Toronto Raptors: How the Raptors build a championship team

Smart moves, obvious and otherwise

The clear goal of MLSE when Masai Ujiri was hired was to bring an NBA Championship to Toronto and Masai definitely had his work cut out for him. The roster he inherited from Bryan Colangelo was too low on talent and too high on salary.

In short order, Ujiri lived his reputation for making smart moves. After just a little over a month as the Raptors GM, on July 10, 2013, Ujiri traded Andrea Bargnani to the New York Knicks in a move that can only be described as unloading.

Andrea Bargnani

Bargnani was drafted by the Toronto Raptors first overall in the 2007 NBA draft. If only Masai had been the GM at the time. Had that been the case, I think it’s a safe bet that the Raptors would have drafted 7-time All-Star and 5-time All-NBA team selection LaMarcus Aldridge.

Whatever the reasoning, Bargnani was picked instead. On paper, you wouldn’t think that Bargnani was as terrible as the comments you hear from Raptors fans. According to one Reddit conversation, the overall consensus seems to be that Bargnani was talented and had early success but lacked the motivation to improve his game and generally just didn’t care that much about basketball. How much of this is true, only Bargnani himself knows, but the result was that he ended up being an incredibly disappointing draft pick, especially at first overall and the Raptors’ loyal were elated to see him go.

Lou Williams

There is no denying that Lou Williams’ time with Toronto was wildly entertaining. The man is a scoring machine and it didn’t take long for him to become a fan favorite. Who can forget when fans at what was then the Air Canada Center began the easily confused call of LOOOOOOU whenever he got his hands on the ball? A habit that hilariously prompted a Reddit thread asking why Toronto fans were booing Lou Williams.

That season, Lou Williams won the first of what would become 3 Sixth Man awards in 5 seasons… so far. He was forever cemented into Toronto and Raptors lore when hip-hop superstar and Raptors superfan Drake wrote a song referencing Williams called 6 Man, a play on Williams himself as well as Drake’s popularization of calling Toronto The 6ix because of the 416 area code that belongs to the city.

So, at the end of the season, when Lou Williams opted to become a free agent, it was a bit of a shock when Masai Ujiri didn’t make him an offer. Williams was apparently as surprised as anyone as he discussed in an interview on the Tim & Sid show.

Although I have to say, he seems to have contradicted his sentiments that he wanted to be in Toronto this summer when he publically shared his beliefs about why he feels that Toronto can’t hold on to NBA stars.

Anyway…

Ultimately, moving on from Lou Williams was another step toward the Raptors’ ultimate goal. As incredible as Lou Wiliams is, his style of play leans heavily toward iso-ball and therein lies the problem. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the Raptors had signed Lou Williams to a four-year deal.  If Lou Williams had still been a Raptor in all likelihood, the Bench Mob of the 2017- 18 season never would have happened.

And if the Bench Mob doesn’t happen, maybe Pascal Siakam misses taking steps towards becoming  Spicy P, an integral part of Toronto’s Championship starting line up. Maybe Fred VanVleet doesn’t find his footing as a leader for the second unit which he would have to do the following season without the benefit of Pascal Siakam coming off the bench. Maybe Jakob Poeltl doesn’t get enough touches to make him of interest to the San Antonio Spurs and Masai can’t make the Kawhi Leonard trade work.

Something to think about, right?