How do former players feel about Raptors’ 2019 championship?
When the Toronto Raptors won a championship in 2019, though the franchise was only 24 years old, it had already picked up quite an extensive list of former flings. Those players look back on what went through their minds seeing their former team reach newfound success.
Breakups are never easy, especially in the digital age. With social media and the constant bombardment of your mutual happenings, it’s nearly impossible to avoid any sort of news concerning your former significant others. Best you can do is hit the block or uninstall button.
With sports, well, no such button exists. When your former team wins a championship without you, there’s no avoiding that.
When the Toronto Raptors won a championship in 2019, though the franchise was only 24 years old, it had already picked up quite an extensive list of former flings, including many who parted ways with the team on not-so-great terms. And for them, there was no looking away as their ex got a ring put around their finger.
At the forefront of that, and perhaps the player holding the biggest grudge, was DeMar DeRozan, whose breakup from the team is the primary reason they made it to the top of the mountain in the first place.
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Raptors Delight documentary on Sportsnet
Raptors Delight: Part 4 focuses on the ultimate prize, the team’s ascencion to championship status in 2019 and all the pieces that played a part in reaching basketball’s pinnacle, as told through the lens of those involved. Check out the fourth episode of the documentary, airing March 24.
He’s gone on record countless times saying that he has no doubt in his mind that the Raptors would’ve still reached the top had they not traded him for Kawhi Leonard that eventful summer of 2018, and doubled down on that notion in his latest conversation with Sportsnet.
“I always envisioned me winning here, that was my only goal, to be here and win,” DeRozan said in episode four of Raptors Delight, a Sportsnet documentary about the rise of the franchise. “If I was still there we would’ve won, no question.”
In addition to the blockbuster move for Leonard, the Raptors also made a shrewd decision to acquire former defensive player of the year Marc Gasol from the Memphis Grizzlies at the 2019 trade deadline, cementing their contender status.
The unlucky player heading the other way in that deal was Jonas Valanciunas. The Raptors drafted the centre fifth overall in 2011 and had developed him for the better part of seven years. Though it was an easier pill to swallow for the Lithuanian big man, seeing someone else donning the ring you thought you would help earn remains hard to accept.
“I’m happy for my guys, I’m supporting them, I’ve seen their growth from day one,” Valanciunas told Sportsnet. “Also I’m a bit (mad) because I’m not there.”
This isn’t to say that every former Raptor looks back on the championship with regret and envy. In fact, seeing the Raptors reach the summit came with a great deal of pride for some of the franchise’s most well-known former figureheads.
Though he left the franchise on bad terms, Vince Carter has been a key figure at the front of a revitalization of the team’s past — one centred around the forgiveness of old grievances.
With his jersey hung in the rafters at Scotiabank Arena and the love he has shown in recent years to the franchise that drafted him, Carter’s pride in seeing the team win a ring should come as no surprise.
“I enjoyed being there to witness that because I was a former player,” Carter said. “I think that’s how any former player (reacts), you get to be in the building with your former team, whether you won one or not, I got to see it. It was darn cool.”
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Even guys like Tracy McGrady and Damon Stoudamire, whose legacies are intertwined with the Raptors but played only short stints with the team to start their careers, reflect fondly on seeing their former squad achieve heights they missed out on while there.
“It’s like a proud moment because you know you had something to do with that, in terms of the way it was built,” McGrady said when asked about how it feels looking at the path the Raptors took to the championship. “You look around the NBA, you see all the Canadians in the league and the impact that you had. So you had no choice but to feel connected to that because you know you started it.”
Added Stoudamire: “It was like our championship. It was a beautiful thing to watch, to see the city finally have their chance to be the best in basketball.”
A championship doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s a product of all those who came before, whether it be the guys who laid the groundwork 24 years earlier or the ones who played pivotal roles for only months.
When looking back at the Raptors’ title in 2019, it wasn’t just the moves that happened over the course of the year that defined their ascension to the top of the NBA, it was built on the foundation set in stone years before. Though only a select few were handed rings for the accomplishment, it doesn’t diminish the efforts or feelings of the players who made a mark in days gone by.
There is no success without failure and there is no present or future without past. And though some may look at the title wishing it had been them representing the city and team, in their own ways, they are.
“It wasn’t that long ago that people were saying ‘Toronto could never get the players to win a championship, it will never happen. Never happen.’” said John Bitove Jr., the Raptors’ first owner and founder.
“They did it.”
Nothing can take that away.
The fourth episode of “Raptors Delight,” titled The Prize, will air on Monday, following the Raptors’ game against the Washington Wizards on Sportsnet ONE.
