Being a Raptors fan isn't the most exciting thing in the world. When you go into a season, you expect a lot of the same old same old. The season narrative begins with This will be the year Bargnani makes the big leap, and ends with Bargnani needs to go, Bryan Colangelo's job will be "on the line," the team's going to lose more games than they win, and ultimately the Raptors miss the playoffs.
Another one of those "sure things" in a typical Toronto Raptors season is that Jose Calderon works his tail off all season long, and remains a beloved figure in the city of Toronto.
When we look at the 2012-2013 season, Bargnani is still awful, people have been calling for BC's head since the DeRozen extension, and the Raptors are 16-30, good enough for the 11th spot in the Eastern Conference. But on Wednesday evening, Raptors fans lost the only real positive constant that we can count on from season to season, as Jose Calderon was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies (and eventually the Detroit Pisons) along with the up-and-coming sophomore power forward, Ed Davis (who stayed with the Grizzlies) for 26-year-old Rudy Gay, a fringe superstar who either hasn't quite made the leap as one of the marquee players in this league, or perhaps never truly will. That will remain to be seen as new markets and new surroundings have proven to either stunt a players growth, or allow them to really flourish, but ultimately the Raptors got the best player in the trade.
I need to start off by mentioning that I really like this trade. The Toronto Raptors will never be a good enough basketball team with DeMar DeRozen and Kyle Lowry as their best players, and as serviceable as Jose Calderon and Ed Davis can be, you make this trade 10/10 times on Gay's potential alone.
That being said, at the end of it all I don't know if I have ever been as bummed out about a trade as I was on Wednesday night. Since coming up from Spain in 2005, the Raptors have been the only North American team Jose Calderon ever known. Every night, Jose Calderon has left it all out on the floor in Toronto, despite management bringing in other point guards to take his position on numerous occasions and never really trusting him with the keys to the car as the starting point guard of the Raptors.
Despite managements lack of confidence, the media bashing his abilities, and his team missing the playoffs year after year, Jose Calderon has been a rock for the Toronto Raptors, and seeing him leave is a difficult thing to be excited about. Is he a solid starting point guard in this league? It's debatable, and I don't believe he is, but the point is that he never complained, he just went out on the court and kept working harder - because that's what good teammates do. And Jose Calderon was the definition of a good teammate.
As for Ed Davis, well, he's just a kid. It's his second year in the league, and he's really starting to come into his own as a solid 10 points 10 rebounds kind of player. He's not going to be a superstar in this league, and probably not even an all-star, but when you hear reports about Davis being visibly crushed leaving the court after hearing about the trade, that's just not going to feel good either.
What I'm trying to express here is that you forget sometimes that the NBA isn't just a bunch of guys playing basketball - it's a business. This trade? Good business. But as fans, most of us don't see these players as assets - we see them as people. This is a good trade, but Jose and Ed Davis are good people - and we're going to miss them.
