Raptors confident internal growth can take them to next level

TSN Raptors Reporter

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TORONTO – Precious Achiuwa scoffed at the idea that you could go into an off-season, any off-season, feeling like you know what to expect, and based on his early experience in the league, it’s hard to fault him for that.

The young big man was coming off his rookie season in Miami, less than a year after the Heat selected him with the 20th-overall pick, when he found out he was being sent to Toronto in the Kyle Lowry sign and trade.

Most NBA players get that reality check eventually – that no matter how comfortable you feel while you’re packing up your locker at the end of each season, there’s no guarantee you’ll be back – but Achiuwa hadn’t even turned 22.

“I think we have a good core of guys here that can play,” Achiuwa said on Friday, the day after his sophomore season came to an end with the Raptors’ first-round elimination. “But you never know. I heard the same thing last year too.”

There’s always some level of uncertainty going into the summer, but as the Raptors turn the page on a successful campaign, the team’s preferred direction seems clear and the off-season to-do list is relatively straightforward, at least compared to past years.

A year ago at this time, the future of two organizational pillars, Lowry and president Masai Ujiri, was up in the air. The year before that, Fred VanVleet was about to become one of the top guards on the open market.

Growing increasingly restless after another postseason ended in disappointment, Ujiri made a coaching change in the summer of 2018, then followed it up by trading a franchise cornerstone in DeMar DeRozan for Kawhi Leonard. In 2019, fresh off the championship run, Raptors fans followed Leonard’s every move and anxiously awaited his