The Toronto Raptors kept part of their core together this offseason in re-signing Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka, though they lost DeMarre Carroll, Cory Joseph, Patrick Patterson and P.J. Tucker. Toronto acquired C.J. Miles in the Joseph trade.

Masai Ujiri's moves were with LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in mind.

“Our job is to beat him,” Ujiri recently told The Vertical. “You have to figure it out. If not, then go play in some other league or something. Go play in Greece. Our jobs, and the jobs of the players, [are] to figure out how to beat those guys. If not, you might as well give them the championship before it starts. I understand how good he is and I understand how good those teams are, but those things end. At some point, somewhere, somehow, we as leaders of our group, we have to figure out a way and motivate our players and give them the confidence to go out there and compete.”

Toronto was swept by the Cavaliers in the second round of the playoffs. 

“I don’t think we took a step back. I don’t like making excuses, but many things didn’t line up well. That was not a good feel,” Ujiri told The Vertical. “There’s no excuses for us. Cleveland was better than us at the time, so we have to regroup, come back and try to get a training camp out of it and grow from there. … There were times when our team was a little funky and we couldn’t get it together. You have to dig in-depth and find out what went wrong, and some of it, I think, it was complacency sometimes. Sometimes, it was chemistry. And sometimes, it was our style of play. Sometimes, it was us, individually. When we go back to the drawing board and address those issues with everybody, and everybody figures out, ‘This is what I didn’t do so well,’ and, ‘This is what we didn’t do so well.'”

The Toronto Raptors have signed Lorenzo Brown to a two-way contract.

Brown split the 16-17 season between China and the G-League.

Brown, 6-foot-5, 189 pounds, is averaging 3.3 points, 1.7 rebounds and 2.3 assists in 63 career NBA games with Philadelphia (2013-14), Minnesota (2014-15) and Phoenix (2015-16). He has also appeared in games for the Delaware 87ers (2013-14), Springfield Armor (2013-14) and Grand Rapids Drive (2014-17) of the NBA G League.  

Dwane Casey plans on allowing DeMar DeRozan to spend more time at point guard during the 17-18 season.

“We got to have a better mentality of ball movement, man movement and spacing,” Casey said on Wednesday while on The Andrew Walker Show on Sportsnet 590 The FAN.

“DeMar DeRozan, have him handle the ball a bit more as a point guard, a facilitator, a passer. Kyle Lowry moving the ball a bit more, spacing up. We don’t want to give our whole ‘what we’re going to try to do next year’ away, but again it comes down to passing the basketball and better spacing more so, than we know, one-on-one play.”

DeRozan played the role of facilitator while Lowry was out injured during the regular season.

“Everyone and their brother knows we want better ball movement,” said Casey.

Casey also wants the Raptors to rediscover their edge.

“We want to get that edge back, get that two-by-four I call it back on our shoulder, where you’re feeling hungry again,” said Casey. “I thought last year from a media standpoint, team standpoint, playing standpoint, coaching standpoint, front office standpoint, we got a little complacent. A little soft, so to speak. We’ve got to get that edge back to compete for a championship.”

The Toronto Raptors announced they have signed forward Kennedy Meeks to a contract. 

Meeks, 6-foot-10, 277 pounds, recently participated with the Raptors’ entry in NBA Summer League 2017 in Las Vegas, averaging 11.3 points, 5.5 rebounds, 1.0 assists and 15.5 minutes in four games. 

Meeks played four seasons at North Carolina (2013-17), averaging 10.3 points, 7.3 rebounds, 1.1 blocks and 21.3 minutes in 144 games. He ranks fifth all-time in school history in rebounds (1,052). As a senior, Meeks helped the Tar heels win the national championship. He averaged career highs in points (12.5), rebounds (9.5) and minutes (24.3) in 40 games. 

Malcolm Miller underwent ankle arthroscopy for debridement after sustaining a sprained right ankle July 5 during an NBA Summer League practice in Las Vegas. The procedure was performed by Dr. Richard Ferkel in Los Angeles. Miller is expected to miss the next 12 weeks. 

