NBA's Toronto Raptors announced on Friday that the team has fired head coach Dwane Casey, who was just named coach of the year by his peers in the league and helped the Raptors make the best season of 59 wins and 23 losses in franchise history.

"After careful consideration, I have decided this is a very difficult but necessary step the franchise must take. We celebrate everything Dwane has done for the organization, we thank him, and we wish him nothing but the best in the future. He was instrumental in creating the identity and culture of who we are as a team, and we are so proud of that," Raptors president Masai Ujiri said in a statement.

61-year-old Casey became head coach of Toronto in 2011 before he led the team to 320 wins and 238 losses in the regular season. He is also Raptors' first head coach to achieve 200 wins. Thanks to him, the team made it to the NBA Playoffs for five successful years and entered the Eastern Conference finals in 2016.

Ironically, Ujiri told the press on Thursday that though he was disappointed in how the team got knocked out, he still trusts Casey and his work, like he said in 2017. He also mentioned that they did not know what to do in such short notice. And then after one day, the Raptors figured out what to do: fire their head coach.

Having become No.1 seed in the Eastern Conference with the league's best bench power, the Raptors wanted to finally make a difference in the 2017-18 NBA playoffs, until they, again, met LeBron James and his Cavaliers and got swept home for the second time in a row. So far, Toronto has already lost 10 consecutive games to Cleveland in the playoffs.

The Raptors' excellent performances in the regular season have become a burden for Casey and became one of his problems: he was not able to make his team do as well in the playoffs as in the regular seasons. Meanwhile, Casey's on-the-spot directions have been blamed as he kept making his team smaller without maintaining their advantage of having bigger players for center and power forward positions. There were also league sources saying that Ujiri rushed into Casey's office after Game 3 and blamed him for not double teaming LeBron James who then won the game with a buzzer beater.

The Raptors' decision of firing Casey has not been popular among some players. "Scapegoat. Agree with Stephen A. on that one. Casey doesn’t deserve it," posted on Twitter by Oklahoma City Thunder's Patrick Patterson who used to play under Casey for four years.

"WOW WOW WOW oh WOOOOOWWWWWW. Well I hope the Raptors are bringing in the ghost of Red Auerbach. Or maybe Pat Riley, Phil Jackson... Masai Ujiri is as good as they come, he must be playing chess with us right now... " said Indiana Pacers' legend Reggie Miller.

Brad Stevens, head coach of the Boston Celtics has also expressed his disappointment at the Raptors' action and called Casey "a role model for a lot of coaches when you think about how his great players got better, played great."

"Case is one of the best coaches I've ever had. We didn't always see eye to eye, but he let me be me. He allowed me to go out and express myself as a player, and both DeMar and I ended up becoming four-time All-Stars and leaders here. He was huge for my growth as a man and an NBA player. They made a decision – and for me, as a leader in the organization, it's my job to support the decision that Masai and (general manager) Bobby (Webster) made," said Toronto's point guard Kyle Lowry to ESPN.