The Tragedy of Toronto: The Continued Irrelevance of the Toronto Raptors

This 17^th pick was Roy Hibbert. He is currently an all-star and defensive anchor for the Indiana Pacers. Jermaine O’Neal was traded before the deadline that year after under-performing as expected by many pundits.

Following that disastrous deal, BC had a team with an all-star on the last year of his contract in Chris Bosh entering the 09/10 season. Instead of trading the disgruntled super-star in order to get something back before his contract expired, BC opted to attempt to woo him to stay with a team that had a maximum ceiling of an 8^th seed.

In an attempt to squeeze into the play-offs and keep Bosh, BC did what was quickly becoming his hallmark: he overpaid for a player who was not worth the money. This player was Hedo Turkoglu, who BC decided to bequeath a gargantuan 5-year, $53 million contract. Turkoglu rewarded the investment by showing up to training camp out of shape and showed little effort during the 09/10 campaign, such as when he missed a game due to what he called a ‘stomach virus.’ He was later spotted at a night-club living it up a few hours after the game.

This was the same season that BC signed Bargnani to his 5- year, $50 million dollar contract. The Raptors had gone into the 08/09 off-season flush with cap-space, and instead of waiting out the 09/10 campaign in favour of the 2010 off-season, which eventually saw the most heralded free agent class of all time, BC chose to waste their cap-space on…Andrea Bargnani and Hedo Turkoglu.

The Raptors missed the playoffs yet again. Turkoglu was jettisoned and like a Bosh, Chris Bosh “took his talents to South Beach” the following off-season, prompting the team to go into rebuilding mode, which is odd in retrospect because they seemed to have been rebuilding since 2006.

‘Officially’ Rebuilding:

Having missed the boat on the 2010 free-agent class and having lost their best player in Chris Bosh, the Raptors had little expectations going into the 10/11 season. Instead, they focused on developing their young core, as the season was a bust with the Raptors only winning 22 games.

Because BC had constantly been reaching for the 8^th seed in seasons prior, he had placed the Raptors in the unenviable position of being bad enough to miss the playoffs but good enough to not get a high lottery pick in the draft. Due to his refusal to go for an outright tank, the Raptors were left with little regarding prospects and entered the 10/11 season without a true superstar in waiting. Oklahoma City, on the other hand, had quickly turned a few tanked seasons into James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka, Kevin Durant and a trip to the NBA finals. Following this 22 win season, the Raptors did obtain the number 5 pick in the 2011 draft and parlayed that into Jonas Valanciunas, perhaps the most talented Raptors draft pick in recent memory and admittedly a prudent move on Colangelo’s part.

The lockout shortened season of 11/12 was also considered a rebuilding season by management, however new coach Dwayne Casey was surprisingly able to lead the Raptors to play inspired defensive basketball that year and had them competing every game. Even perennial underachiever Andrea Bargnani managed to play the best stretch of his entire career before going down with injury. This stretch was only 13 games, yet Colangelo assured us that this was a sign of Andrea finally coming into his own.

Apocalypse Now:

Going into the offseason, Raptors fans were optimistic; the team was once again flush with cap space, Bargnani had upped his trade value significantly by actually playing well and Coach Casey appeared to have his team on the right track.