Miller, 6-foot-7, 210 pounds, signed the team’s first two-way contract July 9 after participating in the Toronto Raptors’ free agent camp June 15-16. He averaged 7.0 points, 3.4 rebounds and 18.7 minutes in 29 games last season for Alba Berlin of the German Bundesliga.

In 2015-16, he averaged 12.4 points, 4.2 rebounds and 31.9 minutes in 47 games for the Maine Red Claws of the NBA G League and was second on the team with 84 made three-pointers.

DeMarre Carroll spoke candidly about his tenure with the Toronto Raptors following his trade to the Brooklyn Nets.

“They say they’re going to try something different, I would love to see it (work). It’s always good to do it,” he said, adding he believes they will start the season trying to stick to the new plan.

“But once adversity hits and stuff starts going wrong, guys are going to go back to ISO basketball, that’s how it is. You’ve got to trust it. It’s one of those things you’ve got to build, you’ve just got to trust each other. This year, I feel like a lot of guys didn’t trust each other and a lot of guys, they didn’t feel like other guys could produce or (be) given the opportunity, so there was a lot of lack of trust on our team, so that’s what hindered us from going (as far as they wanted to go).”

Carroll was surprised he wasn't traded last season.

“I wasn’t surprised because I knew it was a lot of things going on last year that didn’t come out,” Carroll said.

“I wasn’t happy, my agent, we thought the style of ball was going to be different, it was going to be more team-oriented, but I guess it was still ISO (isolation), so I thought they would have moved me last year, but that didn’t happen.”

The Toronto Raptors announced Sunday they have signed guard-forward Malcolm Miller to a two-way contract and forward Alfonzo McKinnie to a multi-year contract. 

Miller, 6-foot-7, 210 pounds, averaged 7.0 points, 3.4 rebounds and 18.7 minutes in 29 games last season for Alba Berlin of the German Bundesliga. In 2015-16, he averaged 12.4 points, 4.2 rebounds and 31.9 minutes in 47 games for the Maine Red Claws of the NBA G League and was second on the team with 84 made three-pointers.

McKinnie, 6-foot-8, 215 pounds, averaged 14.9 points, 9.2 rebounds and 30.5 minutes in 50 games last season for the Windy City Bulls of the NBA G League. He reached double-figure scoring 41 times, including a season-high 29 points March 4 versus Sioux Falls. The Chicago, Illinois native was named to the 2017 NBA G League All-Star Game in New Orleans and scored 16 points in 22 minutes of action.

McKinnie won a silver medal for USA Basketball at the 2016 FIBA 3x3 World Championship in Guangzhou, China. He split the 2015-16 season between the East Side Pirates (Luxembourg) and Heromsillo (Mexico), where he averaged 15.3 points, 7.5 rebounds and 26.0 minutes in 24 games.

The Toronto Raptors will waive and stretch Justin Hamilton.

The Raptors agreed to acquire Hamilton as part of the DeMarre Carroll salary dump trade with the Brooklyn Nets.

Toronto will have a $1 million cap hit over the next three years. The Raptors are now $2.5 million below the tax.

The Toronto Raptors and Indiana Pacer have agreed upon a sign-and-trade of C.J. Miles for Cory Joseph.

Miles, who is a free agent this offseason, will sign a three-year, $25 million deal with a player option in Year 3. Miles is one of the NBA's better spot-up shooters on the wing.

The Raptors cleared DeMarre Carroll on Saturday evening in a trade with the Brooklyn Nets.

Joseph signed a four-year, $30 million deal with the Raptors in 2015. Delon Wright can replace Joseph as Toronto's backup point guard.

The Toronto Raptors have agreed to trade DeMarre Carroll, a future first round pick and a second round pick to the Brooklyn Nets for Justin Hamilton. 

Carroll is owed $30 million over the next two seasons. Carroll previously was coached by Kenny Atkinson when he was an assistant coach with the Atlanta Hawks.

Toronto signed Carroll to a four-year, $60 million deal in 2015. 

With the Raptors re-signing Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka this offseason, they had luxury tax issues moving forward.