The Toronto Raptors didn't end up moving star point guard Kyle Lowry ahead of Thursday's 3 p.m. ET trade deadline, but dealing him was a possibility.

"Honestly we didn't know which way it was going to go." Raptors president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri told reporters Thursday night. "... We came in today looking at both possible ways."

Ujiri added that the team would further discuss Lowry's future with him following the season.

Ujiri also told reporters he wanted to send Lowry to a team he wanted to play for and wasn't going to settle on the incoming compensation:

While the Raptors didn't move on from Lowry despite repeated buzz that the Miami Heat, Philadelphia 76ers and Los Angeles Lakers weren't interested in acquiring him, they didn't stand pat on Thursday.

In the team's biggest move of the day, it dealt breakout guard Norman Powell to the Portland Trail Blazers for Gary Trent Jr. and Rodney Hood.

"Rodney is more proven and Gary Trent is a 22-year-old with a ton of upside," Ujiri told reporters. "Shooter, defender...he fits the core of our team. That's what we're excited about."

Additionally, Toronto traded Terence Davis to the Sacramento Kings and Matt Thomas to the Utah Jazz for future second-round picks.

Lowry is arguably the greatest Raptor of all time, so keeping him for the rest of the year is a feel-good story for the fans. But his future is still very much up in the air, as he's set to hit free agency in the summer.

The Raptors are clearly building around Fred VanVleet, Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby and may not want to pay big bucks to keep Lowry, who turned 35 on Thursday. That doesn't mean they'll necessarily lose him for nothing this offseason, however, as he could still be a candidate for a sign-and-trade move.

For now, the struggling Raptors (18-26) will try to fight their way back into the playoff hunt. It seems likely to be the point guard's last hurrah with the team, though it also seemed likely that Lowry would be traded by Thursday's deadline—and he was a trade candidate in years past—so his story in Toronto may yet have a few more chapters to be written.