DeMar DeRozan was the soul of the Toronto Raptors

In pure basketball terms, acquiring Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green from San Antonio for DeMar DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl, and a protected first-round draft pick was a no-brainer for the Toronto Raptors.

Stuck in a kind of NBA purgatory, having ridden with the same three-man nucleus and run into the same postseason stumbling blocks for five consecutive years, having been swept out of the playoffs for a third time in that span, and having already committed to going in a new direction by firing the most successful and longest-tenured coach in team history, the Raptors needed a significant roster shakeup.

That the shakeup proved to be the addition of a two-time Defensive Player of the Year and top-three MVP finisher, at minimal cost to their stockpile of promising young players, is a coup, even with questions continuing to surround Leonard's health and his commitment to playing all-out for the Raptors a season ahead of a free agency in which he already appears to have his heart set on Los Angeles. For a team in Toronto's position, it's a risk worth taking 10 times out of 10.

But then, these things never are and never should be just about basketball.

DeRozan has become deeply, intractably embedded in the culture of the Raptors and the city of Toronto. He was the bridge between three different eras for the franchise; from the tail end of the squandered Chris Bosh years, to the thick of the Andrea Bargnani-led doldrums, to the out-of-nowhere resurgence led by DeRozan and Kyle Lowry that crested with this year's joyous 59-win campaign.

Through it all, DeRozan professed his love for the city, and his desire to play there for his entire career. When Bosh left as a free agent in the summer of 2010, DeRozan, coming off his rookie season, famously tweeted, "Don't worry, I got us," and proved astonishingly true to his word. He became beloved not only for his professionalism and ambassadorial approach to basketball in Toronto, but for his insane work ethic, his never-ending quest to hone his craft, and the fact that each summer he found some new wrinkle to add to his game, gradually morphing from raw project to intriguing upstart to flawed rotation player to All-Star to All-NBAer over the course of his nine seasons with the Raptors. He was a prospect once touted primarily for his vertical athleticism, and he wound up excelling in ways that had nothing to do with that (though the hops certainly didn't hurt).

He developed a bamboozling pump fake so successful at drawing unwitting defenders off their feet that teams began issuing fines to players who fell for it. He became expert at drawing and finishing through contact, and mastered the intricacies of footwork like few in the league this generation. To compensate for a shaky outside jumper, he made the in-between spaces his domain, adding all manner of herky-jerky moves and countermoves, up-and-unders and off-foot teardrops to his ever-expanding arsenal. He turned his ball-handling and passing from major weaknesses into major strengths, and even began to approach credibility as a 3-point shooter. The fact that he developed into the kind of player who could be the centerpiece of a Kawhi Leonard trade is a testament to the incalculable hours he put into rounding out his skill set. DeRozan is reportedly extremely upset about the trade, and the cruel irony is that if he hadn't gotten this good, he'd probably still be a Toronto Raptor.

On the other hand, that would also be true if his development had carried over to the postseason, if his two glaring flaws (his negligent defense and unreliable jump shot) hadn't been so dramatically exposed year after year, and if the lasting image of him going into virtually every offseason over the past half-decade hadn't been his being neutralized or exploited or benched in crucial playoff moments.

If his 32-point outing in a Game 6 win over the Bucks in 2017 - punctuated by a series-clinching driving dunk - stands out, then so, too, does the indelible image of Giannis Antetokounmpo staring incredulously at a scorecard after mopping the floor with the Raptors in Game 3 of that series, saying "Only ... eight points. And just free throws." So, too, does DeRozan being on the bench during the Raptors' most monumental playoff comebacks; in Game 5 against the Pacers two years ago, and in Game 3 against the Cavaliers this past spring. So, too does his ejection for clotheslining Jordan Clarkson out of frustration during the miserable fourth game of that same Cavs series, which proved to be DeRozan's final moment in a Raptors uniform.

Since he was drafted in 2009, for better or worse, DeRozan has embodied the Raptors, and their perpetual struggle for legitimacy; all the their flaws and strengths, their limitations and unexpected successes, their growth and stagnation, their many contradictions and their annual regular-season-to-playoff disconnect.

On the whole, though, there has been far more good than bad. DeRozan was one of the chief architects of the Raptors' paradigm shift, of their rise from doormat to fringe contender, from shambolic laughingstock to paragon of cultural consistency. His on-court and off-court rapport with Lowry, the envy of other players around the league, formed the backbone of that culture. You can argue that Lowry's been the more important player, but neither would have reached such lofty heights without the other. Where Lowry could be pugnacious and adversarial, DeRozan exuded a quieter kind of leadership. Where Lowry could be guarded and reticent, DeRozan was an open book. While Lowry stewed in silence at the podium after the team's most recent playoff sweep, DeRozan gamely fielded difficult questions about the team's mental and physical hurdles and how they could move forward.

He's always been earnest, always willing to shoulder blame and accept criticism, and always handy with a postgame sound bite drawn from a seemingly inexhaustible stash of metaphors. Former teammates go out of their way to sing his praises. If Lowry has been the team's heart these past five years, DeRozan has undeniably been its soul.

He was The One Who Stayed, the Compton native who proudly said "I am Toronto," the star who not only re-committed to the frequently jilted franchise when he had a chance to leave in 2016, but declined to even take a free-agent meeting elsewhere. He spent last season shuttling back and forth between his team and his hometown, caring for his ailing father while barely missing a practice and putting forth a career-best season on the court. He became an advocate for mental health awareness basically by accident, but when he saw the impact his outspokenness was having, he owned it, and encouraged others to do the same. He's never been flashy, or boastful, or attention seeking; he's just put his head down and embraced the grind. He wasn't always the easiest player to watch, but few athletes in the history of Toronto sports have been easier to root for.

The concept of "loyalty" in sports has been overused and warped to the point that it almost feels like a bad word, but it's impossible to think of DeRozan's contributions to the Raptors over the past decade and not feel a genuine sense of kinship between him and the team, the city, and most significantly, its fans. That ultimately wasn't enough disincentive for the Raptors to deal him for Leonard, because, well, loyalty isn't actually currency in the business of pro sports, as Isaiah Thomas (to name but a recent example of a beloved player blindsided by a trade) can surely attest.

More than anything, it just hurts that DeRozan is hurt by this, that he feels betrayed by the franchise to which he gave so much. It gets exhausting trying to think critically and rationally about the machinery of team-building and basketball decision-making. We don't invest our time in pro sports just to understand and appreciate the cold, objective binary of wins and losses; the whole endeavor makes a lot more sense when emotional attachment is part of the equation. Yes, the Leonard trade is a well-timed calculated risk and an eminently smart move for the Raptors. It is also utterly devastating.

Maybe loyalty is the wrong word to use to describe DeRozan's relationship with Toronto. Maybe it's more accurate to say that comfort, or pragmatism, or money, or image-consciousness formed the basis of the connection. We can't really know. Athletes, like all people, act mainly out of self-interest, as they should.

All the blood, sweat, and tears DeRozan put in, on and off the court, earned him a name, a fortune, and a Raptors legacy that will live on for a long time. Of course, he did that for himself and his family first and foremost. But what made his tenure in Toronto so meaningful is that he made it feel like he was doing it for Toronto.

(Photos courtesy: Getty Images)