Sri Lanka team manager Ashantha de Mel has complained to the ICC about the "unfair" pitches he feels Sri Lanka have had to play their matches on, as well as the less-than-ideal training facilities and accommodation.

Although their two most-recent matches were washouts in Bristol, Sri Lanka had begun the tournament on two green decks in Cardiff, where they lost to New Zealand and narrowly beat Afghanistan. In the approach to their match against Australia at The Oval - a venue that has seen high-scoring games thus far - de Mel believes Sri Lanka have been saddled with another green track. As seaming conditions will ostensibly aid Australia, de Mel is unhappy.

"What we have found out is that for the four matches we have played so far at Cardiff and Bristol, the ICC has prepared a green pitch," he told Daily News. "At the same venues, the other countries have played on pitches are brown and favourable for high scoring.

"The pitch being prepared for our match against Australia on Saturday here at The Oval is green. It is not sour grapes that we are complaining. But it is very unfair on the part of the ICC that they prepare one type of wicket for certain teams and another type for others."

There have been other inconveniences too, according to de Mel, which he said he has officially brought to the ICC's notice.

"Even the practice facilities provided at Cardiff were unsatisfactory. Instead of three nets they gave us only two, and the hotel we were put up at Bristol did not have a swimming pool, which is very essential for every team - for the fast bowlers, especially, to relax their muscles after practice," he said. "The hotels that Pakistan and Bangladesh were put up at Bristol had swimming pools.

"We wrote to the ICC listing all these shortcomings four days ago but so far we have not had any response from them. We will continue to write to them until we get a reply."

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Golden State Warriors stars Stephen Curry and Draymond Green remain confident that the team's five-year run of dominance is not ready to end after it fell to the Toronto Raptors in the NBA Finals.

"We'll be thinking about this one. it's tough," Curry said after Thursday night's 114-110 loss in Game 6. "But our DNA and who we are and the character that we have on this team, I wouldn't bet against us being back on this stage next year and going forward. So really proud of the way that we fought until the end and this five-year run's been awesome, but definitely don't think it's over."

Curry's remarks came before the team announced that Warriors swingman Klay Thompson had torn the ACL in his left knee. That emotional blow comes just three days after Warriors star forward Kevin Durant ruptured the Achilles tendon in his right foot.

Green echoed Curry's sentiments, remaining buoyed by the fact the Warriors have dealt with so many emotional highs and lows over the past five years.

"I think everybody thinks it's kind of the end of us," Green said. "But that's just not smart. We're not done yet. We lost this year. Clearly just wasn't our year, but that's how the cookie crumbles sometimes. But, yeah, I hear a lot of that noise, it's the end of a run and all that jazz. I don't see it happening though. We'll be back."

Before the Thompson news, Green was one of several teammates to praise Thompson for the way he competed before leaving Thursday night's game in the third quarter with the injury. Thompson injured his left hamstring in Game 2 and had to sit out Game 3 before returning to help the Warriors the rest of the series.

"Probably the guy that got the most heart on this team," Green said of Thompson. "It's not really the most popular opinion, but as a guy who's been with Klay for seven years, I don't know many people with as much heart as Klay. So the way he was playing, as aggressive as he was, he was carrying us, and when he went down, obviously we lose a lot."

The Warriors now face the strong possibility that even if they are able to retain both Durant and Thompson this summer in free agency, they will miss both All-Stars for most -- if not all -- of next season.

Warriors head coach Steve Kerr spoke with pride about the way his team battled until the end of this series, as it dealt with multiple injuries along the way, including Kevon Looney playing through a nondisplaced first costal cartilage fracture on his right side.

"It's hard to put into words how I feel about our team," Kerr said. "What I've witnessed as their coach over the last five years is just an incredible combination of talent and character and commitment to each other. This just doesn't happen. A group of guys like this doesn't come around together and do what they did over the last five years. And I've been lucky enough to be their coach. That's what I told them in the locker room.

"I can't tell you my gratitude in terms of just being put in this position to be with this group and to coach them and to help them. But I could not be any luckier as a coach to be with these guys every day and to watch them compete and, boy, do they compete. I think they showed that throughout this series and throughout the playoffs."

As sad as the Warriors felt about losing the series, Green admitted there was some solace to be taken in the way in which the group played and fought until the end.

"Obviously, you feel good about it, but it's no shocker to us," Green said. "We know what this team has been made of all along. I said it over and over again, the pretty offense will always be the storyline, but this team, a ton of heart. Everybody that steps on that floor displayed a ton of heart. So it's no shocker to us that we continue to fight, but we came up a little short and that's just it."

OAKLAND, Calif. -- The Toronto Raptors are NBA champions.

