Everyone remembers the big names for the Raptors: Damon Stoudamire, Vince Carter, Chris Bosh. Lowry, DeRozan, Leonard, Siakam, and Barnes. But, in between those titans of Jurassic Park, I worry (and strongly believe) that there will be a lot of players who fall through the cracks of history, undeservingly so.
In between the purple dinosaur and the 2019 championship, there were a great many Raptors who contributed to the Raptors getting to the top of the basketball world, and for this reason, I really
hope we don’t forget about Terrence Ross.
Ross played 11 years in the league, mainly for Toronto and the Orlando Magic, and occupies a minor, but very distinct position in the history of the Toronto Raptors. While on the Raptors, he never averaged 11 points in a single season, but played more than 70 games in every year on the roster.
In a 2017 article on Ross, Sean Woodley for RHQ wrote in the same story that “Ross exudes apathy. It’s his most awe-inspiring strength and simultaneously his greatest downfall,” and that “watching him break loose of his easy-going demeanor for one game leaves you salivating at the thought of him stringing performances like it together.”
To say that Ross was purely under-appreciated would be a matter of revisionist history, a business I have no interest in entering. However, it’s not any type of consistency that makes Ross a noteworthy part of those early 2010s squads. Rather, it’s his position as an important transitionary figure, who took some important steps to help the franchise move on from two of its eras of pre-championship identity.
Out with the old, in with the Ross
Ross the first player of the post-Vince Carter era to tie Carter’s single-game scoring record of 51 points, and to this day, Ross has only has his achievement surpassed by three players. Not only that, but Ross was the winner of the 2013 NBA Dunk Contest, which made him both the most recent Raptor who won the contest, but also, the first to do it since… you guessed it, Vince Carter in the year 2000.
While the Raptors have since made amends with Carter, for years after his departure to the then-New Jersey Nets, there was a genuine animosity towards the former Air Canada in Toronto. Ross’ high flying dunks and three-point shooting showed that even without Carter, Raptors players could put themselves on the map.
The “Human Torch” as he came to be known, started more than 140 games for the Raptors before ultimately being traded away to the Orlando Magic in the 2016-17 season. Who was he traded for? Serge Ibaka.
Without Ibaka anchoring the Raptors’ frontcourt in the back-half of the ‘10s, the Raptors would have had a far more difficult path to the championship, despite some publicized difficulties with an initial mesh in Toronto. Josh Kern, in a 2020 retrospective, called Ibaka the Raptors’ “hope, finally, at the power forward spot that had been a disaster since Chris Bosh left town.”
Ross’ years of service to the Raptors allowed him to be traded for the big man, in a deal that helped to uplift Toronto past years of “maybes” and into a realm of concrete success. In a roundabout way, the ghost of Ross was still present on ring night, years after he departed from the 6ix.
On the other side of the arena
That considered, Ross had a final role to play in the Raptors’ ultimate success in 2019, that being the dutifully played position of on-court antagonist to the Raptors, who faced off against him and the Orlando Magic in the first round of the ‘19 playoffs.
The Magic, then led by Aaron Gordon and Nikola Vučević, had Ross coming off the bench in a year he got some Sixth Man of the Year votes, but in the playoffs, Ross was second in the team in both point-per-game and steals, all without starting in a single game.
Orlando won the opening contest of the series before falling to the Raptors in five games, ultimately bringing the story of Terrence Ross and the Toronto Raptors to a close. But, while he ultimately came to oppose the Raptors in their greatest moments, some mercy should be extended to an old compatriot, a final reward for years of service.
Ross won’t be getting a statue outside Scotiabank Arena any time soon, but popping on his highlights and remembering “that boy nice” is a fair ode to the man’s mixed legacy in the North.
