From Pessimism to Optimism

The Past, Present, and Future of the Toronto Raptors on its 20th Anniversary

Part 1: The Revolving Door

As the Raptors enter their twentieth season, long-time armchair GMs like myself and faithful fans of the franchise can recall the painful journey that the team has taken since Toronto was awarded a National Basketball Association (NBA) team back in 1995. Over the past two decades, we had arguably the league’s one-time most exciting offensive player (in shooting guard/small forward Vince Carter), a genuine superstar in the waiting (in shooting guard/small forward Tracy McGrady), an all-star power forward/center (in Antonio Davis), two loyal foot soldiers (in point guard Alvin Williams and small forward Morris Peterson), an undersized but solid floor general (in Point Guard Damon Stoudamire), a future Hall-of-Fame center (Hakeem Olajuwon), as well as savvy veterans whom opponents did not want to mess with in the low post area (in power fowards/centers Charles Oakley and Kevin Willis).  However, in spite of all that talent on the court at one point or another, the franchise never truly found success for the overwhelming majority of its existence. In fact, the team only made the NBA playoffs a  grand total of six times in twenty seasons with its only sustained playoff run coming in the 2000-2001 season during the heyday of Vince Carter. Why?

The reasons contributing to the failures of the Toronto Raptors are different at various stages of the franchise. Let us look at the pre-Vince Carter era, defined as the period from 1995-1998. Did we have a superstar? No. Did we have good players? Yes, but really only one: Stoudamire (known as Mighty Mouse). He was subsequently dispatched to the Portland Trail Blazers on 13 February 1998, along with Walt Williams and Carlos Rogers for Kenny Anderson, Alvin Williams, Gary Trent, two first-round draft picks, a second-round draft pick, and cash considerations. This trade pretty much sums up the biggest hurdle the franchise faced at the time: the inability to retain its own talent! Why?  It was because no NBA players wanted to play for a lowly expansion team that was made up of marginal talent and castoffs (most of whom would have realistically only qualified as rotation players at best on other teams, if not relegated to playing ‘garbage minutes’), no NBA players wanted to play for a losing team, and no NBA players wanted to play in a foreign country located thousands of miles away from their families (Canada). Indeed, the team really had no choice but to trade Stoudamire (the face of the franchise at the time) because he would have left as an unrestricted free agent after the 1997-1998 season (yes, the length of the entry-level rookie contract  was shorter than today based on the collective bargaining agreement back then). Thus, after inaugural GM Isaiah Thomas abruptly resigned from his position (triggered by his failed bid to obtain majority ownership of the team), GM Glen Grunwald (who replaced Thomas) had to pull the trigger on the deal in order to secure assets for Stoudamire. Otherwise, Toronto would have lost Mighty Mouse to unrestricted free agency, leaving the Raptors with nothing to show for. These are sad facts, but they are also painful realities for those of us who followed the franchise since day one.

 

Even before Toronto selected Stoudamire (who won the 1995-1996 NBA Rookie of the Year Award) in the first round of the 1995 NBA Draft with the seventh overall pick, the Raptors experienced a similar problem. In the 1995 NBA expansion draft, the Raptors used the first overall pick to take point guard B. J. Armstrong, who was coming off an all-star season with the Chicago Bulls after assuming more on-court responsibilities as a leader in light of Michael Jordan’s first retirement. Armstrong was described as the only true prize of the expansion draft because he had been voted into the 1994 NBA All-Star Game as a starter in addition to finishing second in the NBA in three-point field goal percentage at .444, not to mention that he led the Bulls to a fifty-five win season and a second-round appearance in the NBA playoffs. However, Armstrong refused to report to Toronto and instead officially demanded a trade (presumably for reasons that I discussed earlier), eventually forcing the franchise to ship him to the Golden State Warriors for power forwards Carlos Rogers and Victor Alexander.

 

Bottom line, the biggest obstacle that the Toronto Raptors faced in its early days was that the team was not able to retain any of its core players, regardless of whether they were drafted or traded for by the franchise.  As such, Toronto failed to construct a roster with any sustainable talent or depth.  During this initial phase, the Raptors not only had to effectively build their fifteen-man roster from essentially ground zero, but the franchise was mired by additional challenges. First, the team was unable to build through the draft because their first round selections would opt to leave the franchise at the earliest possible time. Second, Toronto could not trade for elite talent because it did not have the kind of attractive young players or established superstars that opposing teams wanted, especially since power forward Marcus Camby was frequently injured and future superstar Tracy McGrady was only eighteen years old and coming off the bench in games after being drafted by the Raptors in the first round of the 1997 NBA Draft with the ninth overall pick. Third, the franchise failed to attract any top-tier unrestricted agents to town because none of them would want to play for Toronto for reasons that I outlined earlier, particularly since they could choose their own destination.

 

Did the Raptors manage to stop the bleeding? Eventually, the answer is yes (for a few years anyway during the Vince Carter era, before the problem began to resurface). Unfortunately, even with Carter in the fold, the franchise was unable able to get past the second round of the NBA playoffs. To understand what held the team back, be sure to tune in to Part 2 of my article