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TSN Raptors Reporter

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TORONTO - The grass isn't always greener, as they say, and some teams - seemingly most teams these days - learn that the hard way.

In 2014 the Golden State Warriors fired their head coach, Mark Jackson, despite posting a 51-win campaign. Twelve months later they were NBA champions. A stroke of genius, right? Maybe not. They are the exception, not the rule, and for every exception there's a laundry list of cautionary tales.

Exhibit A: the New Orleans Pelicans. In 2015 Monty Williams took a young, injury-plagued Pelicans team to the playoffs for the first time in four years, only to be let go and replaced by former Warriors assistant Alvin Gentry a couple weeks later. They were the league's sixth-worst team this past year.

Exhibit B: the Chicago Bulls. That same year, Gar Forman and the Bulls' ownership group had finally grown tired of Tom Thibodeau, deciding to move on from the well-regarded head coach and turn the reins over to Fred Hoiberg. Chicago would go on to miss the post-season for the first time in eight years.

And it goes on like that. The 2013 Denver Nuggets cratered after canning George Karl, the league's Coach of the Year winner. The Atlanta Hawks and Memphis Grizzlies each took a step backwards after saying goodbye to Larry Drew and Lionel Hollins. The firing of Stan Van Gundy in Orlando, coinciding with Dwight Howard's departure, was the start of a lengthy rebuild for the Magic.

Over the last five years, 12 teams have parted ways with their head coach in the summer after making the playoffs. Only two of them improved on their win totals the following season, eight of them went on to win fewer games - an average of 14 fewer to be exact - and the other two, Indiana and Memphis, will go into next season with new coaches despite overachieving under Frank Vogel and Dave Joerger this past year.

Coaching is a fickle profession, perhaps more than ever before. It's often thankless. You absorb the blame for an organization's failures and get very little credit if it succeeds. It's what they sign up for, after all, which is why you will rarely hear them complain. It's one of the realities of the business.

However, more and more it's become clear that there is value in continuity. In an era where just about everybody aspires to emulate the San Antonio Spurs' model, there is one key ingredient that often goes overlooked: patience.

The Raptors hired Dwane Casey in June of 2011, a time of great uncertainty for the franchise. A year removed from losing Chris Bosh, Toronto was coming off a 22-win season, one in which it ranked dead last in defence. They were in search of an identity, a purpose, anything.

Now, five years and 62 coaching changes later, Casey is the fourth-longest tenured head coach in the NBA - behind his former Mavericks boss Rick Carlisle, Miami's Erik Spoelstra and, the benchmark, Gregg Popovich.

The 59-year-old coaching lifer has helped transform the Raptors organization. Under his watch the team has secured three straight division titles. DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry have blossomed into all-stars, with Jonas Valanciunas seemingly not far behind. They have improving their win total in each of his five seasons - culminating in this year's 56-win campaign and trip to the Conference Finals.

On Thursday he was rewarded with a three-year, $18 million extension that will keep him in Toronto through 2018-19, as reported by Yahoo's The Vertical. Although the deal has not yet been finalized, sources told TSN Thursday afternoon that both parties have agreed in principle and are expected make it official late this week or early next week.

In an off-season of tough decisions for president and general manager Masai Ujiri, this was the easiest one he will make, a no-brainer, a slam dunk. "That will be done in our sleep," he told reporters at his end-of-season press conference on Monday.

After getting a raw deal in Minnesota, where he was fired with a .500 record, and serving as an assistant with Seattle and Dallas for the bulk of his first two decades in the Association, Casey has taken advantage of the opportunity given to him here. He was first hired by former GM Bryan Colangelo nine days after winning a title as the architect of the Mavericks' defence. Seemingly, he's been coaching for his job in every season since Ujiri took over. Many wondered if he was in fact 'Ujiri's guy', even three years in, which is why this is a significant moment, not just for Casey but for the entire organization.

The Raptors, like most teams not based in San Antonio, had been a revolving door for head coaches. They cycled through seven of them in 16 seasons before settling on Casey - the franchise leader in games, wins and its only coach with a record above .500.

Casey is a tireless worker, someone that has allowed himself to grow with the team. He's a player's coach, someone that guys want to follow into battle, to fight for. He leads in a way that commands respect, not just from his players but from his peers. He brings out the best in his people.

In his first season on the Raptors' bench, Casey overachieved with a roster that Colangelo would later admit he had built intending to tank for Anthony Davis. A couple seasons later, as Ujiri was just about to enter the Andrew Wiggins sweepstakes, he flipped the script again, rallying his troops to end Toronto's five-year playoff drought. After the 2014-15 campaign came to a disappointing end in a first-round sweep to the Washington Wizards, he found himself on the hot seat again. Instead of doing what most teams probably would have, sending him packing, Ujiri empowered his head coach. For the first time in his tenure, Casey entered this past season with a team that fit his preferred style of play - tough, gritty, relentless, defensive-minded - and the result brings us here.

While most incoming GMs tend to bulldoze their way through a new organization, putting their stamp on its staff, bringing in their own people, Ujiri exercised patience. He didn't turn over the roster, he didn't replace the head coach. He let them decide their own fate, and they have.

The Raptors have found something in Casey. More than their head coach for at least the next three years, they have found stability and, for any organization in pursuit of sustainable success, that's an intangible that could be invaluable.