The Toronto Raptors had enjoyed a couple of years of fringe contention around the turn of the century. In May of 2001, they even managed to win their first playoff series by knocking off the Knicks in Game 5, right in Madison Square Garden.
However, the squad couldn’t recover from the dreadful Vince Carter trade in December 2004. Even though GM Rob Babcock wasn’t fired immediately, the draft picks he received in the deal weren’t put to effective use (we won’t talk about the players we got for Vince – Aaron and Eric Williams…are you kidding?