TORONTO — No matter how long the process, in the end, a trade is always a surprise. It was today to Pascal Siakam.

Even as the rumours heated up and talks were reported as ‘active,’ Siakam was going about his normal game day routine, expecting to suit up as a Toronto Raptor for the 511th time, the fifth most in franchise history.

The sense was, per league sources, that since the Indiana Pacers were determined to hold firm and not include any of their top young talent in a trade — not Ben Mathurin, the second-year lottery pick from Montreal, not Andrew Nembhard, the fast-rising second-round pick from the same draft who the Raptors have been coveting since he blew them away in a pre-draft workout in the summer of 2022, and not Jarace Walker, the wide-bodied power-forward the Pacers took 8th overall this past June — the Raptors would let things spool out a little bit more.

The trade deadline, after all, is three weeks away.

But that all changed quickly. Siakam will be on a flight to Indiana in the morning. The Raptors reached a point where they believed the offer they had was the best they were going to get and the saga regarding Siakam’s future with the team that drafted him — which had been percolating since the opening days of the 2022-23 season — was finally over.

More than anything — more than the minutiae of the return, good or bad, or process that made this deal eventually seem inevitable — it’s important to take pause and recognize that a fundamental piece of the most inspiring seasons the Toronto Raptors have ever had is gone. Siakam is the scrawny kid from Cameroon who started the first NBA game he ever saw, who won the NBA’s Most Improved Player Award, who scored 32 points on 17 shots in his first NBA Finals game, and who used his good fortune to start a long list of innovative and meaningful education oriented charitable efforts. He led the NBA in minutes per game twice and had a 52-point game in Madison Square Garden.

Raptors fans watched him start out as a fun-loving, fast-running, high-flying member of the bench mob and mature into a high-skilled veteran who could command entire offensive possessions against the best defenders in the league.

He never let any of the contract and trade drama that swirled around him for most of the past 18 months affect his production or professionalism. As the Raptors shifted offensive emphasis under new head coach Darko Rajakovic to cater more to Scottie Barnes, Siakam didn’t pout. After a brief adjustment period, he was as productive as ever, through any of the tumult relying on his mantra: “I’m just a hooper.” Translation: In any circumstances, he’ll trust his game and his work ethic to make sense of it all.

For a rookie head coach trying to establish himself with a new team, Siakam’s approach was deeply appreciated.

“Pascal is just a pure basketball junkie,” said Rajakovic Wednesday. “He is the first one to show up in the gym, the last one to leave. He was always coachable, always professional since day one. We had the opportunity to grab dinners and talk in training camp in Vancouver. He had a great lunch, talked about the season, his role, how I can help him, how we can help him, how he can help the team. And I can only be thankful and grateful for all of his contributions to our team this season. But also, I have to acknowledge that he spent nine years with this organization. He came here as almost (a) teenager and left quite a legacy behind him.”