With a 114-110 victory over the Golden State Warriors in Game 6 of the NBA Finals on Thursday night, the Raptors capped a dramatic series filled with twists and turns, lifting the Larry O'Brien Trophy for the first time in franchise history.

In a game totally in keeping with the tense, taut nature of this best-of-seven affair, the Raptors stormed out to an early lead, thanks to the play of embattled point guard Kyle Lowry, who scored Toronto's first 11 points of the game. But the Warriors quickly responded and the teams went back and forth, racking up 14 lead changes in the first half alone.

Eventually, the Raptors managed to pull ahead, thanks to some clutch shotmaking by Fred VanVleet, whose 3-pointer from the top of the key with 3 minutes, 44 seconds left put Toronto ahead for good and sent the Raptors on their way to the title so many thought this team would never win.

Just a year ago, Toronto was reeling from being ousted from the playoffs for a third straight time by LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Raptors had fired their coach and were contemplating blowing up the roster. They traded for Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green in the summer, then added Marc Gasol at the trade deadline.

"It was a heck of a 12 months," Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. "I just try to take things as they come. Didn't look too far ahead. Obviously when we made some additions to the team, we thought we could be good, but we had no idea what the health status was and all those things.

"You just got to go take the guys you got and go play and manage it the best you can."

The Raptors -- through a combination of timing and circumstance -- formed the best defensive unit Golden State has seen during its run to five straight NBA Finals. They thwarted the Warriors, blunted their runs, stymied the kinds of surges that have overwhelmed opponents in so many games.

That was always especially true at Oracle Arena, where Golden State has been so dominant during this dynasty. And yet, with Thursday night's win, Toronto swept all four games it played in this building this season -- the most obvious example of just how different this Raptors team is from the ones that came before it.

"They're a fantastic basketball team," Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. "Great defensively, share the ball, play a beautiful style, a lot of great two-way players and a lot of veteran players who have been in this league contributing for a long time, so I'm very happy for them.

"Winning a championship is the ultimate in this league, and they have got a lot of guys who have earned this. ... They are a worthy champion."

Of course, the story of Toronto's defense, and its triumph in this series, can't be told without including Kevin Durant's presence for just 11 minutes, 57 seconds in it.

After sitting out the first four games, Durant returned for Game 5. When he planted his right foot to drive past Raptors big man Serge Ibaka on the right wing at the 9:51 mark of the second quarter, he crumpled to the floor, having ruptured his Achilles tendon.

Then Klay Thompson, who had missed Game 3 because of a hamstring strain, suffered a torn ACL in his left knee late in the third quarter of Game 6. While the Warriors maintained the lead for a while -- and were ahead at multiple points in the fourth quarter -- eventually the battle of attrition became too much to overcome.

But it isn't fair to Toronto, and its accomplishments, to label this as the Raptors winning because Durant and Thompson were hurt. Toronto was battle-tested and deep, filled with veteran players who knew their roles, and a team that knew what it was fighting for. The Raptors emerged from two knock-down, drag-out fights in the previous two rounds, better for the experience and fully formed into the team they knew they could be. They were fresher, deeper, hungrier and, yes, better.

And, after being tied 101-101 with the hobbled Warriors with four minutes left, Toronto outscored Golden State 13-9 the rest of the way to ensure this series didn't have to go back to Scotiabank Arena for a Game 7 on Sunday night.

The Raptors earned every bit of this. When they got blown out by the Philadelphia 76ers in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, they were declared extinct. The same thing happened when they were blown out by the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals. And again when Toronto failed to close out both Game 2 and Game 5 of these NBA Finals at Scotiabank Arena -- both games the Raptors could have easily won.

Each time, though, Toronto refused to return to the "same old Raptors" they had always been. Part of that comes from the fact these are not the same old Raptors. Leonard is not DeMar DeRozan. Green is not Terrence Ross. Gasol is not Jonas Valanciunas. Nurse is not Dwane Casey.

Part of it, though, comes from experience. The players who have been in Toronto for the past few seasons -- Lowry, Pascal Siakam, Ibaka, VanVleet and Norman Powell -- have tasted playoff disappointment. Lowry, in particular, had been one of the pillars -- alongside Casey and DeRozan -- of both the good and bad parts of the past few years north of the border. So it was fitting that, on this night, he had the game of his life, scoring Toronto's first 11 points of the game, finishing the first half with 21 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists and going on to post totals of 26, 7 and 10.

"I wanted to be aggressive," Lowry said. "I look back at every game we've played and that we've won I've shot double-figure times. And I was more aggressive. The games, I think besides Game 1, but other games, all the other games we won, I was more aggressive offensively, makes or misses. But people thought that we were kind of going to be like, 'Man, we gave away Game 5.' But the group of guys that we have, we have been able to stay level-headed the whole time and understanding that we had a team that was going to come out here and play extremely hard, fans were going to be loud, and they were going to fight to the death.

