Success allows the Toronto Raptors to put the future to one side

 In the midst of their most successful season in team history, the Toronto Raptors are allowing their play to put all speculation surrounding their future to the side.

For the first time in franchise history, the Toronto Raptors are one win away from reaching the NBA Finals. One win against the Bucks is all that is needed. Tonight, at home in Game 6, the Raptors can realize their dream.

This season hasn’t come without its caveats though, with the free agency decision of Kawhi Leonard looming in just over a months time. It’s long been speculated that Leonard will leave to pastures anew, a la Los Angeles, with the Los Angeles Clippers said to be in hot pursuit.

Here’s the thing, though. It doesn’t matter right now.

It really does not matter in the slightest.

The Raptors are in rarified air, leading the Milwaukee Bucks 3-2 and only need one win to secure their status as the daddy of the Eastern Conference. The conference which has been dominated by one of the games living legends for the past decade.

Just as Dr. Richard Kimble evaded the grasp of an unfathomable amount of U.S. marshals in “The Fugitive”, the title of the best team in the East has slipped through the Raptors collective fingers on multiple occasions.

It’s going to be tough, we know that much.

The Bucks didn’t stumble into 60 wins by accident, nor did they steamroll to a 10-1 start in the postseason by mere coincidence. This team is great all over the court. Mike Budenholzer has inherited a team built around a superstar but has developed a scheme that accentuates the strengths of the whole team.

The team goes as Giannis Antekounmpo goes, just like any other team that’s led by an enigmatic, God-like figure. Not that there’s many of them, though.

So far, the Raptors have managed to mortalize Giannis in this series. Packing the paint with multiple help defenders whenever he extends his long, Groot-like arms and attacks the rim.

Everything Toronto has done right boils down to now. All the adjustments, all the game-winning shots.

The Raptors have done more than enough to win the series in six games, and that’s what all the talk should be centered around.

For the last seven or eight games, every game has been described as the most important game in franchise history. Each incarnation of the game trumping its predecessor.

And just like every game prior to this one, it is, in fact, the most important in the history of the Toronto Raptors, and in the history of Canadian basketball as a whole.

They haven’t come this far, only to come this far. Nor have they got to this point just to have the world talk about the impending free agency of the basketball player on the planet.

The decision will always be on the mind of just about everyone connected to the basketball world. But for the Toronto Raptors fans that have never been exposed to success such as this, even with the job no yet completed, it’s all about enjoying the ride.

All that matters right now is the present. The future can wait. Game 6, on the other hand, cannot.