Who's the odd man out for Raptors' starting lineup after Schröder signing?

Though the signing had been rumoured for weeks, the Toronto Raptors officially introduced veteran point guard Dennis Schröder yesterday.

Signing with the team on a two-year deal after stints with the Oklahoma City Thunder, Boston Celtics, Atlanta Hawks, Houston Rockets, and a pair of different stretches with the Los Angeles Lakers, Schröder has found his way throughout several of the league’s highest-profile franchises.

“I’ve played with a lot of great, great players over the last four or five years,” he told the media on Wednesday.

Following the departure of Fred VanVleet, the Raptors needed someone — anyone, really — with a bit of NBA experience running an NBA offence to help carry the team through the foreseeable future.

But what role exactly will Schröder hold with Toronto next season? Well, if you ask him, he’s already had conversations with head coach Darko Rajaković, who was on the Thunder’s staff during the 2018-19 season Schroder was there.

“Of course I want to start,” Schröder added. “That’s one of my goals, to establish that and to lead the team.”

Schröder is part of the group of six players on Toronto’s current roster that has started over 50% of the games they’ve played over the last two seasons.

Here’s that full contingent.

• Pascal Siakam
• O.G. Anunoby
•  Scottie Barnes
•  Jakob Poeltl
• Gary Trent Jr.
• Dennis Schröder

The only problem? There are only five players on a basketball court at any given time.

There’s a lesser group of three players: Christian Koloko, Precious Achiuwa, and Otto Porter Jr., who could also all feasibly fit into Toronto’s starting group on any given night as an understudy.

Since the beginning of the 2021-22 season, here’s how those nine line up when it comes to how many of the games they played:

	Percentage of games started
Pascal Siakam	100
O.G. Anunoby	100
Scottie Barnes	99.3
Jakob Poeltl	98.5
Gary Trent Jr.	83.0
Dennis Schröder	60.7
Christian Koloko	32.8
Precious Achiuwa	31.3
Otto Porter Jr.	23.2

The most logical starting five based on positional fit would be along the lines of Schroder-Trent-Barnes-Siakam-Poeltl, with Anunoby coming in as the first man off the bench.

But we know that the NBA is a relatively positionless game. Toronto’s typical starting lineup towards the end of last season favoured Trent rather than Anunoby as the odd man out.

It seems sensible to expect that trend to continue this season. After all, with Trent opting into his contract for this season and reportedly working on a long-term extension, he’s probably not all too concerned if he has to come off the bench a little while still playing large NBA minutes.

The actual reality? Toronto will probably play all sorts of lineups throughout next season while battling injuries, load management, Rajakovic’s tinkering, and the odds of us seeing a consistent five players on the court night in and night out probably aren’t all that likely anyway.

But assuming everyone’s healthy, it seems reasonable to expect Trent to come off the bench based on what we know right now.

So what about everyone else on the Raptors?

Jalen McDaniels, Malachi Flynn, Chris Boucher, and Thad Young all started games over the last two seasons. Still, all seem far enough down the rotation that they’re not even, particularly in the conversation for a regular starting role.

Of course, anything could change between now and October, but it seems unlikely any of these players — especially veterans like Boucher and Young — would make an unexpected leap into a regular starting role.

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