Toronto Raptors reward Dwane Casey with three-year extension

Coach Dwane Casey agreed to a three-year, $18 million extension with the Toronto Raptors.

Casey's new deal was first reported by Yahoo Sports, but the groundwork was in place for easy negotiations after the team made the Eastern Conference finals for the first time, losing in six games to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Casey is the fourth-longest tenured coach in the NBA. He was hired in 2011.

"Coach Casey is our coach for the future. I think that's very easy for us to figure out. That'll be done in our sleep, I think," general manager Masai Ujiri said Monday.

The Raptors won 56 games as the new pinnacle for a franchise that had 22 wins the season before Casey's arrival. The 2015-16 season was the final guaranteed year on his contract with the Raptors, who held a team option for next season before Thursday's three-year extension.

"This program has come such a long way from day one to what I've seen now," Casey said during the Raptors' season-ending press conference. "The team, I looked at our roster that we had the first year I was here, no disrespect to those guys, but totally different than the team that's here now. The growth: DeMar DeRozan's improvement, Kyle Lowry's improvement, Terrence Ross, everything -- the organization, the players -- has grown, gotten better. And that's the way this league is."