The Toronto Raptors? Gone till November.

Since the NBA’s All-Star break, the Toronto Raptors blew out the returning Atlanta Hawks in Atlanta following an extended holiday that saw four Hawks contribute in the league’s midseason classic. Also, two weeks before the 2014-15 regular season ended, the Raps did well to down the Dwight Howard-less Houston Rockets in Toronto by three points. It was a solid performance worthy of recognition.

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Those were the only two Raptors wins over winning teams following that All-Star break, it should be noted. Toronto topped a couple of so-so teams during its 12-16 finish to the season, but only two squads during that 28-game span came out on the wrong end of things with the Raps while owning a winning record at the time.

You could toss another four losses on that pile, if you’re nasty, as the Raptors were swept in listless fashion by the Washington Wizards in the first round of the playoffs. The Wizards entered the postseason as first round favorites despite not owning home court advantage, and the Raptors seemed to just about abstain from competition following a rough overtime loss in Game 1. If you think that’s sportswriter-ese, you’d be forgiven. Prior to muddling through Toronto’s work in Games 2 through 4 on game tape, however, a fate we wouldn’t wish on anyone.

The Raptors should be embarrassed. The team’s long-suffering fans, after years of dealing with this nonsense, should be livid.

The turn was understandable, though, if you remain a cynic. Because this is not Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri’s team.

Though we respect (current) Raps coach Dwane Casey as a tactician, he is not Ujiri’s choice as headmaster. This is also more or less the same roster that was cobbled together by former Toronto GM Bryan Colangelo, a man most rightfully mocked without hesitancy as he frittered away the Chris Bosh years prior to attempting to continue apace and save cuff-linked face following Bosh’s 2010 defection. Ujiri was in the midst of attempting to tear everything down early in 2013-14 (he dealt Rudy Gay, was attempting to find takers for Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan) when a bad luck streak at dancing school (a 42-22 run following the Gay transaction) led to an unexpected Raptors playoff berth.

Since then, Ujiri has had to mind his pace, and carry on in consideration of the two backcourt All-Stars he inherited in DeRozan (eh) and Lowry (seemed about right until this winter). Teams are so mindful of Ujiri’s successes in fire sales (especially following the still-laughable Andrea Bargnani deal) that the Raptors’ top executive really had no choice but to roll last year’s Atlantic Division leader over into 2014-15. And the team did as well as you’d expect in that still-laughable division, taking a second consecutive Atlantic crown and leading off the NBA’s postseason in Toronto for the second consecutive (still-laughable) year.

This isn’t to point Ujiri as some sort of basketball genius stuck in purgatory, as we’re still a little wary of some of the moves he made in his previous stop in Denver. It’s just to remind, even as the ashes of a frustrating 2014-15 fall from the burnt orange sky, that his stasis following the Bargnani and Gay trades is understandable.

The Raptors will enter the 2015 offseason with a solid swatch of cap space. Amir Johnson (a knockout screen setter and helper in the right system), Chuck Hayes (a gamer who merely represented cap fodder following the Rudy Gay deal), Lou Williams (the 2015 Sixth Man of the Year that will likely be overpaid by his fourth team in three years), Tyler Hansbrough (a man who thinks passing is something you do in the left-hand lane), Marcus Camby (a man who was once traded for Charles Oakley), and Landry Fields (a *checks clipboard* “professional basketball who was born in Long Beach, California”) will likely all come off the books.

If each player moves away and the cap holds are quickly extinguished, Ujiri will have nearly $20 million in expected cap space during the summer. Sadly for Raptor fans, so will several other teams – squads working without Kyle Lowry as their point guard. The dogged Lowry is respected by players league-wide, but respect doesn’t always translate into “I gotta play with this guy,” especially for potential free agents that witnessed his moaning and overreaching on Sunday.

Such play was rather symptomatic of this year’s Raptor outfit.

The 2014-15 Raptors defended like a stable full of 22-year olds. They over-helped, abandoned routine, and failed to communicate repeatedly. That this was one of the better offensive teams in the NBA barely helped – the team even improved on its top five offensive ranking in the second half of the season, and yet that second half saw the team’s winning percentage drop significantly.

How much this can be pinned on coach Dwane Casey is anyone’s guess. Again, Ujiri did not hire Casey (Colangelo did, in a move that was praised by just about all), and he has just one year left on a contract that the money-printing Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment ownership group could eat without reflex. Coaches working on the final year of contracts rarely work out unless they’re also working with dynasty-era Jordan, Pippen and Rodman on their side, and coaches working under general managers that didn’t hire them have an even less successful rate of permanence.

That doesn’t mean this is a clean start for Ujiri.

Lowry turned 29 last month and even though his contract (in this economy or the NBA’s next one) is far from a millstone (he has two years and $24 million guaranteed following this one, and he may opt out of the $12 million owed in 2017-18 in order to secure a longer, guaranteed deal), rare is the franchise that is rebuilt around a fringe All-Star who will turn 30 the following season.

Toronto still has Jonas Valanciunas and Terrence Ross under one last year of a rookie contract, but Casey didn’t seem to know what to make of Valanciunas on either end of the court, and Ross is now shooting 25-76 in his 11-game playoff career. Toronto will receive a middling pick in this year’s draft and the less favorable of Denver or New York’s first round pick in 2016 – neither team figures to be a playoff squad next season.

Those who carry on about Toronto’s ability to lure big market players to a massive market in Toronto should can it – Toronto lost Tracy McGrady to free agency in 2000 and Vince Carter to a trade demand in 2004, but that was because of organizational incompetence. That same organization managed to secure three much-coveted incumbent free agents during the 2001 offseason (including Carter) while luring Hakeem Olajuwon out of Houston. Players will want to work for this team, if the setting is right.

That 2001 squad featured a potentially transcendent star in Carter already in place. This isn’t to dog Lowry, but he is not a star along those lines, and contributors like DeRozan and Ross seem more “holdover” than “linchpin.”

The Raptors, with the 29-year old Lowry in place, are in the middle of a few generational shifts. Masai Ujiri knows he has to shake this foundation up and build the team in his own image, but despite a semi-start over the options just might not be in place for him.

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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops