TORONTO – At this time 10 years ago, Masai Ujiri had already seen enough.

He was taking a wait-and-see approach early in his first season at the helm of the Raptors when an early December breaking point forced his hand. After hovering around the .500 mark to open that iconic 2013-14 campaign, a five-game losing streak dropped their record to 6-12.

They weren’t good enough to be good or bad enough to be meaningfully bad, an unenviable space to occupy in the NBA. The core group of Rudy Gay, DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry wasn’t lacking for talent; it just didn’t fit.

So, on Dec. 8, 2013, Ujiri made a franchise-altering trade that sent Gay to Sacramento in exchange for four complementary players. As we approach the 10th anniversary of the deal that inadvertently sparked the greatest era in team history, it’s not hard to identify the parallels between those Raptors and these Raptors.

Once again, Ujiri is at a crossroads with a club that seems firmly entrenched in the murky middle of the Eastern Conference. Heading into the year, the plan was to evaluate how this roster – led by Pascal Siakam, Scottie Barnes and OG Anunoby – would look in a new system and with a new head coach, but as the sample size grows that picture is becoming clearer.

The Raptors reached the quarter point of the season midway through Wednesday’s game, a 112-103 loss to Miami, and after dropping four of their last five contests, they’re looking like a team that has earned their mediocre 9-12 record. The vibes are better than they were a year ago and the ball is moving more under Darko Rajakovic, but that hasn’t equated to better offence or more wins, at least not yet.

Predictably, they haven’t shot the ball well, hitting just 33 per cent of their three-point attempts – the fourth-worst mark in the league. Their defence, which was supposed to be a strength, has fallen off considerably – they’re tied for 17th over the past 11 games after ranking inside the top-10 over the first 10 contests.........

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