Despite enjoying their best season in franchise history, the Toronto Raptors’ championship aspirations ended in familiar fashion on Monday when the Cleveland Cavaliers eliminated them from the postseason for the third consecutive year.
To add insult to injury, they lost in humiliating fashion via a four-game sweep, which only serves to perpetuate the now inescapable reality that the Raps in their current incarnation simply cannot compete with LeBron James.
There is, naturally, plenty of blame to go around, but head coach Dwane Casey was the first to take the fall on Friday when the team announced they were parting ways with him just days after his peers named him Coach of the Year.
How star players react in these situations is always telling, and Kyle Lowry’s somewhat laconic response certainly didn’t give the impression that he was terribly broken up about it.
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/995019001058209793
Kyle Lowry on decision to dismiss to Casey: “They made a decision — and for me, as a leader in the organization — it’s my job to support the decision that (President) Masai (Ujiri) and GM Bobby (Webster) made.” https://t.co/XPTTugUOdQ
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) May 11, 2018
It’s a diplomatic response that speaks to either weary acquiescence or restrained enthusiasm. Casey deserves tremendous credit for the way he re-engineered Toronto’s offense this season, and he’ll still likely be a top candidate for Coach of the Year at the NBA Awards next month.
But repeated failures in the postseason have made him a lightning rod for criticism, whether fair or not. And the front office likely isn’t done there. Their star duo of Lowry and DeRozan has proved consistently that they can’t compete against LeBron and the Cavs, primarily on a psychological level, which no amount of roster retooling can fix.
The future of the franchise hangs in the balance in the offseason ahead.
