Raptors are NBA Champions!

The Toronto Raptors are NBA Champions. They made this happen by not waiting another year to keep building upon their already consecutive playoff team. Once Lebron James finally left the East in the summer of 2018, after fifteen years of his reign of the conference. The East became wide open and instead of playing it back with the team that had had the best record in the East the year before they decided to go all in. The biggest move they made was dealing All-Star and former franchise player Damar Derozan for a player in Kawhi Leonard who had been upset with his situation with the Spurs. This was a risky move because Kawhi hadn’t played all last season and only had one year left on his contract before he becomes an unrestricted free agent. Essentially the Raptors traded the franchise for a possible one year rental of what was two years ago arguably the best player in the league. This was championship or bust for the organization.

The team didn’t stop there and at the trade deadline they decided to upgrade at the center position and trade younger Jonas Valanciunas for former All-Star and veteran Marc Gasol who also only had one year left on his contract. Going into the playoffs the raptors looked as if they would be the same unfortunate organization, losing game one of their opening series versus an under undermatched Magic team. Things would turn around quickly as they started to get hot and popped off four straight wins to end the series in 5. In the semi’s they battled as they went seven games with a young up and coming 76ers team. Winning game seven on a bouncing buzzer beater by who else other than Kawhi Leonard. In the conference finals they beat league MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo in six games sending a Canadian team to the NBA Finals for the first time ever. The risk was all worth it as the Raptors were the better team in all but a third quarter meltdown in Game 2 and a late collapse in Game 5. The Warriors were no longer the champs and Kawhi was awarded Finals MVP.