The reign ends for the Raptors, who now look to the future

Kyle Lowry was understandably torn.

Lowry and Toronto Raptors spent nearly three months in Florida for NBA restart. That’s a lot of time away from his children, and Lowry me secret during his time in league’s Walt Disney World bubble that it was brutally hard to be separated from m for that long.

He was heing home Saturday. On one hand, that’s great news. On or, that’s a disaster.

Raptors are reigning NBA champions more. ir run ended Friday night with a Game 7 loss to Boston Celtics in Eastern Conference semifinals, ending longest season in team history and ushering in an offseason where Toronto has plenty of personnel decisions to make.

“I get to go see my babies, man,” Lowry, Raptors’ point guard and face of franchise, said while fighting off emotion that his Philly-kid toughness usually allows him to hide. “I’ve been going damn near three months without seeing my kids. I don’t want to be going home. I really don’t. And I kw my kids don’t want me to be home because y wanted ir ddy to win ar championship.”

y’ll have to wait until at least 2021 for that.

Preseason expectations are most inexact of sciences, and Raptors were never bored — just amused — by progstications that suggested losing Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green t long after Toronto won 2019 NBA title would have led to a freefall.

Quite contrary. Raptors went 53-19 in regular season and 60-23 overall, best single-season winning percents in franchise history. Lowry and Pascal Siakam were All-Stars. Nick Nurse was Coach of Year.

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

re are big questions for Masai Ujiri, Bobby Webster and Raptors’ brain trust to deal with w. Guard Fred VanVleet is going to get a serious payday this offseason, and Lowry -- who predicts that VanVleet will take over for him one day — wants Raptors to be ones writing those checks. Marc Gasol is 35, Serge Ibaka is about to turn 31, and y both will be free nts.

“I alrey miss this team,” Nurse said.

Five points as Raptors he into offseason:

NBA’S BEST

matter who wins what in rest of se playoffs, Raptors — counting regular-season and playoff contests — will go into next season having won more games than anyone else in NBA over last two (134), three (197) and four (252) years combined. Yes, Leonard me m much better last season. But level of consistency proves Raptors are one-year wonder, eir.

VANVLEET PAYDAY

VanVleet came into league four years ago making just over a half-million dollars (averaging 2.9 points per game), watched that salary climb to $9 million this season (averaging 17.6 points per game) and it’s going to keep climbing in 2020-21. Whenever free ncy starts — it could be mid-to-late vember, body kws for sure yet — he’s going to be a top priority for Raptors. “He’s going to be rewarded,” Lowry said. “To me, that means world that he can take care of his family and take care of his family at a high level.”

FREE NCY

Raptors will be walking a bit of a tightrope this offseason, almost certainly unwilling to do anything that would hurt ir spending ability for next expected NBA free nt circus of big names in 2021. A possible scenario would be to keep Gasol and Ibaka on one-year deals — that won’t work for VanVleet, who at his will want, and deserves, a multi-year contract — and run it back in 2020-21 with basically same core.

NURSE’S JOB

Nurse was runaway choice for coach of year in NBA’s media balloting. Raptors were only team in Eastern Conference with a winning record in games where y weren’t leing at halftime this regular season, going 16-15 in those matchups. Only Los Angeles Lakers, at 13-11, were better.

LAST WORD

Before he left his final postgame media session of season, Lowry was asked to reflect on his bubble memories. “It was challenging,” Lowry said. “It was well put-toger. NBA and teams and players did a hell of a job sacrificing. We used our platform for our voices to be heard on social injustices and getting guys to go out re to vote. Justice for Breonna Taylor. Justice for everybody, every Black American out re that are being harmed by police and police brutality. So, I think bubble was a success.”

Im credits: AP