Close to being the hunted instead of the hunters in the NBA’s Eastern Conference, the Toronto Raptors have reached the league’s trade deadline in an unusual position.
With a solid roster that is a game out of first place and charging, they now must worry about what teams around them will do in pursuit of them, rather than what they have to do to track some other team down.
That’s not to suggest there aren’t ways for president Masai Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster to improve the 37-16 team before Thursday’s 3 p.m. deadline, but the bigger interest comes in what teams around them might do.