Holly MacKenzie - Raptors.com
The Toronto Raptors wasted little time taking care of the first order of business this offseason. A little over a week after general manager Masai Ujiri said an extension for Dwane Casey could be completed in his sleep, the team announced a three-year extension with their head coach.
“Dwane has done an excellent job leading our teams to success on the court and with helping us to develop a winning culture throughout our organization,” Ujiri said. “Continuity is a part of establishing that culture."
Prior to the postseason kicking off, Ujiri said that Casey had earned the right to be the coach of the team. With a franchise-best 56 wins in 2015-16, the Raptors broke plenty of team and individual records. Ujiri and Casey are ready to break some more.
“I’m really excited, energized,” Casey said. “As I told Masai the other day, nothing changes, we’ll just continue what we started."
“We are energized with the idea of the potential we have with our core players and the development of our young players,” he continued. “Our goal has been and will be to build a program that is competing for a championship year in and year out.”
Through 20 playoff games, Casey helped guide Toronto to the Eastern Conference Finals after winning a seven-game series against the Indiana Pacers and then another against the Miami Heat. In the franchise’s first trip to the Conference Finals, the Raptors pushed the Cleveland Cavaliers to six games before closing out the season with a loss at the Air Canada Centre. Coming off the most successful season in franchise history, players had plenty of praise for their coach.
“That man is the all-time winningest coach here,” Kyle Lowry said. “He's been great. He's been amazing and I feel like he's still trying to get better as a coach. He's changed every year since I've been here and grown as well as I [have]. Every year we've gotten better, he's just been a good guy and a good coach and just been able to…he's been such a good coach and a guy that we can lean on and to put an emphasis on what he wants us to do and put the pressure on us to do it. We need that and we appreciate that.”
Bismack Biyombo had a breakout postseason with the Raptors, stepping up when Jonas Valanciunas went down with an ankle sprain during the second round. It was only Biyombo’s first season in Toronto, but he credited Casey with helping him to have the best year of his career.
“The coach has been amazing, I can tell you that,” Biyombo said. “He allows players to be themselves. He allows you to make mistakes and learn from it and I think that's what made the difference this year. You get to talk to the coach about the games and have normal conversations. The coach has been amazing and the results speak for themselves. I have to take my hat off to the coach and the coaches for the job they have done with me.”
During Casey’s year-end interview with the media, he spoke about the importance of establishing a culture and creating an identity over his four seasons with the team. When asked about his own future, he said when he sat down with Ujiri for his own year-end interview, he would be talking about how to make the team better, instead of worrying about his own situation.
Putting the success of the team first and diverting attention away from himself isn’t anything new for Casey. In a recent SLAM Magazine cover story, DeRozan said of Casey: “It’s just great to have a coach like that, knowing that he’s gonna give you the freedom to be yourself, as long as you just go out there and play hard. It’s rare to find coaches of that calibre. And with the success that he’s had with us, I just always wanna see him succeed. With that, everything Casey gets — if it’s Coach of the Month, whatever — he thanks us. And we’re playing for him.”
Players not only enjoy playing for Casey, they have also enjoyed increased success in each of the five seasons he’s been in charge. Casey became the all-time winningest coach in franchise history on Nov 1, and in January he also became the longest-tenured coach in team history. In addition to the franchise-best 56 wins in 2015-16, the team also set franchise marks for home wins (32), road wins (23), wins versus Eastern Conference opponents (39), wins versus Western Conference opponents (17), and longest winning streak (11 games). Casey’s commitment to consistency has paid off as the team’s identity continues to form.
“When we try to build a program, we wanted to establish a culture here that we feel will provide players, coaches [and] our organization an opportunity to win a championship one day,” Ujiri said. “That’s the ultimate goal and winning has always been what we talk to. Culture has always been what we talk about. Coach Casey has been a big leader for us. A good teacher. Just a great teammate for us to have in this organization. We’re extremely, extremely happy we’re moving forward with this.”