In off-loading flighty wing and human anvil Rudy Gay to the Sacramento Kings, Raptors GM Masai Ujiri has finally given the order for this season — “Dive”.

From the start, they said they’d give themselves 45 days to see what they had. Sunday was Day 40 of the season. They didn’t need another week to remind themselves they aren’t any good.

A couple of hours ahead of the Raptors’ game against the Lakers, the news broke that Gay will be traded in a deal to be finalized on Monday. Along with little-used big men Aaron Gray and Quincy Acy, he’ll take a cheap flight to his new home on the west coast.

In return, Toronto gets point guard Greivis Vasquez, swingman John Salmons and galumphing big men Patrick Patterson and Chuck Hayes.

The trade is a like-for-like salary wise — Toronto is sending about $21 million (all figures U.S.) Sacramento’s way, while taking about $19 million back.

Short-term, there is one small problem with the deal — it may tend to make the Raptors better.

Despite his tendency for late-game heroics, Gay has become one of the great ballstoppers in the NBA.

That Toronto is last in the league in assists is largely down to the fact that Gay has taken a monkish oath never to pass. Also, he’s the sort of player who’d go duck hunting with a Howitzer.

Gay was plumbing career lows in field goals made, as well as a career high in shots attempted. If the goal all along was to lose games, Gay was a mission critical part of the package.

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That conundrum paled in the face of Gay’s enormous salary ($18 million), and the nauseating prospect that he would hand himself a huge raise next year by taking his player’s option for $19.3 million.

An obsession of previous GM Bryan Colangelo, Gay never really fit with the Raptors. DeMar DeRozan overshadowed him most of this year, largely by doing things Gay refused to do — like thinking. A smarter, younger, harder-working version of Gay, DeRozan now has more room to flower on the wing.

While most of what the Kings are sending back is human gristle, Vasquez represents a sizable boost in quality. The fourth-year player out of Maryland is a nicely equipped offensive piece, and a low-cost one at that ($2.15 million). He will immediately press Kyle Lowry hard for the starting job at the point. (Shiny Happy Kyle Lowry, I’m glad we got to spend those two months together.)

The Raptors now have the option to trade Lowry and go forward with Vasquez, or use Vasquez as an attractive deadline chip. If they’re really committed to The Tank, they could deal both.

For weeks now, the Raptors have been quietly attempting to trade both Gay and Lowry for, well, anything. Since this has become one of the most lopsided buyers’ markets in league history, they weren’t getting any nibbles.

It’s a testament to Ujiri’s skill that he has now off-loaded the franchise’s two most notorious flaming tires (Gay and Andrea Bargnani) in less than six months. These moves give the team enormous cap flexibility going into 2014/15. As of right now, they have roughly $32 million on the books for next year, against a cap of about $60 million.

Now that he’s managed the headline grabbers, Ujiri’s job gets difficult.

The team not only covets a top-five pick in the 2014 draft; management believes there is a path to acquiring another first-round pick in the top 15.

That requires a multi-faceted approach to being awful.

First, the team must do its job. That means handing the point guard duties over to Julyan Stone or Dwight Buycks as soon as possible. The slide into wretchedness is well under way, but needs to pick up speed.

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The second issue is finding someone stupid enough to give you a pick in return for Lowry and a package of other players.

In the summer, Jonas Valanciunas was the only man on the Toronto roster considered untouchable. DeRozan has played himself into that equation. We’ll see if Ujiri’s poker face holds the line on that commitment.

This is a delicate sort of Tank. You can’t just blow a hole in the hull. You need to slip beneath the waves quietly, while also releasing a few life rafts.

If Ujiri can manage the trick — continuing to shed the dead weight, while also preparing this team to mine one of the richest veins of draft talent in a decade — one could make the strong argument that he better deserves NBA Executive of the Year on this losing team, than anyone else on a winner.