With desperate times at every edge of the city of Toronto’s sports scene since the pandemic year of 2020, fans like me are resorting to conspiracy, as we look back over the last 4 years of Toronto sports post-NBA Title.
Raptors’ Post-Championship Shambles
Take a seat, and allow me to bring you on a journey back in time to 2019. The city had been in a state of jubilation, in what had been an unprecedent run for the Toronto Raptors in the NBA playoffs. For a city that had been known for having nothing go right in the sports world, including the Leafs recently being once again eliminated in the first round of the NHL playoffs by the Boston Bruins, everything just seemed to click for once. The climax of which of course being the shot heard around the world, coming off of Kawhi Leonard’s finger tips at the buzzer of Game 7 against Philly.
Two series later and they were crowned Champions, the city’s first among the 4 major sports since Joe Carter’s walk-off to win the 1993 World Series for the Jays.
For once, fans like me could feel proud to call ourselves Torontonians, a home of a champion. That was a nice trip right, well snap back to reality now. 4 years removed from the pinnacle of the NBA, Toronto sports has been in a cycle of purgatory once more. Many have even claimed that the city has quote unquote ‘sold their soul for that title’, but is that a reasonable stance for one to make?
Well first let’s start with the Raptors themselves. Kawhi had a choice the offseason of that Championship, stay in Toronto and potentially form a dynasty, or go home and play in Los Angeles. I understand his decision, and am not upset at him for going the sunny route, even if it would likely end up costing his career success. It would also be the beginning of the end for this city’s sports.
Despite his departure, the 2020 Raptors seemed to be doing fine without him, as pretty much the rest of the core was still there. They would enter the Mickey Mouse Bubble year with hope and the legitimate chance of a repeat, however their playoff run would only last 2 rounds, and they were ultimately defeated in game 7 by the only team that seemed able to possibly do it to us, the Boston Celtics.
The year after, they were once again forced out of Canada due to the pandemic, playing their season in Tampa, and it was not pretty. The Tampa Bay Raptors would miss the playoffs finishing 12th in the eastern conference, with many of their championship pieces departing in a hopeful rebuild as the future started to emerge.
The following year saw controversial draft pick Scottie Barnes become a potential future superstar. They would finish 6th in the east, a huge step up from the prior season. Ultimately they bowed down to the far superior 76ers in the first round, but the hope was there.
Bringing us to last season, where they regressed big time. Many players such as Fred VanVleet had off years compared to their standards. They would muster enough wins to get into a play-in game, where they would blow a 19 point lead to former franchise face DeRozan’s Bulls thanks to a Jordan-esque performance from Zach Lavine.
To make matters worse, Raptors fans were subjected to mockery after it came out certain “fans” online had sent threats to the 9 year old daughter of said former franchise face DeMar, Diar DeRozan, who screamed during each of the Raptors free throws, actually seeming to affect them as they only shot 44% from the line. It was cute, not something people expected others to get that angry about, and for fans to do that to the daughter of the former franchise face was on the border of betrayal.
Head coach and former NBA Champion Nick Nurse would end up fired as a result of the season, and subsequently became the Head Coach of the Philadelphia 76ers. The current direction and future of the team is relatively unknown.
Leafs’ Contribution to the Pain
Clearly not an ideal stretch for the Raptors post-ring, but maybe the Leafs could finally breakout. It had already been a painful couple of seasons, there’s no way it could get any worse, right?
Well, 2020 didn’t get off to the best start. In what had already been an underperformance of a season for the team compared to expectations, which of course included… LOSING TO A 42-YEAR-OLD ZAMBONI DRIVER WHO WORKS FOR THE TEAM, they wouldn’t even make the playoffs ~technically~, losing to the Blue Jackets in a best-of-5 qualifier round.
The next year would see a complete change in organizational structure as a result of the pandemic, where teams would play only the opponents in their newly realigned divisions to limit travel and border crossing. Toronto was in an all-Canadian division, a dream for Canadian hockey fans, but in practice it wasn’t all that amazing, considering most teams weren’t anything special. The Leafs, being the best team, objectively would win the division and were given probably the best chance to make the Cup final they’ve ever had. Their first opponent, old as time rival, the Montreal Canadiens.
It was all going to plan at first, a 3-1 series lead with a ticket to the 2nd round all but punched. In game 5 they had all the momentum in the world, until a 2-on-0 goal in overtime for Montreal would delay the ticket punching. Game 6 in Montreal was expected to be the true ticket punch, they lost again, with a key play being Marner getting a costly delay of game penalty. Game 7 was the nail in the coffin the Leafs’ ambitions, dying on the ice as the Habs advanced to Winnipeg, arguably the most embarrassing series defeat of last couple of years, but there’s been plenty.
