Remembering the 2019-20 Raptors

The Raptors' 2019-20 season ended a two-year run with a core group that led Toronto the top of the NBA

The Toronto Raptors are still NBA champions.

It's been that way for 457 days and will remain that way for at least a few more weeks. Eventually, though, they'll relinquish that title after falling in a thrilling Game 7 to the Boston Celtics on Friday night.

This was a team that was never supposed to do what it did. You know the story by now: They lost the Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard in the offseason, prognosticators expected them to take a step back, and yet they flourished winning a higher percentage of their games than ever before in franchise history.

This was a fun season.

Toronto played a gritty, tough, and thrilling brand of basketball all year long. Their coach, Nick Nurse, wasn't afraid to innovate, using 18 different starting lineups and tweaking his defensive alignments seemingly every night to confuse opposing teams. On the court, the Raptors' used a combination of unheralded up-and-comers and grizzled veterans to compete with the NBA's best.

Kyle Lowry had a career year.

Pascal Siakam had a career year.

Fred VanVleet had a career year.

Serge Ibaka had a career year.

Norman Powell had a career year.

Those things rarely happen all at once.

"I’m actually really proud of them," Nurse said Friday night. "They represent the city, the country, [and] organization. When you watch our team most nights, win, lose or draw you gotta come out of there saying at least those guys gave you everything they have. And I think they do it at an extraordinary level. It’s an extraordinary level of commitment and desire and fight that they bring."

In the coming weeks and months, we'll look ahead to the offseason, free agency, trades, and the draft. We'll break down who should be back and who shouldn't, who should come and who should go, but that's not what this is about.

Today is an opportunity to reflect on an incredible Raptors season.

"I enjoyed this year," said Lowry who concluded his eighth season in Toronto. "The emergence of Pascal, the emergence of Freddy. Just being around these guys, these young guys. ... I’m just proud of these guys. For me, being 14 years in, playing with these young guys, those guys pushing me to be better every single day, and those guys letting me lead them, that’s important for a guy like me."

For Nurse and VanVleet, this team's ability to defy expectations and persevere despite the countless injuries is what made the 2019-20 Raptors so special.

"I think we are going to remember how well we played considering there was really low expectations for us," Nurse said. "We never got hung up on that. I don’t think we got hung up on winning the title last year. I think we took it as this season and tried to max out what we could do and for the most part we did."

"When we look back on the entire season and the work that we put in, I think we can be proud of ourselves," said VanVleet, a pending free agent this offseason. "It's hard to feel that way right now with that performance we just had. All in all, I thought, I'm proud of the effort that our guys gave, especially coming off a championship and losing what we lost, and coming into this season, and all these people that expected us to be good were the people in our locker room. I'm proud of that part."

Things will certainly look different next year. VanVleet, Ibaka, and Marc Gasol are all heading toward free agency, Lowry will enter his age 34 season, and this core group that led Toronto to its first NBA championship will likely be split up, at least in part, and that might be tough to see.

"I already miss this team," Nurse said just moments after Game 7. "It was a hell of a two-year run with the core group of these guys but I didn’t think that at all here until the game ended. ... Now just thinking back again, a hell of a run for this team and some amazing moments and I think everyone should be really proud of them."

This team left everything it had on the court all season. Its determination should not soon be forgotten.