Toronto Raptors 2024-25 season preview: Are they near discovering a path?
The 2024-25 NBA season is right here! We’re breaking down the largest questions, best- and worst-case situations, and fantasy outlooks for all 30 groups. Take pleasure in!
TORONTO RAPTORS
2023-24 end
Offseason strikes
-
Additions: Ja’Kobe Walter, Jonathan Mogbo, Jamal Shead, Ulrich Chomche, Davion Mitchell, Branden Carlson
-
Subtractions: Gary Trent Jr., Jalen McDaniels, Javon Freeman-Liberty, Jordan Nwora, Malik Williams, Mouhamed Gueye, Jontay Porter
The Large Query: Does Toronto have already got a core value constructing round?
The Raptors clearly really feel fairly good in regards to the reply to that query. In any other case, they wouldn’t have sprinted handy All-Star Scottie Barnes a full-boat five-year max the second they have been allowed to, and so they wouldn’t have adopted it up by handing Immanuel Quickley, the prize they plucked from New York within the OG Anunoby deal, as much as $175 million for a similar five-year time period.
There’s motive for optimism. When the Raptors had Barnes, Quickley and RJ Barrett on the courtroom with heart Jakob Poeltl, they outscored opponents by 65 factors in 234 minutes — a really wholesome 10.8 factors per 100 possessions. Your normal small-sample-size caveats apply, however the broad strokes do make some sense.
Barnes is a jack-of-all-trades who can rating inside, rebound, facilitate, guard a number of positions and generate steals, deflections and blocked photographs, and who flirted with league-average 3-point accuracy on almost 5 makes an attempt per sport. (Solely 5 gamers averaged 19 factors, eight rebounds and 6 assists per sport final season: Nikola Jokić, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Dončić, Domantas Sabonis … and Barnes. Fairly good firm!) If he’s able to serving as a real No. 1, compromising the protection sufficient to create clear seems to be for teammates, he turns into one of many league’s most fascinating gamers.
Barrett hasn’t fairly lived as much as his “Maple Mamba” future-star billing, however he’s a strong two-way participant who turned in possibly the most effective basketball of his profession after the commerce, slicing his technique to 21.8 factors, 6.4 rebounds and 4.1 assists per sport on .615 true taking pictures. Each he and Barnes have the dimensions and energy to bully smaller defenders into the paint for point-blank seems to be; the Raptors took 38.5% of their photographs on the rim in Barnes/Barrett/Quickley/Poeltl minutes, equal to Orlando’s league-leading full-season share.
Quickley can pair with both within the two-man sport, together with as a screen-setter in inverted pick-and-rolls, whereas taking excellent care of the ball (a top-10 assist-to-turnover ratio amongst moderate-usage gamers following the commerce) and stretching the ground (39.5% from 3-point land on 7.1 makes an attempt per sport). Poeltl provides the playmakers a gentle pick-and-roll accomplice, ending top-20 in display screen assists per sport and taking pictures 68% as a roll man, whereas additionally serving as the inside deterrent for a protection that acquired stops at a league-average clip with him on the back-line.
There’s only one drawback with having a strong prime 4, although: You want 5 dudes to play and greater than that to win.
A Raptors squad that has bid farewell to all of Anunoby, Pascal Siakam, Nick Nurse, Fred VanVleet, Trent and Valuable Achiuwa previously 18 months — leaving Chris Boucher as the ultimate on-court tether to the crew that received the 2019 NBA championship — should nonetheless determine what kind of gamers match greatest across the core 4. That’s a recipe for head coach Darko Rajaković performing some experimenting … and, with the Raptors proudly owning their very own first-round choose in a 2025 NBA Draft that would characteristic a number of game-breakers, probably a recipe for some player-development-focused ache.
The Raptors must see if Gradey Dick can cement a beginning spot by replicating the 39.5% 3-point taking pictures he put up over the closing three months of his rookie season whereas additionally rising his sport on each ends of the ground. They want an extended take a look at whether or not Ochai Agbaji could make sufficient jumpers (simply 21.7% after coming over from Utah) to grow to be an precise 3-and-D position participant. They should see if new arrivals like Mitchell, Walter and Shead can set up themselves as constructing blocks.
To the extent that the Raptors’ veterans can help in creating the context through which Toronto’s brass can be taught these issues, they’ll be saved round. If the likes of Boucher, Bruce Brown Jr. or Kelly Olynyk draw commerce curiosity, although, count on them to be jettisoned for better-fitting younger expertise or extra draft capital.
“I might use the phrase ‘rebuilding.’ That is the correct phrase,” Ujiri advised reporters on media day. “I believe we now have a transparent path now going ahead.”
And there’s the rub: Will this path result in the Raptors resuming annual deep postseason runs? Or, a half-decade faraway from the highest of the mountain, is Toronto caught on a street to nowhere?
This embedded content material just isn’t accessible in your area.
Finest-case situation
I see two attainable solutions right here:
-
Barnes makes one other leap to All-NBA standing. Quickley and Barrett flirt with All-Star berths whereas Dick turns into a full-fledged high-volume marksman, giving Toronto the bones of an above-average offense. That, mixed with an enchancment on the opposite finish behind what Rajaković insists might be extra aggression on the level of assault, vaults the Raps from play-in fodder to top-six rivalry, significant springtime basketball and a motive to get enthusiastic about what’s coming subsequent.
-
Barnes, Quickley and Barrett all look actually good at instances … whereas additionally lacking sufficient video games and being let down by inadequate reserve play to fall out of the play-in image and into the lottery, the place the Raptors land one other high-end prospect to develop alongside Barnes and — once more — give the followers motive to get enthusiastic about what’s coming subsequent.
If the whole lot falls aside
BBQ flames out, with a full season collectively providing proof that Barnes, Barrett and Quickley are all better-suited to life as complementary items than working as prime choices. Not one of the kids pops in a means that tasks to future stardom. Even so, the abject nature of the underside of the East ensures that the Raps once more end within the play-in event, with a low-lottery choose that profiles extra as tepid than transformational … and with the record of causes to get excited rising shorter by the second.
Fantasy spin
The Raptors have some rising expertise on the horizon that can make some noise in fantasy. Beginning with a stat stuffer in Barnes, he is a simple choose within the second spherical when you’re in search of a participant who can contribute to each class. He is a really well-rounded fantasy participant.
Then there’s Quickley. Since coming to the Raptors final season, Quickley averaged 19 factors with 5 rebounds and 7 assists per sport. He solely noticed a 2% drop (22% to twenty%) in utilization whereas sharing the courtroom with Barnes and Barrett, which is encouraging seeing how a lot the Raptors’ system relies on sharing the ball. A fifth-round draft choose would possibly really feel wealthy, nevertheless it’s value shopping for into Quickley as he is on the verge of a breakout marketing campaign.
Barrett is the quintessential points-league participant, though his effectivity has been night time and day since taking part in for his hometown Raptors. It is exhausting to inform if it was Barrett taking part in over expectations or if he discovered his sport, however going from a 42% shooter to a 55% shooter says some regression is imminent. His latest shoulder harm will not assist, both. — Dan Titus
2024-25 schedule
With all due respect to Mitchell and the rookies, I’m undecided the Raptors added “5 extra wins” value of expertise this summer time; with all due disrespect to the Pistons, Wizards and Nets, although, I’m undecided that’ll matter. The dilapidated state of the underside of the convention, mixed with full and hopefully principally wholesome seasons for Barnes, Barrett and Quickley, needs to be sufficient to get Toronto to 30, not less than.
