6 Man Lou Williams disappointed at not receiving contract offer from Raptors

Lou Williams expected to be back in Toronto.

After a strong bounce-back campaign (following a torn ACL and a subsequent down year) in his first season with the Raptors – which included a career-high 15.5 point-per-game average, a Sixth Man of the Year award, and an all-time great Drake shoutout – it was a reasonable expectation.

In March, with his contract set to expire at season's end, Williams was asked about his prospects of returning to Canada's team.

"Absolutely," he said. "I already tried to get them to go do it – get an extension."

In April, just before the start of the postseason, Williams spoke about his return to Toronto as if it was a foregone conclusion.

"I'm very confident that this is where I'm going to be for a number of years in the future," he said. "This team, this city and this organization has embraced me as one of their own and I look forward to being here."

There's no telling whether the Raptors would've approached Williams' free agency differently had they not fallen to pieces in the playoffs. But they did fall apart in the playoffs, due in equal measure to their porous defense and stagnant, isolation-heavy offense – for both of which Williams was a prime culprit.

Now he finds himself a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, having not even received a contract offer from the Raptors.

Williams discussed the situation, and his disappointment with how it played out, in an interview with Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders:

Just to speak candidly, it caught me by surprise that we didn’t get something done. I made it clear that I wanted to be there and I thought, with the type of year that I had, the feeling would be mutual. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. I think they wanted to go in a different direction and become more of a defensive-minded team. With the way that the playoffs ended, I think it left a sour taste in management’s mouth and they went out and picked up defensive players. They got DeMarre (Carroll), they got Cory Joseph, they got (Bismack) Biyombo – guys who they feel like can help them on the defensive end. They told me, basically, that I could walk. That was unfortunate, but it’ll work out for both sides. They got a guy who is from Toronto, Canada who will replace me in Cory and now I have an opportunity to continue my career as well, so it worked out for everybody.