I never thought this day would come for them. As a Toronto Raptors fan since they first arrived to the league, I always thought through one way or another, this title would always allude them. And for a while, I had good reason as for the last 3 seasons, they would make the playoffs only to eventually get eliminated by Lebron James. Heck, even when Lebron went to the Western Conference and we got the trade for Kawhi Leonard for a one year rental, I only thought the best we could do was get to the finals because whoever won the Western Conference (mostly Golden State) would cream us in the NBA Finals. So how did we get here, I guess we have to start at the beginning.
I became a sports fan around the winter of 1993 and for the first few years, my favorite team was whatever team Charles Barkley was on (who was my favorite player of all time).
Charles Barkley Still Gets To Be Great...But Now As A Basketball Analyst For TNT.
And in 1993...I got to experience him in the Finals. Too bad his team was then beaten in Michael Jordan and the Bulls.
Nothing Still Gets Me More Pumped To Watch Some Basketball. Oh How I Miss The NBA No Longer Using That Theme.
Anyway, around 1995, the Toronto Raptors were one of two new expansion teams for the NBA to invade Canada (Toronto only remains since the Vancouver Grizzlies moved to Memphis in 2001) and immediately with the purple jerseys (that they no longer have sadly) and the nickname, I fell immediately in love with this franchise and decided this would be my new favorite NBA team (and unlike my brother who changes teams he roots a lot until recently), I made sure that something majorly sour would have to happen to change my rooting interests. And despite the first season being terrible like most expansion teams first year, we had one good thing going in that in our first season, we were one of the few teams to beat that Chicago Bulls team that went 72-10 that season.
So for a long time since then, while we had great players at times like Damon Stoudamire, Vince Carter (whose Slam Dunk Contest victory was still an all-time great moment for me), Tracy McGrady, and Chris Bosh, we would always have the issue that eventually these players wanted to go elsewhere, getting to a point that some considered being sent to Toronto as some sort of Siberia or for older players, some place they can go to try to stay relevant. So it was pretty hard to be a Raptors fan and have a favorite player when the best players wanted out.
Vince Carter, You Broke My Heart When You Forced The Team To Trade You To The Nets For Basically Nothing, But I've Long Since Forgiven You.
Enter Masai Ujiri, an unknown commodity who was given the GM position after Brian Collangelo decided that he also wanted to go elsewhere to Philadelphia. Of course one of his first trades was to send a guy I kinda liked in Rudy Gay to Sacramento, which looked like the same old, same old. Little did I know that trades like that and the trade of first overall pick Andrea Bargnani were all part of the pieces needed to surround the team with underappreciated players who their own teams thought were expendable, but Toronto knew in the right situation....would be great. Pieces like DeMar DeRozan, Kyle Lowery, Fred Van Vleet, Pascal Siakam, and plenty of others were acquired here with some great trades and draft picks.
Unfortunately, like all of the teams that I support for one reason or another that become either terrible teams or perennial choke artists, the Raptors became the latter where we were almost always considered a dark horse in the conference, but would almost always choke in spectacular fashion. Heck, the last three years like I mentioned earlier, we were beaten by Lebron James' Cavs (the last two via series sweeps in the second round), much to the point that Lebron James sycophants started calling us Lebronto. It was a cruel remark and what made it worse is we really didn't have any rebuttal for it.
But this year would be different, we would go for it all. First, we had to fire the man who would end up Coach of the Year a few days afterwards in Dwayne Casey since we did have a great regular season. Then, we had to make a rental deal when we gave up plenty of good pieces (although in hindsight, it was a trade we obviously won) including the Raptors all time leading scorer in DeMar DeRozan (a move I am sad happened, but it sadly made sense) for a one year rental in Kawhi Leonard, who had been exiled from the Spurs because the Spurs (and fans like Skip Bayless) wrongly thought he quit on the team instead of playing for the team in the playoffs before he was ready to come back. This was a huge gamble and one that could have easily blown up in all our faces.
