The Deconstruction of Your 2019 Toronto Raptors

As of the 2025 NBA trade deadline, Chris Boucher remains the only Raptor on the roster from the 2019 championship. That was true before yesterday too, however the Brandon Ingram trade drastically changed the outcome of last year’s Pascal Siakam trade. (Or at least it should have in the minds of fans. As usual with any Raptors move, I see a lot of angry fans out there.)

I have updated a post I originally published in the summer of 2023 in reaction to Raptors fans losing their collective minds over the failure to sign Fred VanVleet (successfully leading the 2024-25 Houston Rockets).

I remain of the opinion that I’m not sure what other course the Raptors front office is supposed to have taken beyond bottoming out entirely as a result of the disastrous Tampa season. If the Raptors had traded FVV, Siakam and Anunoby during the summer of 2021, without even seeing Barnes play, or had traded those three players at the 2022 trade deadline, how many fans would have honestly been happy with that?

You can read my thoughts about how this championship team turned into a team that is incapable of winning at the link below. (I haven’t yet tried tables in Beehiiv but they didn’t work in Substack which is one reason to not just share the full post in one of these newsletters.)