"That's the one thing about that group, they fought to the death. And they got some great guys down there, great coaches, and we tip our hats to those guys because they, they're the definition of champions."

Before this series began, Ibaka said he still felt bitter about letting the Warriors come back from down 3-1 in the 2016 Western Conference finals when he was still with the Oklahoma City Thunder -- robbing him of a chance to return to the NBA Finals. Gasol, meanwhile, became the face of the "Grit 'n' Grind" Grizzlies in Memphis, but that team, too, could never quite measure up to the elite teams in the West. Leonard saw his brilliant run in San Antonio end in confusion and anger on both sides last season. Green was used as salary filler to make Leonard's exit from San Antonio take place.

Throughout these playoffs, all of them, at different times, stepped up and helped propel these Raptors along, and helped lift this franchise to a place that it never seemed it could reach.

It is Golden State that, during this Steve Kerr era, has proclaimed "Strength In Numbers" as its mantra. In this series, though, it was Toronto that had the deeper, stronger, more versatile roster -- and it was that which ultimately pushed the Raptors over the finish line.

But it was Siakam who couldn't handle a pass from Green -- after a pair of Stephen Curry free throws -- that gave Golden State the ball back with 9.6 seconds left, and a chance to win the game with any basket.

In the end, it wasn't meant to be. Andre Iguodala's heave to Draymond Green set up a shovel pass to Curry, who got a clean look for what would have been an incredible turnaround. But rather than dropping through the net, like the sellout crowd was hoping for, it clanged off the back iron, and bounded away as one player after another dove on the floor in pursuit.

"The shot was one I take 10 out of 10 times," Curry said. "And we ran a play that was kind of, we got a decent look off of kind of a bobbled catch, and I could see the rim, so I shot it. I'll live with that. We always talk about that, myself and Klay, in terms of shots that we take, you live with it.

"I would shoot that shot every day of the week."

Ultimately, Golden State was called for a technical for attempting to call a timeout when it had none. And, after the final formalities were dispensed with, Toronto found itself with the championship it has waited more than two decades to get.

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Five years ago, he slayed a giant when he won Finals MVP in leading the San Antonio Spurs over the two-time champ Miami Heat. On Thursday night, Kawhi Leonard became a superteam killer again when he finished off the Golden State Warriors' two-year run as champions and again earned the Bill Russell Trophy.

The Toronto Raptors star capped an historic postseason by reaching an historic achievement: the first player in history to win Finals MVP with a team from each conference. Leonard earned the honor following the Raptors' 114-110 Game 6 victory to close out a 4-2 series win.

"This is what I play basketball for,'' Leonard said. "This is what I work out for.''

Leonard averaged 28.5 points per game on 43 percent shooting in the Finals, but he had probably his least impact in the clincher, scoring 22 points with six rebounds on a night when he got great help from his supporting cast.

But if there were an award to honor the best player of the entire postseason, Leonard likely would have captured that as well as he led everyone in points, rebounds and steals over the last two months. He's the first player to lead in all three of those statistical categories since Larry Bird in 1984.

"I think he's the best two-way basketball player in the NBA," Raptors guard Kyle Lowry said. "He just goes. You know, I've seen some stuff from him this year that you just say, 'Wow.' You do. You say, 'Wow.' You appreciate the work that he's put in. He works extremely hard at his game and works extremely hard on his body. And he loves this basketball thing. Loves it."

Leonard won his first Finals MVP in 2014 with the San Antonio Spurs, a series in which he averaged 17.4 points and 6.2 rebounds and won the honor largely for his defense on James.

This performance was even more dominating, especially in Games 3 and 4 at Golden State when he delivered back-to-back power performances that enabled the Raptors to take control of the series. His 15-point third quarter in Game 3 got the Raptors leverage to take the lead in the series. Then his 17-point third quarter in Game 4 was perhaps the most command performance of the playoffs.

In Game 5, he scored 10 points in a two-minute span in the fourth quarter that nearly was the exclamation point on the title before the Warriors' late run to take the game.

"Without a doubt, the best thing about this thing is that somehow I wound up on the sideline getting to watch this guy play up close,'' said Raptors coach Nick Nurse, who won an NBA title in his first season as a head coach in the league. "It's really cool.''

The lists Leonard joins with this performance are the elite of the elite. He's just the third player to win the Russell Trophy with two teams, the others being Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Bucks and Lakers) and LeBron James (Cavaliers and Heat). He's the fourth player to win Finals MVP in his first season with a team, joining Magic Johnson with the Lakers in 1980, Moses Malone with the Philadelphia 76ers in 1983 and Kevin Durant with the Warriors in 2017.

