TORONTO – For Raptors fans, the 2025 NBA postseason has been a trip through memory lane.

It’s hard not to get nostalgic watching Fred VanVleet hit big shots against the Warriors, OG Anunoby go toe-to-toe with Boston or Pascal Siakam lead his team to the Finals, even if it’s bittersweet to see them do it for other teams. Oh, what could have been.

In fairness, it’s not like Toronto rushed to dismantle that group. If Masai Ujiri and Bobby Webster are guilty of anything, it’s taking too much time to acknowledge that their talented core of championship holdovers was no longer gelling.

Among the reasons they kept it together for as long as they did was the landscape around them. Whenever Ujiri would consider breaking those guys up and hitting the reset button, he would look around the league and see nothing but opportunity.

We’re living in an era of unprecedented parity across the association – over the next couple weeks, Oklahoma City or Indiana will become the seventh different team to win a title in seven years since the Raptors won it. The East, long been considered the inferior conference, felt especially wide open.

If you can stay competitive while accumulating and developing talent, you should always be within striking distance of the teams at the top. The right move at the right time could vault you into contention. That’s the way Ujiri saw it then and that’s the way he continues to see it now. And why wouldn’t he? He’s already proven it to be true, albeit under unique circumstances back in 2019.

In the time since he reluctantly launched Toronto’s rebuild last summer and then expedited the process with the acquisition of Brandon Ingram in the winter, the balance of power has become even more imbalanced.

Cleveland, the East’s top seed, is at a crossroads after consecutive second-round eliminations. The reigning champion Celtics, who were already facing a tax crunch and some tough decisions this summer, have lost Jayson Tatum to a torn Achilles. The Bucks are going into the off-season with an injured Damian Lillard and without cap space, most of their draft picks or a clear picture of where their best player stands. The Sixers, ever a wildcard, are coming off a disastrous season and Joel Embiid is coming off yet another knee surgery. Outside of the conference finalists, Indiana and New York, that leaves the likes of Detroit and Orlando – fun young teams on the rise, to be sure, but hardly a murderers’ row.

Once again, opportunity knocks and Ujiri wants to be........

© TSN