What's next for the Raptors? A lot of hard questions with no easy answers

For the third year in a row, the Toronto Raptors were rudely ejected from the NBA Playoffs by LeBron James. Toronto finished with a franchise-best 59 wins, but the regular season Raptors and the playoff Raptors are polar opposites. The playoff Raptors struggled through the first round and were swept out of the second.

Now, Toronto has to refocus on the future and figure out what the heck to make from an incredibly successful regular season that ended helplessly, hopelessly, and haplessly in the second round.

The Raptors have some options, and general manager Masai Ujiri is one of the best at assessing said options before making a decision. The decision he makes could be the biggest in Toronto history. Should he start the painstakingly slow process of blowing up a talented team, or double-down on a deep roster that fell short to the best basketball player on the planet?

Let’s look at the whole thing.

Salary cap

No matter what the Raptors do, they have to come to the realization that — unless they take a wrecking ball and bulldoze the team at we know it — the core they have now is most likely the one they will have for at least the next two years. Toronto has $126 million in guaranteed contracts for next year and $121 million guaranteed for the 2019-20 season.

Serge Ibaka has two more years worth more than $40 million remaining on his contract, and Jonas Valanciunas will likely exercise his player option and opt-into his $17.6 million salary for the 2019-20 season. If the Raptors want to clear any real cap space moving forward, they’ll have to make decisions on their all-star back court.

NBA: Playoffs-Toronto Raptors at Cleveland Cavaliers

DeRozan reinvented his entire game, and it still wasn’t enough. He shot fewer midrange jump shots and attempted more threes than ever before. He stopped pounding the ball into the ground and averaged a career best in assists. DeRozan took his game to a new level. That level resulted in a repeat sweep at the hands of the Cavaliers.

DeRozan is 28 and still in his prime, but the remaining three years at $83 million on his contract is still a big chunk of change to bite for a player who keeps falling short in the postseason.

If the Raptors were to move on from DeRozan, it would signal the end of this era of Toronto basketball and undoubtedly the ushering in of a youth movement coupled with successive years toiling in the bottom half of the East. Ujiri would need to find a way to shed his contract and take back young players and draft assets. Not an easy feat, but it’s possible.

First thought: Los Angeles Lakers. Would the Lakers be willing to bow out of the free agent market and trade their first-round pick for DeMar DeRozan? They have the cap space to absorb his salary without offering much in return and could even shed Luol Deng’s two years at $36 million in the process. A DeRozan trade would be about positioning the Raptors for the future, ideally a future without LeBron James. Toronto’s most promising players are the young ones Ujiri drafted. What happens if he gets a shot at a star?

Out-of-the-box thought: Oklahoma City Thunder. If Toronto wants to press the big red button on this team and fast, they have to trade DeRozan’s contract for an expiring one. The Raptors could send DDR to OKC for Carmelo Anthony, Terrance Ferguson and a first-round pick. That gets DeRozan away from LeBron for good, gives Russell Westbrook an all-star teammate no matter what Paul George does in free agency, and clears Toronto’s cap books of $28 million after Anthony’s contract expires in 2019. It also gives Melo a chance to show he has something left in the tank after his last max deal runs out.

Like I said, an out-of-the-box thought, but if the Raptors want to pivot to the future, this is the quickest way to do it.

Another out-of-the-box thought: Detroit Pistons. The Pistons are hard-capped with absolutely no cap flexibility, and their roster outside of Blake Griffin and Andre Drummond leaves a whole lot to be desired. They can’t improve in free agency and they’ve whiffed on recent draft picks. A trade is the only real way for Detroit to get better, and even though a DeRozan-Drummond-Griffin lineup makes for a whole lot of 2s, it gives the Pistons more talent than they could come up with otherwise.

Lowry is scheduled to collect $64 million over the next two seasons. He was solid in the playoffs this season, averaging 19 points and eight assists on better than 50 percent shooting from the field and 45 percent shooting from three. Forget the fact that he’s 32 years old. Lowry is a bulldog with a lot of bite left and could be a good fit on a playoff team with cap space and a need for an all-star point guard.

First thought: Indiana Pacers. They’d be one hell of a team if they replaced Darren Collison with Lowry, though matching his salary would pose a challenge.

Another thought: Denver Nuggets. Denver was searching for point guard help midseason, and even though Jamal Murray and Gary Harris are the future, they could use a bridge guard to help usher in an era of playoff basketball in Denver. The deal costs the Nuggets a first-round draft pick, but what’s the value of making the playoffs in the West for a team that hasn’t been in the postseason since 2012?

Out-of-the-box thought: Charlotte Hornets. Michael Jordan said he wouldn’t trade Kemba Walker unless he got an all-star in return and was able to unload one or more of Charlotte’s exorbitant contracts. Given Walker’s status as a grossly underpaid all-star and the Hornets status as a team in limbo with no real pathway toward improving its roster, a Lowry trade could make sense here.

Toronto Raptors v Cleveland Cavaliers - Game Three

Casey’s revamped offense has been covered ad nauseum, and it worked during the regular season. The Raptors looked like a completely different team with a system founded on ball movement and perimeter shooting versus its old isolation-heavy ways. But even with its new offensive scheme, a deep bench, and a ball that whipped around the court more frequently than any previous year in this Raptors era, Toronto managed zero wins against a Cavaliers team that blew it up midseason and finished just fourth in the East.

Ujiri gave Casey the pieces and those pieces fit for 82 games. Then it became a jigsaw puzzle Toronto’s coach just couldn’t solve in the playoffs. A good chunk of the blame has to fall on his shoulders.

If the Raptors plan on keeping this roster together as is, the team could benefit from a fresh voice and perspective. Remember, the Warriors didn’t get over the hump until the unpopular decision was made to replace Mark Jackson with a rookie head coach in Steve Kerr. Maybe it’s Jerry Stackhouse, whose work with the Raptors 905 squad led to a G-League championship. A new voice could work. If they’re keeping this core together, it might be welcomed.

But if Toronto is blowing things up, Casey could stay as coach at least another season or two. There’s no point in hiring a new coach when the roster is going to continually turn over unless Ujiri finds his version of Brett Brown in Philadelphia. But fee expected Brown to stick around to reap the benefits of Philly’s process. In any event, that’s a totally different scenario from Toronto’s, though one — at this point — many Raptors fans wish they could take.

Casey did everything he could to bring Toronto into the modern NBA. It worked until it didn’t. What’s left for him to do except try again?

Should the Raptors blow it up?

Probably not. It’s a terribly disappointing end to a promising regular season, but this is still one of the more talented teams in the NBA. You don’t just win 59 games by accident; you win 59 games because you’re a damn good team.

But something will have to change if this team’s going to move forward. They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, and Toronto has changed everything except its core of DeRozan and Lowry. At this point, it might be unhealthy to think this duo will be more successful than they have been. It could be time for a trade.

But sometimes, waiting it out could be just as powerful as blowing it up. It’s a tough scenario Toronto is in; it’s exactly why Ujiri gets paid the big bucks.

It’ll be his job to steer the Raptors through this depressing time in franchise history on the heels of a second straight sweep at the hands of the world’s best basketball player. LeBron is the difference, and the Raptors will never have LeBron nor a player remotely of his caliber.

That could be it right there. James has had his way with the Raptors since they put together this core. There are many ways for Toronto to deal with this pain. It’s up to Ujiri to choose wisely.

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