I went to the Toronto Raptors’ 2019 media day prepared to play a game. My notepad held a chart ready to tally every time a player or coach used a variation of the phrase ‘defending champion.’ I thought scores would be in the dozens, that it would be a pervasive attitude: we are champions so we have nothing to prove, with or without Kawhi Leonard. I was wrong.
The distance the Raptors gave the term ‘defending champion’ almost predicted 2020’s extensive quarantine. For the record, Serge Ibaka won my experiment, with two uses of the phrase. Most players refused to call themselves champions at all, even when media hand-fed the quote on a platter. The Raptors may have raised their laurels to the sky in a banner ceremony for the ages, and they may have studded their rings with the most championship laurels in history, but they are not sitting on anything. Toronto entered the season discontent, dissatisfied, and in disbelief of their continued dismissal.
The Raptors lost, arguably, the greatest player in the world coming into 2019-20. And the team remained as dominant as ever. The Raptors opened the season winning seven of nine, including a groundbreaking win over the Los Angeles Lakers in which Pascal Siakam turned Kyle Kuzma into a turnstile. Then Toronto kept that frantic pace of winning consistent for the rest of the year, at least until the NBA, along with the rest of the world, was suspended. By the time COVID-19 locked the doors, the Toronto Raptors were the third-ranked team in the NBA. They accomplished that despite suffering one of the unluckiest injury sprees in the league. The Raptors missed 219 man-games to injury in 2019-20, fifth-worst in the NBA, including 27 from Marc Gasol, 20 from Norman Powell, 16 from Fred VanVleet, 14 from Serge Ibaka, 12 from Kyle Lowry, and 11 from Pascal Siakam.
A list of Toronto’s achievements already accomplished in 2019-20 would be extensive. The Raptors feasibly had six players in the midst of career years. Certainly Siakam, VanVleet, OG Anunoby, Powell, and Pat McCaw were playing the best basketball of their careers. Each of the first four would likely have won a vote or two for Most Improved Player of the year, even after Siakam won the award in 2018-19. Add in Ibaka, who was arguably playing the best basketball of his life, too, especially on the offensive end. His abilities as a roller, popper, offensive rebounder, and stand-still shooter proved to be some of Toronto’s most consistent scoring weapons. Even Lowry, surely bound for the Hall of Fame, was in the midst of one of the best three or four seasons of his career, and he accomplished that as a 34-year-old point guard standing generously at six-foot-nothing.
It need not be said, but NBA teams don’t have half the roster notch career years at the same time. Let alone the year after winning a championship. And as a result, the Raptors were about to enter the playoffs as a legitimate championship threat.
There were other smaller moments worth celebrating. Kyle Lowry, one of the best charge-takers in NBA history, took a charge in the All-Star game. From Kawhi Leonard. The Raptors recorded the largest comeback victory in franchise history against the Dallas Mavericks, all without Siakam. Terence Davis launched his NBA career as a hugely fun bench player who can rise up from three and yam on opponents from the guard spot. Hometown kid Oshae Brissett suited up to play for his Raptors. It hasn’t happened yet, but Head Coach Nick Nurse is a decent bet to win Coach of the Year. And alongside all the good, there were no real negatives to counterbalance the joy inherent to Raptors fandom. Maybe the most controversial element of the season was the minute share between McCaw and Davis. Even though Davis had far better traditional and advanced statistics, Nurse preferred McCaw for the lion’s share of eighth-man minutes. In the grand scheme of things, that problem was not a big one.
For months, the Raptors’ existence as the best story in the NBA was uncomplicated. And now, with insurrection sweeping so many major city centers across the United States, the NBA is resuming its season in a confused way at a confused time.
Basketball is less important than massive social upheaval. And before you say sports and politics should be separate, the NBA is inextricably linked to Black Lives Matters protests. A huge number of NBA players and Raptors have participated in varying protests, including Kyle Lowry in his hometown Philadelphia. Masai Ujiri wrote a thoughtful op-ed about the necessity of using one’s platform to combat racism. Furthermore, the NBA is predominantly a business populated by black men; to pretend that sports and politics should be separate is a disingenuous argument that on one hand seeks to enjoy black culture while simultaneously refusing to value the people who provide that entertainment. The return of basketball is nuanced and multi-faceted. Watching sports is an act that requires time and attention, so it takes eyes and focus away from the fight for positive social change. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; people need distraction, of course. But there’s a balance. And because the NBA has not in any way demonstrated how or why a return to play will be safe in light of the ongoing pandemic, it’s not clear whether the NBA returning to play is on the positive or negative side of the balance.
The 2019-20 season was always going to be a freebie for the Raptors. A defending champion that loses its best player has low expectations; ask the Cleveland Cavaliers (twice). Toronto surpassed any and all reasonable hope. And that matters, full stop. What Toronto accomplished before the train slipped the rails should not be relegated in significance. And no matter what happens next, the Raptors will not lose any shine. The playoffs, much like the regular season, are a cherry on an ever-growing sundae.
While the successes of the Raptors may not lose any shine, the state of the world does offer important perspective. There are more important things than sports. It’s easy to forget that simple lesson. It’s easy to think that winning a championship or signing a superstar are the greatest possible things in the world. But that’s never been true. No matter what comes next, the 2019-20 Toronto Raptors were champions. And that is still not the most important thing in the world. Don’t let the return of sports diminish your focus on positive change that can be made in the world, both in your individual sphere as well as the larger, increasingly interconnected one. Basketball is coming back. It’s okay to feel unabashedly happy about that, and it’s okay to be skeptical. There are arguments for both sides. It may be one of the smaller lessons to be gleaned from Black Lives Matters, but perspective is still worth recognizing.
