This is the one week in the basketball calendar where playing basketball actually doesn’t matter too much at all, it becomes second fiddle to the theatrics and grandeur of the trade deadline. The Toronto Raptors were no exception here.
Teams mortgage their future with intentions to win now, while other teams accept that this isn’t their year and that maybe looking to the future is an appropriate course of action. Some trades hit, and some miss big time. That’s not something we can accurately predict a day after the deadline, it could take until the playoffs to get a real grasp.