This MVP came after Leonard missed most of the 2017-18 season with the Spurs due to injury.

"I just kept working hard, working hard, and had my mind set on this goal right here," Leonard said. "I came to a team, a new coast -- that mindset was the same as mine, trying to get that Larry [O'Brien championship] trophy there. And this is what I play basketball for; this is what I work out for all summer [and] during the season. And I'm happy that my hard work paid off."

Leonard scored 732 points in the postseason, third-most in NBA history behind Michael Jordan (759 in 1992) and LeBron James (748 in 2018).

Leonard will now turn his focus toward free agency. He has until June 26 to exercise a $21.3 million player option for next season, which he is expected to decline and become an unrestricted free agent on June 30.

A maximum contract for Leonard with the Raptors would be $190 million over five years. If he were to sign with another team, he could sign for $140 million over four years. He would also have the options to sign shorter-term deals. Because he has eight years of experience, one strategy would be to return to free agency in 2021 when, as a 10-year free agent, he could sign for significantly more.

"I'm 'bout to enjoy this with my teammates and coaches, and I'll think about that later," Leonard said.

No matter what Leonard chooses, next season his max salary would start at roughly $33 million, which explains why he'd opt out of his deal no matter his team preference.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Golden State Warriors swingman Klay Thompson suffered a torn ACL in his left knee in Thursday night's Game 6 of the NBA Finals, the team announced.

Thompson was hurt with 2 minutes, 22 seconds left in the third quarter after he went up for a breakaway dunk and was fouled by Toronto Raptors guard Danny Green with Golden State leading 83-80. Thompson came down hard and immediately grabbed the knee while writhing on the floor in pain.

The Warriors ruled Thompson out for the rest of the game, and he left the building on crutches, much the same way Kevin Durant did after rupturing an Achilles tendon in Game 5.

Thompson left the game in the midst of another great performance in the Finals. He had 30 points in 32 minutes, going 8-for-12 from the field and pulling down five rebounds. But it wasn't enough -- the Raptors won 114-110 to finish off a 4-2 series victory and capture their first NBA championship.

Asked what went through his head when Thompson went down, Warriors coach Steve Kerr said, "It's amazement that we're sitting in this position with -- during the game, we have a chance to win the game and force a Game 7, go back to Toronto -- you just think, 'How? How has this group of guys put themselves in position to do it?' And then, as I said, when Klay goes down and is out for the game, it's just sort of a, 'You gotta be kidding me. This has to stop.'

"But it's just -- the way it's gone, I don't know if it's related to five straight seasons of playing 100-plus games and just all the wear and tear, but it's devastating."

Moments after he was injured, Thompson got up to his feet and was taken toward the locker room with the help of Warriors big men Jonas Jerebko and Jordan Bell on either side of him.

After making it about halfway to the locker room, Thompson turned around and headed back to the floor to take his free throws. If another player had taken the free throws, Thompson wouldn't have been allowed to return to the game.

Thompson's re-emergence on the floor received a raucous standing ovation from the crowd inside sold-out Oracle Arena.

Thompson proceeded to knock down both free throws, giving Golden State an 85-80 lead as Warriors fans chanted "MVP! MVP!" The Warriors fouled on the ensuing possession to get him back to the locker room to be checked out by the team's medical staff.

"It's just tough in terms of a guy like Klay that left it all out there," Warriors guard Stephen Curry said. "He was playing amazing tonight. And to see a freak play like that where he lands awkwardly. I don't know the diagnosis yet, but you think about the person and the guy and how much he loves to play the game and that's the only thoughts you have. It's really not about what it means in terms of playing basketball. It's just I'm more concerned about him as an individual."

Thursday night's scene was eerily reminiscent of the scene surrounding Durant's injury.

Warriors general manager Bob Myers and Warriors director of sports medicine and performance Rick Celebrini walked behind Thompson as he made his way back to the locker room, much like they did with Durant on Monday night.

Thompson suffered a left hamstring injury in Game 2 of the series and was forced to miss Game 3, despite pushing to play. He returned and was a stalwart for the beleaguered Warriors group throughout the series.

"Obviously he's a warrior," Warriors center DeMarcus Cousins said. "He's a true definition of a warrior. Dude [was] basically on one leg, and he's still trying to come out to play. To have a teammate like that, that's all you can ever ask for. Love that dude to death. I'd go to battle with him any night."

