks for the back end of the roster that Ujiri has assembled even as the team found its first-ever taste of lasting playoff success. Norm Powell, one of Ujiri’s great steals, figures to move into a much more significant role, as does Delon Wright, whose presence made Joseph expendable. Last year’s rookie duo of Jakob Poeltl and Pascal Siakam will be a year older and even Bruno Caboclo, the wide-eyed, soft-spoken Brazilian who has been a non-factor other than as a garbage-time fan favourite for three years, might even get some actual playing time. Emphasis on “might.”
So: Compete in a weakened East, see what happens and also figure out what else you have.
This core, Ujiri said, “gives our team, I think, a good chance to perform. And it also gives us a good chance to read our team and (evaluate) the direction it could go.”
A team full of veteran depth, which was a Toronto strength over the last couple of seasons, doesn’t leave a lot of room for the high-upside guys to play.
“We have to give our young players the opportunity now,” Ujiri said. “This isn’t about next year, it’s about the next five years, so we (can) plan.”
It’s also, one suspects, about waiting to see where the league goes. The summer of 2018 looks as if it will have an unprecedented bevy of untethered superstars, with various reports seemingly imagining half the league on the move to Los Angeles.
It probably won’t end up as exciting as that, but it’s not inconceivable that a year from now the East won’t include LeBron James, John Wall or Carmelo Anthony. Suddenly there would be great value in being pretty damn good.
Which helps explain why the Raptors made changes, but only to a point. After a year-end news conference in which he was not shy about saying he was mad, Ujiri sounded on Tuesday as if he had cooled off considerably, given time and perspective. He wants the team to move the ball more, to space the floor better. “I’m not asking for a dramatic change,” he said. He noted, by the way, that the Raptors won 51 games last year.
It wasn’t long ago, for this franchise, that such things would be considered impossibly good.