Toronto Raptors front office has difficult roster decisions to make

The Toronto Raptors found themselves officially eliminated from the postseason on Tuesday night, putting an official bow on a largely forgettable season.

Though they’ll end the year with a higher win total than head coach Darko Rajakovic’s 25 in his first season with the team last season, it’s a campaign that will mostly be remembered in the big picture for the acquisition of Brandon Ingram, and not a whole lot else.

Of course, there have been some positives.

There’s been encouraging play from the team’s four regular rookies in Jamison Battle, Jamal Shead, Jonathan Mogbo, and Ja’Kobe Walter, a rarity in the modern NBA. All four players rank in the top 10 for minutes played this year (of the players still with the team) and should help to build up the foundation of the roster for years to come.

Scottie Barnes didn’t make his way back to the All-Star Game this year, but his numbers are near-identical to the season a year ago when he was named among the league’s best players.

The obvious caveat, despite some stretches of brilliance and things to look forward to, is that this year’s roster hasn’t produced very good results on the whole, as they’ll finish 11th or lower in the Eastern Conference with six games left to play.

Over the offseason and heading into next year, Toronto’s front office of Masai Ujiri and Bobby Webster will have some hard roster decisions to make along with Rajakovic.

Whenever he’s set to play, the currently-sidelined Ingram will join a Raptors core of Barnes, Dick, RJ Barrett, Jakob Poeltl, and Immanuel Quickley.

And though the Raptors might have six players who’ve proven to be capable of being consistent NBA starters, there are, of course, only five players who can play at any given time.

Barnes has started all but one game in his entire NBA career since being drafted fourth overall in 2021, as has Barrett since being taken third in 2019. Since coming off the bench for 39 games as a rookie with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2016-17, Ingram has been a starter for every game he’s played since.

Quickley only started 27 of 253 games across four seasons in New York before being traded to Toronto, but he started all 69 of his games with the Raptors when he played. Poeltl has started all but two of his games since his return to Toronto in 2023, and Gradey Dick has started every game in his sophomore season.

In an NBA world where egos, contracts, and clashing personalities can sink a promising team, the Raptors brass has to walk a delicate tightrope in handling the team’s core moving forward.

In a traditional look at the NBA’s classic five positions, Barrett would be sensible as the odd man out, playing an increased bench role behind Ingram while still playing upwards of 30 minutes a night.

But perhaps the Raptors shift Barnes to more of a point forward role, meaning it’s Quickley’s turn to come off the bench.

Toronto could also opt to try out a centre-less lineup sans Poeltl, although that experiment wasn’t exactly successful for much of the 2022-23 season that ultimately caused the Raptors to make the move for the big man. Lastly, perhaps Toronto opts to develop Dick more slowly and moves him back to a bench role to start out the year.

Given that health concerns have plagued the Raptors for much of this season, perhaps having six healthy starter-calibre players won’t be an issue that Toronto runs into all that often moving forward.

The roster decisions don’t simply extend to the starting lineup, though.

Veteran forward Chris Boucher heads into this summer as an unrestricted free agent, having fallen deep down the depth chart for much of the last two seasons under Rajakovic. The team says it’s simply a business decision to prioritize younger players amidst a rebuild, but it’ll be interesting to see if they opt to re-sign the 32-year-old for next year.

Outside of the aforementioned rookies, there will also likely be two or more new players coming to Toronto by way of this June’s draft. And though many fans might’ve been tuning out of the latter stages of the year, it’s been a chance for the team to audition players like AJ Lawson, Jared Rhoden, and Orlando Robinson as they fight to maintain regular spots in the NBA and avoid more G League time.

Though the future of the franchise remains a bit uncertain, we should get some more clarity in the coming months on how exactly the Raptors’ front office sees it all coming together.

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