They had to find redemption the next season. Shouldn’t be too hard right? The Buds had to play the defending cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round, dang it! However unlike the series before, they showed way more fight, even if they lost their 7th consecutive first round playoff series.
This brings us to last season, we would see a rematch in the first round. The first game was a blow out 7-3 defeat and fans had already given up, however with a little bit of pixie dust and a 3-goal comeback win in the last 3 minutes of game 4, it would finally happen. THE LEAFS WON A ROUND! Having to live with the 2004 demons would no longer be an issue for Toronto fans, they were finally free, this is it, they will go on the Stanley Cup push the city’s dreamt of for 55 years, and this was only the beginning.
They would nearly get swept the very next round by a Florida Panthers team that was playing out of their minds. All the season will be remembered for was Leafs fans chanting “We want Florida” before the series, just reinforcing the reason why general hockey fans don’t feel so keen on the Toronto faithful. At least you resigned Papi Matthews.
Fine, But What About the Blue Jays?
Well those two teams are in the rough, but what about Blue Jays? Well in 2019 they had an unbelievably bright future with the likes of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, and Cavan Biggio in their farm that were sure to blossom into something substantial one day.
In 2020 they would make their first big stride, making the playoffs as an extended seed, their first appearance since 2016. They would be swept by Tampa as shock to nobody. However despite a slow first half, the Blue Jays would explode. Everything was coming along, pitching was excellent with CY Young candidate Robbie Ray leading the way. Hitters such as Vlad, Bo, Semien, Teoscar, Springer among others having incredible seasons. At one point it was an afterthought they had catapulted themselves back into the playoff picture. All they needed was to win their final game and hope either New York or Boston lost, then they would tie for a final wild card spot.
Toronto would win said game, but so would the Yankees. However the Nationals were leading by 3 going into the 7th, where Boston would score 3 to tie the game, and in the 9th inning, Devers would break the hearts of an entire nation, with a game winning 2 run home run to give them the victory. The saddest fact is that could have been the Jays best chance, cause the two seasons since have been nothing short of a nightmare.
The 2022 season would see pitching be the ultimate mixed bag, Gausman, Manoah and Stripling throwing the ball with authority while Berrios and Kikuchi took turns imploding. Defense also wasn’t a strength. This all lead up to the now iconic wild card choke, where the Jays took an 8-1 lead and turned it into a 10-9 Mariners win. Arguably the most humiliating defeat in the Jays history, and the most ‘Leafs-like’ occurrence ever to one of Toronto’s other franchises.
That offseason, the Jays would say goodbye to Teoscar Hernandez, trading for much needed pitching depth. They would also sign Kevin Kiermaier to improve the outfield defense that cost them the season before. However by the far the most controversial move, trading fan favorite Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and top catcher prospect Gabriel Moreno for Diamondbacks centerfielder Daulton Varsho. It added another lefty bat and more outfield defense, but would this gamble pay off?
Well let me just say the 2023 Blue Jays were one of the most mind numbing iterations of the team fans have ever seen. Despite the pitching being arguably the best in the MLB, the hitting was underwhelming, and at times completely stagnant, with no one hitting at or near the level they were expected to, besides Whit and Bo.
This season’s wild card series was in many ways opposite to that of last years, instead of pitching and defense killing them, the hitting did, proving that Atkins had only created new holes in attempts to fill old ones.
Another controversy included reliever Anthony Bass and his rant against the LGBTQ+ community, as well as Alek Manoah acting like a petulant child and refusing to show up to AAA Buffalo after being sent down, for a guy who liked talking so much smack, he sure didn’t do a good job backing any of it up.
However, all Jays’ controversies were overshadowed by the game 2 decision to pull José Berríos after only 4 innings, while he was dealing in a 0-0 game. At the end of season press conference Atkins would seemingly throw Schneider under the bus for this decision, saying he had no involvement in it, and that it was all him, an exclamation point to the fundamentally broken, dysfunctional, and outright disgraceful state of this franchise.
This all harkens back to the question, did Toronto sell their souls for the 2019 title? To me and others, I’d say we sure as hell did, and who knows how long until it ends. Each of the 3 major teams this year especially have had major management-based turmoil. The Leafs have seemingly resolved this with Brad Treliving thankfully, but the Raptors aren’t committed to making big splash moves anymore, such as failing to sign Damian Lillard, and the Jays are just in complete chaos mode.
All of this without even mentioning how TFC has managed to descend into its own chaotic state, leaving behind a dishevelled fanbase. Yet despite everything that’s transpired over the last 4 years, I’d like to believe that it was all worth it to have that one moment of euphoria and joy that we all did that summer of 2019. With all that said I’d like to remind you all, if you need anything to comfort yourself at the moment, there’s always the Argonauts!
(Photo via The New York Times)