OAKLAND, Calif. -- In his office overlooking downtown Toronto in January 2015, Masai Ujiri, then the general manager of a surprising 24-9 Toronto Raptors team, looked back on an unlikely 13-month rise that began with the trade of Rudy Gay to the Sacramento Kings in late December 2013 -- when the Raptors were just 7-12.

"We made the Rudy trade to see where we would be," Ujiri said then. "Are we gonna break it all down? That's where luck comes in. We all walk around thinking we're geniuses, but in this business, you need that Lady Luck."

It was a somewhat unexpected admission, even if Ujiri was only admitting the obvious: The Raptors traded Gay (and five months earlier, former No. 1 pick Andrea Bargnani) to open a path toward a total rebuild. It helped that Andrew Wiggins, then considered the greatest Canadian prospect ever, loomed as the prize atop the 2014 draft.

Kyle Lowry would go next -- probably to the always-thirsty New York Knicks. The deal died just before the finish line. Meanwhile, the Raptors discovered the Gay trade had supplied them with a viable bench in Greivis Vasquez, Patrick Patterson, John Salmons and Chuck Hayes.

They started winning. They kept winning.

"You can sink and drown, or you can float," DeMar DeRozan told ESPN three weeks after the Gay deal. "And we out here like Michael Phelps."

Most championship teams have clear through lines that trace their journey to the top: They draft a foundational player that defines everything that comes next, or acquire one who agrees before stepping in the door to stay for a long time.

The Raptors have neither. There is no apparent modern precedent for a team trading for its only top-five player in a walk year -- without free agency matching rights, without signing said player to an extension as part of the trade -- and having that player lead the team to a title that same season. Toronto might be the most unconventionally constructed championship team in basketball history, and its six-game win over the Golden State Warriors has insiders across the league asking: Is there anything we can learn? Can we replicate what Toronto just did?

Toronto traded a protected first-round pick for Lowry -- believed to be the first reverse-protected pick in NBA history -- after missing out on Steve Nash in July 2012. Toronto's analytics group told higher-ups their numbers indicated Lowry was a top-10 point guard hiding in plain sight. He became much more. He also spent part of his first season in Toronto backing up Jose Calderon -- a development that caused minor tension between Dwane Casey, then the team's coach, and Bryan Colangelo, Ujiri's predecessor.

Six years later, Lowry is an unlikely tentpole of an unlikely champion. The Raptors look like proof of the value in staying good -- proof that tearing down isn't the only way to go from 50-win playoff also-ran to champion. Most contenders who fall short year after year eventually peter out and break up; the Indiana Pacers and LA Clippers of this decade stand as perhaps the best recent examples, but they have antecedents across the NBA landscape.

There are rare teams that remain competitive, tinker around their best player, and finally break through. The 2011 Dallas Mavericks come to mind, but they are more conventional than these Raptors in that they got their keystone -- Dirk Nowitzki -- in the draft and simply kept him. Dallas also de-emphasized the draft in favor of chasing aging stars and splashy veterans. Toronto mined the draft and the fringes of the NBA to fatten its asset base so that when a superstar became available, it could strike. The Raptors are not so different from the Houston Rockets -- their partners in that Lowry trade.

Houston avoided a teardown after the Tracy McGrady/Yao Ming foundation ran its course. The Rockets dealt Lowry because they felt another first-round pick would be a more valuable trade chip in pursuit of a star; they included that pick in the deal that got them James Harden. They just haven't busted through yet. (Harden was in the final year of his contract at the time, but he was set to be a restricted free agent -- meaning the Rockets would hold matching rights in the event Harden hit the market. He never did.)

Much has been made of Toronto having zero lottery picks left on its roster, but they used their lottery picks in that asset-accumulation mode. Bargnani became Jakob Poeltl (thanks, Knicks!), who became an important piece in the Kawhi Leonard trade, along with DeRozan, a former No. 9 pick. Jonas Valanciunas, the No. 5 pick in 2011, became the centerpiece of the Marc Gasol deal -- Toronto's version of the 2004 Detroit Pistons' (perhaps the Raptors' closest analog as a convention-busting champion) Rasheed Wallace acquisition.

(Lowry in this analogy is Chauncey Billups -- the late-blooming star point guard. The Pistons even moved on from an accomplished coach in Rick Carlisle the year before their title run, and hired Larry Brown -- just as Toronto fired Casey and replaced him with Nick Nurse.)

Delon Wright, the 20th pick in 2015, was a key part of the Gasol trade too. Terrence Ross, the No. 8 pick in 2012, turned into Serge Ibaka. Toronto had to include another first-round pick in that deal, but those are the minor risks you can take with picks when you've already piled up extra ones.

