It sucks that the Raptors fired Dwane Casey. They probably had to do it—they’ve lost like a hundred straight playoff games to LeBron James, and the systemic and cultural changes Casey engineered this past season made not even the slightest dent in James’s dominance, and they can’t any longer credibly claim to be gunning for a championship if they don’t make some kind of significant change from what plainly does not work—but it’s a bummer. Casey is a great NBA coach, and whatever he did wrong in this equation accounts for a tiny part of why the Raptors can’t get past the very best player of this era of NBA basketball.
But fire him they did, and yesterday Casey, who’d been head coach in Toronto for seven seasons, published a lovely thank you and farewell note to the city in the Toronto Star. Of course he expresses gratitude for Toronto’s passionate and huge base of Raptors fans, but the second paragraph is dedicated to virtues of the Toronto community that he positions as distinctly a part of “the Canadian way.” The stereotypical Canadian is polite and patient and good-humored and accepting, and Casey is thankful that Raptors and Torontonians (Torontoans? Torontoites? Torontites?) lived up to that reputation:
Thank you for teaching our all-American family the Canadian way. That being polite and considerate to one another is always the best way. That diversity is something to be embraced and celebrated. That taking the time to learn about each other’s cultures is the surest way to find common ground and understanding. Thank you for making our children feel safe, valued, and comfortable in their own skin. We cannot express how important it has been to build the foundations of who our children are as human beings in a country that shows through its words, actions and laws that all people deserve basic human rights, and a chance to reach their goals through education and hard work.
Stupid Canadians. So damn sweet and accommodating. Thanks for rubbing our stupid, paranoid, violent, reactionary, xenophobic American noses in it, coach.