So in a Lebron-less East, Boston and us were the early favorites. But of course, teams like Philadelphia and MILWAUKEE??? showed up to shock the standings. We at best could only get the two seed in the East (despite having the second best record in all the NBA) and we only got as a good late season acquisition in Marc Gasol. The first series we fought the Orlando Magic and much like we almost always do, we lost the first game. However, we won the next four and beat them.
Then we had to face a Philadelphia 76ers squad (have I ever mentioned how I hate the egotistical and rather dangerous Philadelphia fanbase before because I most certainly do) with Joel Embid, Ben Simmons, and the their in-season acquisition in Jimmy Butler. Despite my hatred for many things Philadelphia, the 76ers took us to the limit and ended up being our toughest series, requiring all seven games and requiring the luckiest of three pointers from Kawhi Leonard at the buzzer to avoid overtime and beat the Sixers.
Then we played the Milwaukee Bucks, who were better than us in the regular season and were pretty much picked by everyone to beat us (including sadly, myself). In the first two games, Milwaukee at their home lived up to the hype and beat us to the point where people were worried we would go down in a sweep. Thankfully, those were taken care of rather quickly as we then won the next two games in our home. But then in Game 5, we had to go back to Milwaukee and almost everyone including myself was dreading it. Heck, I didn't even watch the game and instead focused on finishing the Monster Crap induction of Twilight: Eclipse. After that induction was all ready to be posted, I checked the score and much to my surprise, the Toronto Raptors won. After that pure shock, we played Game 6 in Toronto and despite at one point being down 15 in the third quarter (a time I will also admit I thought we were cooked), we came back and won Game 6 and finally beat the Bucks to reach our first NBA Finals, a feat I would reward the team by spending money to get a custom Raptors jersey with my last name and the number 19 to celebrate the year.
Finally, we had to go up against the team we all dreaded in the Golden State Warriors. While we had our struggles against the Bucks in the Eastern Conference Finals, the Warriors....basically spanked the Portland Trail Blazers and swept them. They were also without Kevin Durant and DeMarcus Cousins when they beat Portland. Everything seemed to show we were probably dead on arrival and as a YouTube shitposter UrinatingTree would say, the NBA was obviously fucked. Thankfully, because we had a better record, we would have the home court advantage. So in Game 1, it was a great shock to everyone that we beat Golden State even with DeMarcus Cousins coming off the bench. That excitement would be short-lived as despite a great first half, the Warriors showed up in the third quarter and beat us in Game 2. So now we had to go to Oracle Arena (in its last year before the Warriors move to a new stadium) for Game 3 & 4. In Game 3, consequences of Game 2 would surface for the Warriors as Klay Thompson and Kevon Looney were unable to play (along with the still injured Kevin Durant) so we definitely had to win this game. We thankfully did, despite a great game by Steph Curry. It of course, all that criticism of us having trash talking Drake as a courtside fan, the Warriors had a courtside asshole of their own who decided to one up us in that department, by shoving Kyle Lowery during the game (oh and that asshole happened to be a part-owner of the team). Then we had to play Game 4 and while I was in the stages of moving Monster Crap HQ to a temporary apartment owned by my mom, the Raptors shocked the world by beating Golden State, who had both Thompson and Looney back in the game.
So yes, we beat Golden State twice in their arena and were coming back to Toronto with a chance to win it all. So the move to the apartment happens, I get my jersey at the last day, despite all the stress, I was hoping for it to lower with a Toronto win. Unfortunately for me, Kevin Durant was returning and through the first half, was lights out. BUT in the second quarter, Kevin Durant tore his Achilles in a while trying to make a move and was not going to return (apologies for our asshole fans who for some reason decided to cheer that a human being got injured). This would show that KD came back before he was ready because of whispers of him not being a leader if he refused to come back when the team needed him the most (sounds familiar to one Kawhi Leonard, huh, Skip Bayless). Despite this tragic circumstance seeming to be the perfect time for Toronto to step on the throat and finish off the Warriors, we blew it and they ended up beating us so we would have to go back to Golden State. The amount of cursing that came out of my mouth was un-fucking-believable.
