An oft-used sports maxim is that the trade you don’t make is often your best. For the Toronto Raptors, the free agent they couldn’t sign in the summer of 2012 turned out to be the key to a better future.
Like many parts of Raptors history, it’s complicated. But it all began with a phone call at 12:01 a.m. on July 1 that year. Toronto had finished out of the playoffs for a fourth straight year, and GM Bryan Colangelo believed an aging Canadian legend could help lead the way out of the mire.