Toronto Raptors: 3 Keys To NBA Finals Chances

The Toronto Raptors decided not to make a trade at the deadline this year. When asked before the deadline by Grantland’s Zach Lowe on whether he would trade a draft pick for a player that could help this season, Raptors’ GM Masai Ujiri said, “It depends on what’s there. But I won’t make decisions that are going to shorten our growth and help us only this year.”

Balancing the present and the future is one of the many difficulties of being a GM in the NBA. Ujiri admitted that this year’s success and the openness of the Eastern Conference makes that balancing act even more difficult.

More from Ujiri via Lowe,

“You read about it and hear about the East, the East, the East,” Ujiri says. “And you have to think about it sometimes. Is this a rare time? Is this period — the next year or two — something we have to take advantage of?”

Because the Raptors didn’t make a change at the deadline, their only source of improvement will have to be internal. It is possible they could pick up a player that gets bought out by another team, but those aren’t normally destiny changing moves.

That being said, here are three keys to the Raptors improvement during the second half of the season that could bolster their chances of making the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history.

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