Raptors are on the verge of having another lost season
As the Toronto Raptors fell 127-106 to the Orlando Magic on Tuesday night, the team saw its hopes of advancing in the NBA In-Season Tournament fade away.
Now 0-2 in the league’s newest innovate way to make the regular season matter a little bit more, Toronto’s players won’t be getting that early December trip to Vegas to compete for the newly created NBA Cup.
But there’s perhaps a greater realization about to set in — what if the whole season is lost for the Raptors?
At 6-8 and sitting 11th in the Eastern Conference, Toronto finds itself on the outside of the NBA postseason picture – and the signs are showing that it isn’t exactly going to be a great year to follow the team.
A season removed from finishing 41-41 and 10th in the East, Toronto is now on pace to take an even further step back this season.
In one positive, it’s still early: Toronto has more than 80% of its schedule remaining and has played each of the conference’s three top teams — Milwaukee, Boston, and Philadelphia — twice already, going 1-5 in those contests. Their defensive rating of 111.2 ranks 10th league-wide — not perfect, but a solid benchmark.
Individually, of course, there’s a few positives to point out.
Scottie Barnes is on track to be in serious conversation for his first All-Star Game appearance and is a potential candidate for Most Improved Player league-wide, and Pascal Siakam has shaken off a slow start, relative to his standards, to average 22.4 points per night over his last five games.
But the bigger question is — what’s the end result for this Raptors team? Because right now, it seems like we’ll have roughly the same questions over the course of the year that hovered over Toronto in the offseason. Unless something suddenly starts clicking for Toronto on the offensive end, the ceiling doesn’t appear all that high.
Whether it’s another play-in loss, a play-in win, or a surprise push to the postseason, Toronto still appears miles away from the league’s top competitors as currently constructed for a second year in a row. And if you’re not playing to win, and you’re not playing to tank, well… what exactly are you playing for?
It seems like Toronto could have another 68 games on its hands where the team is merely killing time until the trade deadline and offseason. Of course, the players will still be competing hard and the fans will still be cheering through the ups and downs. There will be fun moments, weird moments, and plenty of highs and lows.
The bigger picture of the Raptors’ vision, though, looks like it might just remain fuzzy, and that’s perhaps the biggest shame of the season to date.
The two main questions of this franchise have been asked thousands of times — will Toronto be able and willing to re-sign Siakam and OG Anunoby, both of whom are on expiring contracts?
If the franchise has any hope of contending again, the roster will likely go through some sort of seismic shakeup. If it doesn’t, what’s the outlook for 2024-25 or onwards?
Toronto’s two remaining In-Season Tournament games will really be just regular-season games for their own sake. But unless Toronto is able to find a new identity, the rest of the games don’t particularly matter either. Not for anything substantial, anyway.