Toronto Raptors: 3 big questions heading into 2018-19 NBA season

The Toronto Raptors made some big changes in the offseason and will need to address them in order to contend for the conference crown.

The Toronto Raptors may have won a franchise-best 59 games last season, but after a demoralizing second-round sweep at the hands of the Cleveland Cavaliers, it was clear that changes needed to be made.

General manager Masai Ujiri clearly took that to heart, firing Coach of the Year Dwane Casey and trading Toronto’s all-time leading scorer, DeMar DeRozan, for a Kawhi Leonard unlikely to stay past this season.

Both moves were met with fair amounts of criticism, with most citing that with the Eastern Conference as open as it’s been in a while, the Raptors should’ve given it one more shot with their original core.

Now comes the difficult part. Integrating a superstar talent into the fold under a first-time head coach is never an easy task, but with the clock ticking on Leonard’s potential 2019 free agency (he has a player option for 2019-20), the Raptors will have to get it together quickly in order to prove they made the right decisions.