The DeMar DeRozan deal that brought Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green to town was the right one to make for the Raptors. There was a ceiling the existing group was never going to push through. They’d been given enough chances. When you can get a Leonard you do it. Even moreso if the steady, versatile Green is being included in the package.

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DeRozan-Kawhi blockbuster shocked ex-Raptor Ross but he and Ed Davis know NBA is a business

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That said, given all that DeRozan meant to the franchise and the city, some former teammates were stunned by the news when it happened.

“It was shocking,” Orlando Magic swingman Terrence Ross told the Toronto Sun earlier this season.

“I mean I get it, it’s a business, but it just shows you kind of how ugly it is and how it can get,” Ross said.

“Especially because they have a meeting and say he isn’t going to get traded and literally a week later he gets traded, so (there has been considerable debate about the exact semantics of that situation)… But it happens man. It’s a business.”

Brooklyn Nets centre Ed Davis is one of DeRozan’s closest friends and expected him to be battling through his feelings on Friday night, a nail-biting 120-117 Raptors win in the end.

“I think he’s going to be a little emotional, for being here for nine years,” Davis told the Sun earlier this month.

“But it’s a business and pretty sure he wants to have one of the best games of his career. Hopefully he has a great game.” Kyle Lowry is now the last man standing from the start of this Raptors franchise surge, but Davis isn’t all that surprised.

“Honestly it’s not crazy. That’s just how the NBA works,” he said.

“Sh__, I was with the Lakers like four or five years ago and not one person from that team (is still there). It’s the NBA. That’s how it works.”