The Toronto Raptors winning 59 games and earning the top seed in the Eastern Conference couldn’t save coach Dwane Casey from getting fired this offseason.
Mere days after being awarded the Coach of the Year award by his peers, Casey was handed his walking papers by the Raptors after a third straight playoff exit at the hands of LeBron James and the Cavs. Casey’s firing had been rumored to be coming, but still felt like a stunning decision given the team’s success under him over his tenure in Toronto.
Casey’s firing would seem to indicate that Masai Ujiri and the Raptors front office will hope that a new voice can come in and get a little more out of this group. That probably means Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan aren’t getting traded this summer, although it’s still possible, and that a new coach will get at least a year to come in and see if he can lead this roster to more playoff success.
According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, that coach may be former Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer (who has seemingly popped up in every coaching search this offseason), as he will get a serious look from the Raptors.
Former Atlanta Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer is expected to get a close inspection for the Raptors opening, league sources said. Budenholzer met with Milwaukee on Tuesday, league sources said.
Given Budenholzer being a frontrunner for the Milwaukee job, the timing on Casey’s firing makes more sense, as they wanted to ensure they had the full candidate pool to choose from and interview before the Bucks potentially swiped one of the top coaches off of the market. The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor also noted on Twitter that Budenholzer would be the likely favorite for the Toronto job.
Watch out for Mike Budenholzer as the next Raptors head coach… https://t.co/UrVpQIpcIP
— Kevin O'Connor (@KevinOConnorNBA) May 11, 2018
Budenholzer led a Hawks team that had stalled out to their best season in Atlanta franchise history, but like Casey was never able to get past the big boss of the East, going 0-8 in the last two postseasons against LeBron James. Budenholzer would certainly bring more offensive creativity to the Raptors, which is something they crave, but it remains to be seen if that would be enough to significantly improve a team that was seemingly getting a ton out of the whole roster already.
The best case scenario for the Raptors is they hire a new coach and LeBron leaves the East, which would likely lead to more postseason success even if it would be wildly unfair to say it was the effect of firing Casey.
