Raptors season ends

Once you get over the heartbreak of the Raptors game 7 loss to the Brooklyn Nets, the disappointment that the team missed out on a chance to go to the second round of the playoffs against Miami, you should feel very good about this team. It’s a team that never quit. Monday, they had an end of season media session.

One day later, it’s still hard for the Raptors to put into words.

DeMar DeRozan: “You think about it man, we lost game seven by one point…one point…one point…who knows man.”

With the shock of Sunday’s loss still very fresh in their minds, the Raptors have to face another brutal reality — the contracts of a number of players as well as head coach Dwane Casey will expire this summer.

Kyle Lowry — who led the Raptors with 28 points in game seven — is one of the very big question marks: “Of course I can see myself back, we just went to game seven. Those things are on my mind. Two months away. I got a lot of thinking and talking to do.”

But DeRozan is confident both Lowry and Casey will return: “You ain’t gotta worry about that.  It’ll work itself out.”

Grevis Vasquez: “If we’re all back, we can dominate the east, and i’m not saying this in an arrogant way, i think this team is a special team. look at what we did together, it wasn’t even a full year.”

Vasquez and Patrick Patterson — who will become “restricted” free agents — both arrived in Toronto in December, the result of a seven player trade with Sacramento that offset the Raptors’ rise in the east. Now it’s time for the “off-season” wheeling-and-dealing to begin.

Kyle Lowry: “I want to be happy, I want to win — my agent and I have yet to talk but I know i want to win.”