On Feb. 8, one day before the NBA trade deadline, the Toronto Raptors hosted the San Antonio Spurs. The Raptors were 25-30 and 11th in the Eastern Conference. They were projected to be sellers at the deadline and maybe even tankers the rest of the season considering they had the seventh-best odds at the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NBA Draft.
It would have been easy to give up, both for the front office and the players. It had been a difficult season both on and off the court, with just about anything going wrong that could go wrong.