Over the past half-decade, the Toronto Raptors have enjoyed a prolonged period of regular season success, but they’ve still never competed in an NBA final. The closest they got was the conference finals in 2016, when they met the eventual champion Cleveland Cavaliers, and shocked almost everyone by winning two games against them.
That was the peak of the Lowry/DeRozan era, which, is now officially over. Raptors president Masai Ujiri made one last swing for the fences by trading for Spurs star Kawhi Leonard.
Acquiring a player of Leonard’s stature is unprecedented in Raptors history. As noted by almost every pundit, big name free-agents don’t sign in Toronto – they just don’t.