So in the days after, I would have to go back to the old place to get the last stuff out of there and the stress of that and the Raptors perhaps choking again, was made even worse by the next bit of news. My grandfather (who was battling bone cancer and had just broken his other hip) was on his last days of being alive so my mom had to leave to say her good-byes. I'm sure at some point, there will be an RIP on this, but when that happens, the post will be up. So now onto Game 6 and through the first two quarters, we were barely beating them despite a great first half by Kyle Lowery. In the third quarter, we started falling apart and by the end, the Warriors took the lead by Klay Thompson (who was living up to the mantra that he is great in Game 6). However, tragedy struck as while Klay was making a layup and got fouled, he landed wrongly and had trouble getting up. It seemed the Warriors were cooked again, but despite almost going to the locker room, Klay hobbled his way back to the court and shot the two free throws before heading back to the locker room where he promised his head coach that he would be back in 2 minutes. He seemed to be fine and was running to the locker room as well as at one point doing jumping jacks. However, despite five seconds earlier getting news that he was getting ready to return, the news came that he wasn't returning and walked away in crutches (it turned out after the game that he tore his ACL so all the stuff after the injury and before the news he wasn't coming back is shocking as hell).
It wasn't until the final 5 minutes that we finally took the lead for good thanks to a three pointer by Fred Van Vleet (who was terrible in the beginning of the postseason, but after the birth of his son, became a different and more focused player so he became a great asset for Toronto), but wait....the Warriors were still having a comeback and were primed to win in the end, but that was snuffed out by a laughable moment of Draymond Green, who has had a past of hitting low blows on players and probably the biggest trash talker on the Warriors side, decided to call a time out. You may thing what is the big deal? Well, I'll tell you: the Warriors had no more time outs so that is a technical foul (so Draymond would have been out for Game 7 because that was his 7th and after the 7th, it is an automatic one game suspension). So with 0.9 seconds left, we got a free throw from Kawhi Leonard (which he made to take the lead up 2). Also, we had possession of the ball thanks the tech, so a miracle would need to happen for the Warriors to win, but it didn't come and the Toronto Raptors won the game and won their first NBA Championship.
When the final horn blew, I was loud and I had tears of joy all over my face. Despite all the times of being teased with a great moment only for my team (from whatever sport) to blow it away, I finally got that championship that I had not felt since 1993 when the Toronto Blue Jays won the World Series thanks to my favorite baseball player of all time Joe Carter hitting a home run to win it. Despite it being late and despite all the stress that was causing me to me to not work on my computer and not work on the induction, it was alleviated and the next day after I post this blog post, I will be back to inducting Transmorphers: Fall of Man and will be back to watching movies for my end of the year list. I have so many thank yous to give to former Raptors players as well as the current ones and I have thanks yous to give to fellow Raptors fans who were also there for the ride. I can now say that if the Raptors never win another title as long as I live, I will always have this to look back fondly on because unlike some entitled sports fans who want multiple championships and if you don't do give your body, even at the risk of your own career, you are a quitter and nothing more, I just want one for each pro sport that I am a fan of and that is all. I have that now with MLB and NBA, two more to go (NFL and NHL).
I can also say to players and people who are probably going to leave the team in free agency or for more money in the front office, I am okay with you and will always appreciate everything you did here to give Raptors fans this title. There may be good and there may be bad in the future, but we will ALWAYS have this year. Thanks to all of you who read this far, I know this is not normal for me to ramble this long without it being an induction, but this truly comes from the heart as a person who is also a huge sports fan as well as a fan of movies.
Sincerely,
Seth Drakin…..or as my real name goes, James "Jay" Hughes Jr.
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