In the far reaches of his mind there lies a vision Raptors president Masai Ujiri will never quite verbalize. He’ll talk about process, improvement, prudence, strategy. But he’ll never say outright: here, this is my plan, this is why I did these things, this is who the Raptors are supposed to be.
On Thursday night, as the Raptors prepared to play the Cavaliers, that vision felt farther away than ever. Toronto had barely beaten the Nets, then lost to Miami, and were now staring down the two best teams in the league — Cleveland and Golden State — without Serge Ibaka against the former, and Kyle Lowry for both (and possibly more) games.