Ujiri somehow hoodwinked the Milwaukee Bucks into sending out the pick and draft rights that became OG Anunoby and Norman Powell (very good picks at Nos. 23 and 46, respectively) for one year of Vasquez. Nabbing someone as good as Pascal Siakam at No. 27 is a once-a-decade-level masterstroke. An undrafted player, Fred VanVleet, now stands as one of the league's best reserves.

The Raptors weren't perfect. Bruno Caboclo proved a reach. DeMarre Carroll, one of the biggest free-agent signings in franchise history, ended up costing a first-round pick to dump. Still: The bigger pre-Leonard picture of careful management over an extended timeline should be an achievable ambition.

But the Raptors feel different than most of those good-but-not-good-enough predecessors. They were never as good as the best Frank Vogel-era Pacers, late-2000s Mavericks, or the Chris Paul/Blake Griffin/DeAndre Jordan Clippers. The Pacers pushed LeBron James to the brink; James openly mocked the Raptors, and made a habit of sweeping them. The Clippers were a borderline championship-level team stuck in a hellish conference as an unexpected dynasty rose 400 miles north.

The Raptors made the Eastern Conference finals in the junior varsity side once before this run, in perhaps the least inspiring fashion ever in 2016: a seven-game squeaker over the seventh-seeded Pacers that Indiana should have won, and another seven-game war of attrition against the Miami Heat in which both teams suffered major injuries. DeRozan regularly shrunk in the playoffs; Casey benched him in what ended up the final non-garbage-time fourth quarter in Toronto for both.

The Raptors were good. The culture they built during Casey's tenure helped prepare them for this. But they were never serious good. They knew it. Ujiri spent much of the past half-decade simultaneously hunting for a starry upgrade and positioning the team to bottom out. Toronto chased Paul Millsap to close the long-term hole at power forward before settling on Ibaka when the Atlanta Hawks demanded what the Raptors considered too much, sources say. They had preliminary talks about a package for Paul George that looked in broad strokes like what they ended up trading for Leonard, league sources say.

The 2017 offseason, coming after a Cavs sweep in the second round, represented a pivot point. Lowry and Ibaka were free agents. Ujiri could let them walk, trade DeRozan, and bottom out ahead of the loaded 2018 draft. But Ujiri has rarely lost players for nothing. He created a template for a new kind of sign-and-trade as GM of the Denver Nuggets when he re-signed Nene Hilario to a five-year, $67 million deal in 2011 only to trade him for a younger player at the same position (JaVale McGee) three months later.

Toronto re-signed Ibaka and Lowry to three-year deals, timing them to expire together with Valanciunas' contract. The core had three years before detonation by default. In engineering that timeline, Ujiri delayed a rebuild so that the start of it would coincide with the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers -- then considered heirs to the East -- reaching their peaks; Toronto would rise again as those rivals fell. In the meantime, the Raptors could enjoy winning seasons and investigate what their players might fetch in trades.

They could never have envisioned Leonard's relationship with the San Antonio Spurs fracturing, and an MVP candidate becoming available for a modest price. That was by far the most important step in Toronto's journey, and the hardest for any team looking to the Raptors for guidance to replicate.

But if there is a lesson to take from Toronto's ascendancy, it might be that the league was too risk-averse chasing Leonard. He should not have been available for DeRozan, a solid rotation big and potential low-end starter in Poeltl, and what would inevitably be a pick toward the bottom of the first round.

It's much easier today, with Toronto atop the league, to declare other Leonard suitors -- Boston, Philadelphia, and the Los Angeles Lakers especially -- acted too cautiously. But if Leonard bolts in three weeks, everything looks different. Yes, the Raptors won with Leonard. Going all-in worked for them. That doesn't mean it would have worked for another team.

What if Leonard's four-bounce shot rolls out, and the Raptors lose to Philadelphia in overtime of Game 7 and bow out in the second round? What if Milwaukee sneaks out Game 3 of the conference finals in double overtime? The margins are that thin.

Toronto's prolonged pretty goodness worked to insulate it from the downside those other teams faced in trading for Leonard. The Raptors didn't have a present or a future they feared trading from. They had very little they would regret having lost for nothing in the event Leonard walked away after one season. They had no prized top-five pick, and no mapped-out path toward true title contention with their pre-Leonard group. It's hard to remember now, but a year ago, Anunoby probably had as much trade value as Siakam -- and maybe more.

They also had no cap space to lure Leonard in free agency. The Lakers did. Los Angeles brass had to ask themselves whether it was worth trading young players for Leonard if they could sign him outright in a year.

Philadelphia had the assets to make a play, but the Spurs wanted one of Ben Simmons or Joel Embiid, sources have said. That was a nonstarter.

