Since taking over the helm of the Toronto Raptors, Masai Ujiri has driven home one specific message.
"At the end of the day, we are trying to win a championship here."
That was Ujiri on Tuesday at his end-of-season media availability, but it isn’t a new point. Attempting to win a championship is the goal of every organization, but since he returned to Toronto in 2013 Ujiri has purposely mentioned this idea of NBA basketball being all about winning.
He’s not wrong, of course. In the NBA there’s no such thing as moral victories. While the talent disparity between teams can make matchups feel like David vs. Goliath, the reality is there’s no divine being at work who will help the underdog emerge victorious. In the NBA, Goliath laughs at David’s puny sling and then proceeds to crush him.
Such was the case in the Cleveland Cavaliers’ four-game sweep of the Raptors. There was no mercy to be had; LeBron James quickly and decisively snuffed out any hope of winning the series.
As much as we’d like to think otherwise, sports are a lot like real life, and real life can be really depressing.
So, after seeing their idealistic dreams of beating the Cavs absolutely shattered, what do the Raptors do now? What should Ujiri do now?
"We need, after that performance, we need a culture reset here," the Raptors president said Tuesday.
So then, what is a culture reset? It could be anything, but when it comes down to it, it should only mean one thing: bring out the dynamite and blow this core up.
Ujiri’s already supposedly got the blessing from MLSE to take this team in any direction he chooses. That includes gutting it and starting anew. If he’s really serious about one day winning a championship, there’s no other choice than to hit that "reset" button he was alluding to and try again from scratch.
Is this solution extreme? Yeah, it is. But that’s just where the Raptors are at the moment, standing at a risky crossroads with the unknown staring them down in all directions. Thus, even though a complete tear down can definitely be defined as a more dire measure, it may also be the Raptors’ safest.
How can this be? It’s simple: going down any other path means risking a lot of money for potentially the same reward, or less.
Should the Raptors decide to get the band back together, meaning re-signing Kyle Lowry, Serge Ibaka and probably choosing between P.J. Tucker or Patrick Patterson, they’ll probably win 50 or more games again and likely find themselves experiencing some déjà vu. Sure, there’s always a chance James gets injured and misses time, but part of LeBron’s greatness has been his uncanny knack for avoiding major injury. Do you really want to rely on random chance to have a shot at winning it all?
Secondly, regardless of what the Raptors decide to do with their free agents, do they even have the right coach in place? What was most curious from Ujiri’s Tuesday press conference was that despite the Raptors president talking about a culture change, he then proceeded to somewhat contradict himself by endorsing coach Dwane Casey.
Casey’s been the head coach since 2011 and brought with him his own "Pound the Rock" culture built on defensive toughness. However, as the league has rapidly changed, his all-defence mentality has become more and more archaic, culminating in the four-game three-point exhibition beatdown at the hands of the Cavaliers.
There’s no denying Casey’s character and decency as a human being. Unfortunately, as mentioned before, the NBA doesn’t hand out championships to good people. Results are everything, and despite the back-to-back 50-win seasons the same problems have come up time and again. The team’s always struggled to move the ball properly on offence under Casey, the rotation has always been questioned because he’s appeared to prioritize his bench unit at all costs over his starters. Finally, for a defensive coach, the Raptors have actually seen their defensive prowess continue to slip on an annual basis in this four-year run of success.
Granted, you can make the argument that Casey didn’t have the right personnel in place and has been working with what he has but that’s getting, more or less, into a chicken-and-egg debate. It doesn’t matter if this same core of Lowry, DeMar DeRozan and Co. have Casey or not, or if Casey has a new group of players or not, the fact is that keeping any of these guys doesn’t speak to the kind of change Ujiri was making reference to.
It was a fun run, but it’s over now. This group clearly hit its ceiling and it’s time to move on. That means letting Lowry, Patterson, Ibaka and Tucker all walk, thanking Casey for his great years of service, then saying goodbye and potentially trading DeRozan.
This doesn’t have to happen all overnight, and even could be dragged out into the trade deadline of next season, but the wheels must be put in motion.
Going through with a tear down will mean a lot of pain for Raptors fans, but this wouldn’t be without light at the end of the tunnel. James, as previously mentioned, is nigh indestructible, but he is also still human and while, at age 32, he’s at the peak of his powers, what happens three to four years down the line? You’d have to think his greatness would’ve diminished at least a little at that point, right?
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This is where the Raptors can start with this off-season. If they blow it up, rebuild right and align with the decline of LeBron, then the Raptors’ path to a title starts to become much clearer. There’s no shame in admitting you can’t get past a top-five player of all-time in the post-season. So why not take the scenic route around him, and when the opportunity is there take that straight line to the Finals.
Ujiri’s always claimed he’s about winning. If this is true, he already knows what must be done.
