LOS ANGELES—With one sudden and bold move, Masai Ujiri has plotted a definitive course for the future of the Raptors.

In a franchise-altering transaction that affirms his reputation as a general manager willing to strike swiftly, Ujiri has found a taker for his most expensive player and obtained significant salary and roster flexibility.

Ujiri found a taker for forward Rudy Gay and the nearly $38 million (all figures U.S.) left on his contract, shipping Gay, Aaron Gray and Quincy Acy to the Sacramento Kings for guard Greivis Vasquez, swingman John Salmons and forwards Patrick Patterson and Chuck Hayes, shaving a potential $12 million-plus off Toronto’s salary obligations next year.

The deal will not be finalized until the league approves it in a routine conference call between the teams sometime Monday but Gay, Acy and Gray were not in uniform when the Raptors played the Lakers here Sunday night.

While unable to confirm the transaction because it is not official, Raptors head coach Dwane Casey said he wasn’t sure of a style of play now that Gay is no longer duplicating much of what budding star DeMar DeRozan does for the Raptors.

What do you think?

“We have to see what we have; it’s hard for me to stand here and say exactly how we’re going to play,” Casey said of a team without Gay and DeRozan in the context of Sunday’s game.

“You’d like to push the ball, you’d like to be a better defensive team For the most part, we’re going to be a defensive team first, I can guarantee you that. But as far as offence, we have to see how the pieces fit together and guys that I haven’t coached before.”

Gay’s departure assures DeRozan of a more substantial role as Toronto’s top offensive weapon. The fifth-year swingman, in the first year of a four-year, $38-million contract, has been the best and most consistent Raptor all season and will now become the true focal point of the team’s offence.

“It’s crazy just to see a friend like that go, but once you’ve been through it a couple of times you kind of understand it’s part of the game and part of the business,” said DeRozan, who had 26 points in the Raptors’ 106-94 victory over the Lakers on Sunday night.

“You leave it to upper management to make those decisions and for me to just go out and do my job every night.

“It happens. You can’t play this game forever and you can’t play with the same players forever either, even if things were going the right way.”

Riding a season-worst five-game losing streak going into Sunday’s game with the Lakers, the Raptors had been expected to make some move, but not one so quickly. Team and league sources had suggest a post-Dec. 15 deal was most likely, since that’s the first day free agents that signed last summer could be dealt, but Ujiri somehow found a taker for the deal.

“It’s just a part of the game,” said DeRozan. “You think about it but you try to do the best that you can on the court so it doesn’t get to the point to where you start questioning whether one of the other will be here.”

More than anything, the trade opens up myriad possibilities this year and next summer for Ujiri.

He has a capable backup point guard in Vasquez who should make it possible for Ujiri to move Kyle Lowry and his expiring contract — worth about $6 million — between now and February’s trade deadline.

And with good pieces having no significant salary obligations in Patterson, Salmons and Hayes, he got the deal done in time to assure any of them can be included in deadline transactions.

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Gray is in the final year of a contract that will pay him $2.69 million this season and Acy makes a relative pittance of $788,000 and has no fully guaranteed deal for next season.

There is no long-term financial risk with the players coming back.

Hayes is on the books for $5.9 million next season, Salmons has a $1-million buyout on a non-guaranteed deal worth $7 million next season, Vasquez could become a free agent if Toronto doesn’t make him a qualifying offer of $3.2 million, and Patterson is the same with a qualifying offer of $4.3 million.