If there is a team feeling Leonard regret now, it is Boston. The Celtics had the coveted young players and draft picks to outbid Toronto. Boston larded up its offer with draft picks, but declined to include Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown without gaining more assurance than was possible about Leonard's health and interest in re-signing, sources said at the time of the trade.

Boston's fretful waffling was understandable in the moment. Brown appeared on track to be an All-Star. Maybe more important, Boston believed it had a championship team already. They had just taken James and the Cleveland Cavaliers to Game 7 without Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward. Was it worth trading a key piece of what appeared then to be both a championship present and future to rent Leonard and watch him leave?

(It is incredible how much has changed for Boston in the past calendar year -- how many things went wrong, how many carefully laid plans appear in jeopardy.)

Acquiring Leonard also would have left Boston with four max-salary players in Irving, Hayward, Leonard and Al Horford -- untenable for long. Boston was saving its chips for Anthony Davis. Everyone around the league -- including the Raptors -- wondered if Leonard's health would ever allow him to be the player he was in 2017.

In retrospect, Boston was both too cautious and too optimistic about its existing core. (I was, too, by the way. Speaking of thin margins: A lot of us got so wrapped up in Boston pushing Cleveland to seven that we breezed past the fact that a middling Milwaukee team had done the same to the Celtics two rounds earlier.)

If you have a chance to win the title and a healthy culture, believe in that culture enough to take a risk that meaningfully boosts those title chances -- even for just one season. Every chance is precious. Even teams that appear set up to contend for five or 10 years are delicate organisms. Lesson learned.

Toronto had no such concerns. Acquiring Leonard at this price was almost risk-free. In the afterglow of a title, including Anunoby -- something Toronto refused, sources say -- looks like a no-brainer too.

Including Siakam would have hurt more than almost anyone anticipated (even those of us who hopped on the Siakam bandwagon when it was still in the parking lot). "Obviously there were a lot of talks and a lot of names thrown out there," Siakam said. "I definitely thought [being traded] was a possibility."

Toronto had the leverage to say no on both Anunoby and Siakam. That speaks to how little leverage San Antonio had -- or created -- in dealing Leonard. It really did take a perfect storm for the Raptors to acquire Leonard at this price.

They deserve credit for pouncing. Not every team would have traded a beloved homegrown All-Star for a superstar who signaled no interest in joining -- even if the cold analytical terms appeared a home run. Fewer still would have had the assets to dangle in deals for Ibaka, Leonard and Gasol.

Nabbing Leonard in this manner was the game-changing move that turned an artful holding pattern into a championship -- and the hardest for would-be followers to duplicate. In its rarity, the trade marks a fitting endpoint for the most unlikely championship construction project in NBA history.

Sunday is Father's Day, and New York Mets catcher Wilson Ramos will have a little more to celebrate.

Ramos discovered that his wife is pregnant with their third child Thursday night as he was standing in the on-deck circle at Citi Field.

Ramos' wife, Yely, came down from the stands in the bottom of the fourth inning of a game with the St. Louis Cardinals holding a sign that said:

"We're PREGNANT! WILSON, this is your 3rd CHILD. We LOVE YOU"

Ramos smiled when he saw his wife, then stepped in for his at-bat.

He struck out swinging in the game, which was suspended in the ninth inning with the score tied 4-4.

LOS ANGELES -- Chicago Cubs president Theo Epstein said there's a path for veteran Ben Zobrist to return to the team before the end of the season.

"There's been a little definition added to how he hopes this thing might go," Epstein said on Thursday before the Cubs played the Los Angeles Dodgers. "I've been in constant touch with Zobrist. He knows the door is open. I think he's got an idea in mind on how he would like this to go, but his priorities are clear -- that's family first."

Zobrist, 38, has been on the restricted list since May 7 for what was described as personal reasons. Soon after, both he and his wife, Julianna, filed for divorce. The couple have three kids.

Zobrist has been in touch with the team throughout the process and recently reached out to his teammates. If he returns to the Cubs it's likely to be late in the season, potentially in September, according to one source.

"Certainly the door is open and the possibility of a return is there for him later in the season," Epstein said. "We'll see how things evolve. We'd all love to see him back here and he would love to be back. We'll see if that can come to fruition."

Zobrist is in the final year of a four-year deal with the Cubs. He was a few days late to spring training, also for personal reasons, then was scratched from the team's game on May 6 before going on the restricted list. Despite the news of the possibility of return, Epstein isn't committing Zobrist to anything just yet.

"Nothing has been determined," Epstein said.

Los Angeles Angels designated hitter Shohei Ohtani hit for the cycle Thursday night in a 5-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Ohtani became the first Japanese-born player to hit for the cycle in MLB. He did it with a single in the seventh inning off Tampa Bay reliever Hunter Wood. That followed a three-run home run in the first, a double in the third and a triple in the fifth.

