The Toronto Raptors were everyone’s focus at the trade deadline in February.
Their season was seemingly collapsing as they struggled to stay in a Play-In spot, a hard fall from grace for the 2019 champions who seemed unable to maintain anything more than a middling playoff spot.
This looked like a veteran team that had reached its expiration date.
There was agitation between key players and the coaching staff (the team fired Nick Nurse at the end of the season). They had several expiring contracts that did not seem likely to return — and even if they did, they were not likely to get out of the first round even with some promising and established players.