For you folks on Twitter who feel so inclined to share your brazen thoughts on how Toronto should blow it up, please, take a step back, take a deep breath and think critically about the situation we’re all in.

I understand that you’re frustrated, we all are. It really, really sucks to go 82 awesome games (for the most part) only to have Game One slip out of your fingers, along with the hopes of the rest of the series.

MJ did it to a variety of franchises, and LeBron has done it to his fair share; you can’t let him blow up your team.

At times he seems like an immovable guardian keeping all other Eastern intruders outside of the NBA Finals unless their members decide to join him. I mean, this very well could be his 8th straight trip to the Finals.

But this piece, which I began to write as Toronto trails 110-80 during the final few minutes of our season, is directly aimed at those who think blowing this team up is the best possible option.

Roster tweaking? Absolutely. But blowing up the youngest team in the 2018 playoffs because you’re upset that LeBron has beaten you three straight years in a row?

Take a step back, take a deep breath, and think critically about the situation we’re all in.

The Financial Situation

If you’re not well educated on the salaries of Toronto, I’ll drop this here: https://hoopshype.com/salaries/toronto_raptors/

As you can see, Toronto created a three-year window that ends in 2020. The rookie contracts on our young guys are all expired at practically the same time as well.

This is the dream scenario in any sport. Your vets are all lined up with the cheap deals of your young guys. Blowing up a situation like this is beyond stupid.

I don’t care how good LeBron is, but I personally don’t want to become the Atlanta Hawks.

There’s a chance the front office could change, and there’s a sure chance some minor tweaks could take place, but pleading the franchise to ship out Kyle or DeMar is flat out ridiculous.

Unless you’ve got an offer that you’d have to turn force trades on in 2k in order to achieve, it doesn’t make any sense.

The Young Core Gaining Experience

The bench mob was an absolute blast this season. Unfortunately, they never had close to the same impact in the playoffs. Sure, Fred VanVleet was banged up, but as good as he is, you can’t make the others dependent on Fred.

You go up and down - OG, Fred, Delon, Pascal, and Jakob - they have such little playoff experience. The sting of this series will be sore all offseason, but it was surely a huge learning experience for them. Especially OG, the 20-year-old rookie tasked with guarding LeBron all series long.

There’s a chance the members of the mob could change next year. Fred could get an offer a la Bismack Biyombo 2016, and the front office may decide to tweak some members of the bench.

But this young, fun composition of guys off the bench made a name for themselves this year. It’s tragic that it didn’t correlate into offseason success, but the youth seriously benefited from the experience.

To boot, this series raised the ceiling of OG going forward. There’s a legitimate chance he could be a star in this league.

Season by Season

If your best days are behind you and you can see the light, sure, salvage what you can before it’s over. But this has been the Raptors best regular season in history and each one has gotten better over the five-year span of this core:

2013-14: 48-34 / .585

2014-15: 49-33 / .598

2015-16: 56-26 / .683

2016-17: 51-31 / .622

2017-18: 59-23 / .720

It’s beyond frustrating that this regular season success hasn’t correlated in a trip to the Finals, and that’s why the chants of, “blow it up”, are starting to surface.

But in a group that has consistently gotten better over the past few years, you don’t blow it up after your best regular season.

It hurts, it sucks, and it makes you feel every awful feeling you can possibly feel as a sports fan. Watching the embers flare during garbage time in Game 4 was ruthlessly depressing. The hurt is especially immense after seeing the Pacers push Cleveland to seven games.

I’m not saying we need to keep doing the same thing. I’m 100% positive that there will be changes come next year. I can see us going after an athletic big - not necessarily a starting big - but someone like a JaVale McGee.

There’s a chance we don’t see Casey next year, and that may be the safest bet over anyone else on the roster.

But please, for the love of God, don’t talk about blowing it up. I understand that the Twittersphere is quite quick to change its opinions on teams and players, but blowing up the Raptors while we rise with Boston and Philly would set us up for 6-8 years of utter failure. I don’t really want to go through that again.

There will certainly be changes come next year, but blowing it up won’t be one of them. Again, as saddening as it is to get swept again, we were the youngest team in the playoffs, and we might just have a budding star in OG Anunoby.