"I wasn't necessarily trying to hit a single,'' he said through a translator. "I was just trying to get on base, whether it was a base on balls or any other way because it was still a close game.''

After the triple in his third at-bat, Ohtani's cycle quest became the focus of the game.

"People were talking about it. It's not like a no-hitter when no one mentions it,'' said Angels manager Brad Ausmus, who was most impressed that the left-handed-hitting Ohtani got his first three hits off a left-handed pitcher. "We forget how young he is. He's in a new country, his second year here. He's 24 years old. He carries a lot on his shoulders, but he still stands pretty tall.''

Ohtani joins Jorge Polanco as the only players to hit for the cycle this season. He is the seventh different Angels player to hit for the cycle and the first since Mike Trout in 2013.

Ohtani is just the sixth player in MLB history to hit for the cycle as a DH, and first since Jeff DaVanon (also for the Angels) in 2004.

"You need some power to hit the home run, some speed to accomplish a triple,'' Ohtani said. "To be able to do that at the major league level is going to lead to a lot of confidence. The important thing now is to try to continue this tomorrow.''

Ohtani said being the first Japanese player to do it was extra special.

"There's been so many other great Japanese players before me. Being the first to accomplish it makes me very happy,'' he said.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

Some fans love cycles. Some are indifferent to them. Some get annoyed whenever an announcer says a player is a "triple away from the cycle," as if Chief Wilson or Willie Wilson or even Mookie Wilson were up and a triple was actually in the realm of possibility.

In the top of the seventh inning Thursday, Shohei Ohtani wasn't a triple away from the cycle, but merely a single away, having homered in the first, doubled in the third and tripled in the fifth for the visiting Los Angeles Angels. In a terrific eight-pitch duel against Tampa Bay Rays reliever Hunter Wood, Ohtani fell behind in the count, worked it full with two good takes, fouled off two fastballs -- one inside, one away -- and then saw the first slider of the at-bat and lined a soft single into right-center.

It's OK to admit that when Shohei Ohtani hits for the cycle, it feels like a much cooler achievement. Even Rays fans gave him a standing ovation:

Cycle raker, history maker. pic.twitter.com/43Wjni6gzq

— Los Angeles Angels (@Angels) June 14, 2019

Ohtani's cycle in the Angels' 5-3 victory also served as a nice reminder that last year's two-way sensation is still worth paying attention to, even if he's only hitting this season as he recovers from Tommy John surgery. Maybe only half his superpowers are in effect for now, but he's back to being one of the game's most exciting players.

Ohtani's production at the plate as a rookie was a revelation as he hit .285/.361/.564 with 22 home runs in 326 at-bats. He didn't have enough plate appearances to qualify for the official leaderboards, but his .564 slugging percentage would have ranked fourth in the American League behind only Mookie Betts, J.D. Martinez and Mike Trout, and his .925 OPS would have ranked sixth, behind those three plus Jose Ramirez and Alex Bregman.

Ohtani didn't make his 2019 debut until May 7, and when he got off to a slow start -- .237 and two home runs in his first 19 games -- we kind of forgot about him. We have short memories in baseball. There were new sensations to devote our highlight watching to. Of course, it didn't help that the Angels were 26-29 at that point and once again looking more like a .500 team than a playoff contender.

After his 4-for-4 performance against the Rays, Ohtani is now hitting .281/.350/.512 with eight home runs. The designated hitter has been particularly hot the past 10 days or so:

Shohei Ohtani, who just hit for the cycle, has a 1.517 OPS since June 4. Only Christian Yelich's is higher. I don't think anybody expected him to be this good a hitter. Not this quickly, at least.

— Alden Gonzalez (@Alden_Gonzalez) June 14, 2019

Here's the most impressive aspect to Ohtani's game so far: He's hitting left-handers -- his first three hits Thursday came off Rays southpaw Ryan Yarbrough -- something he didn't do last season, when he hit .222 with two home runs in 99 at-bats against lefties. When Ohtani returned from the injured list, new manager Brad Ausmus made it clear he was going to play every day, and now he's hitting .300/.383/.525 against lefties. This is the learning curve of a 24-year-old proving he's a star hitter.

Oh, and that's not even the primary reason every team in baseball wanted to sign Ohtani. He continues to progress in his rehab from his Tommy John surgery, and before Thursday's game, Ausmus said Ohtani is "getting close" to throwing from a mound and could do so before the All-Star break. There is no timetable for a return to major league action -- his surgery was Oct. 1, so that return might not come until next spring. Until then, we'll just have to enjoy Ohtani as a one-way sensation.