Title: Rebuild or retool? What ‘patience’ means in new Raptors era
Date: January 19, 2024
Original Source: Sportsnet
Synopsis: In my latest at Sportsnet, I took a look at the Raptors new outlook after two massive trades and what it could mean for their timeline back to competing.
In nearly 11 years with Masai Ujiri at the helm of the Raptors, there have only been three brief instances in which the idea of a rebuild felt possible.
The first, famously, was following the trades of Andrea Bargnani and Rudy Gay, when Kyle Lowry’s bags were packed for New York. That trade would have brought back at least one decent prospect and one first-round pick. Both spiritually and on the court, it would have ushered in far more losing and a gaze toward the long term. That was Ujiri taking over a situation he hadn’t built, and as fate would have it, the intermediate moves clicked in such a way that the more drastic ideas were never truly revisited.
The second was when the pandemic forced the Raptors to play a season out of Tampa, a thoroughly unenjoyable situation that, eventually, saw the Raptors punt on victories in a lost season. While they never quite bottomed out — they finished with the seventh-worst record in the league, hardly the “tank” in Tampa Tank — they got some good lottery fortune, smartly selected Scottie Barnes against consensus, and returned to Toronto the following season ready to compete once again.
The third came Thursday.
Blake Murphy Sports Writing 