TORONTO – As a rival team, there’s always something you can glean from watching the NBA Finals, and this spring’s epic seven-game battle between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers was no different.

Those two clubs have different play styles and roster makeups. They were cobbled together in different ways. There’s no blueprint for building a title contender; there’s more than one way to skin a cat, as the saying goes. But the Raptors – one of the 28 teams watching from the couch – were able to pick up on at least one crucial common denominator.

“I think it highlighted how physical the game [gets] come playoff time,” Toronto’s assistant general manager Dan Tolzman said the afternoon after OKC was crowned first-time NBA champions. “The intensity ratchets up and defence is so much more important, which is why [head coach Darko Rajakovic] and our coaching staff preach that so much, knowing that someday we’re hoping to be in that situation. You have to be ready for when the physicality goes up a level…

“It seems like the teams that can just fight through that, stay mentally strong and actually take those hits and keep executing despite the more physical defence you’re seeing on a possession basis, those are the guys that are successful in the playoffs. And so, I think that the way we approach it is we want to get players that can eventually be playoff basketball players.”

That archetype is top of mind for the Raptors’ primary decision makers as they put the finishing touches on their draft prep and get set for one of the most eventful (and chaotic) weeks on the NBA calendar.

We’ve already seen three blockbuster trade go down across the association, with Desmond Bane, Kevin Durant and Jrue Holiday on the move and 13 draft picks changing hands, including a couple in Wednesday’s first round. Toronto is slated to make the ninth-overall pick on Wednesday night (as well as the 39th selection on Thursday), at least for now.

But as the rumours and trade speculation continue to swirl, they’re a club that keeps coming up. Some of that is merely based off reputation. Being that they’re generally in the mix when a star player becomes available, they’re an easy team to use as leverage – and there was a lot of that going on as Phoenix worked to get Houston to improve its offer for Durant.

But where there’s smoke, there’s fire. There’s a window of opportunity in a weakened Eastern Conference that took another hit when Tyrese Haliburton’s tore his Achillies in Sunday’s Game 7. The Raptors can sense it, and seem to be one of the teams that are highly motivated to take advantage.

Multiple league sources have confirmed to TSN that the ninth pick is believed to be available, as........

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