So what do we know for sure about these Raptors?

One of my favourite parts of reading the Malazan series for the first time is how frequently your understanding is forced on its head. Fantasy worlds always start with the reader at a disadvantage, learning new people and places and names and words with every line. But in Malazan, just when you think you’re getting a handle on things, it all flips upside down. (For the course of several books, as it turns out.) The bad guys? Not so bad after all. The weak characters? Actually insanely powerful. And it goes on that way, more or less until the end. Nothing is static. 

Which has been one of the overriding experiences of the Toronto Raptors’ 2024-25 season. For better or for worse, nothing has been static. 

Early on, the overarching plot line of the season was development, improvement, and fun. It turned out Ochai Agbaji was incredibly useful at the NBA level! Gradey Dick blew up. The rookies, first Jamal Shead and Jamison Battle in preseason, then Jonathan Mogbo when the season started, finally Ja’Kobe Walter upon his return from injury, showed promise and grit and an ability to contribute. Up and down the meat of the roster, things looked promising. 

Then Scottie Barnes came back from injury, and things started to cook. The defence started to solidify with Barnes shrinking the gaps and protecting the rim. Toronto ended a seven-game losing streak and started to put some nifty games together. The Raptors beat the Indiana Pacers, twice. Beat the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Miami Heat. Just lost to the Dallas Mavericks and New York Knicks. 

But alas, competitive losses morphed into blowouts. It’s likely impossible for effort to remain a team’s calling card as the season ages, the losses and injuries mount, and there’s increasingly little for which to play. A new losing streak bloomed, starting out with competitive losses before falling into the void. First Barnes was absent with an ankle injury, but as he returned, and the team kept losing, and by increasingly wider margins. Things looked bleak. RJ Barrett and Jakob Poeltl and Gradey Dick rotated out of the lineup with injuries of their own. 

In a series of three games, first Toronto allowed the most points in franchise history, then almost set the record for most turnovers, then did set the record for largest deficit. Things were bleak. Barnes wasn’t able to lead the offence to any sort of competency, and the defence just got worse and worse and worse. 

Until Immanuel Quickley returned. Early in the season, in his few, injury-hampered games, he did not look like the star guard Toronto needs him to be. But in his first game back against the Brooklyn Nets, he did and then some. The shooting? Sublime. The driving? Precocious. The passing? Stupendous. And with Quickley handling the ball and driving and running sets, Barnes was able to bully and smash his way to efficiency. 

Things were good, then they were dreadful, and just four quarters of point-guard-led basketball later, they looked rosy again. But, just for four quarters. As soon as Toronto was fully healthy, the effort waned, and the season crashed back into the dumps again. Up and down, up and down. Through it all, the wins and losses, the injuries and … more injuries, some components of Toronto’s season have remained stable. 

The Raptors’ half-court offence won’t survive without pace

Toronto doesn’t have the talent to walk the ball up the floor and score in the half court. Nobody, not even Barnes or Quickley or Barrett can simply take a screen and create an advantage against a five-man defence with ease every time. It would be nice! 

Instead, the Raptors rely on extraordinary amounts of ball and man movement. Everyone is asked to cut, to screen, and then to do it all again. For every on-ball screen, there are flare screens before and after, ram and veer screens on the side, and players dashing every which way during the entire ballet. The Raptors run a playbook so heavy they could wield it like a club, and they run more scripted sets than other teams. When it works, it is one of the most aesthetically appealing offences in the league. Poeltl is the maestro. 

And who injects pace into Toronto’s offence more than anyone else? Dick. He has few dribbling moves from stasis, but he runs and cuts and shoots and runs and then some. And whether he’s making his shots or not, his presence splashes pace all over the game like hot sauce. It is for this reason that he has Toronto’s best on/off offensive marks by a wiiiiide margin. (And Chris Boucher, who is pace personified, has the second-best marks there.) 

But recently, the whole song and dance hasn’t been working. Dick has been hitting a slump, which very much hurts. But it’s not just him. The required pace hasn’t been offered from anyone. Players aren’t cutting at half speed, but it’s not full speed either. They’re not creating separation with cuts, bursting through gaps with drives, or hitting guys with screens. When Toronto loses a step, it loses the entire plot. And that’s whether or not the team is healthy.

One of the effects of that lesson is that the Raptors get crushed in crunch time when the game slows down. Toronto has lost 2.3 more games than would be expected based on its net rating alone, which means when the game is close, the Raptors generally lose more than their fair share. When pace naturally shrinks, so too do the Raptors. This requires a solution. 

Positions are important

It took the Toronto Raptors more than a full season to realize that employing a very good NBA center was important. This season has taught the lesson that point guard play in the NBA is crucial. Huh!

Toronto is still way, way off when it comes to shooting

This is not a new story. But Toronto has two higher-volume 3-point shooters in Dick and Quickley. Neither is above 35 percent on the season. Dick attempts wildly hard shots, and Quickley is recovering from a UCL injury that is obviously impacting his jumper. 

Ian Finlayson covered this as well in his excellent piece about the team’s statistical trends on the year, so I’m going to make this very brief.

But at some point the entire team needs to create and hit more triples. No matter what. Until that happens, whether it’s with this roster or after changes, Toronto is going to lose a lot more games than it wins. 

Barnes’ midrange jumper is very meaningful addition

Perhaps the most meaningful micro skill of the season? Barnes is hitting 47.6 percent of his pull-up 2-pointers, while taking a beefy 4.3 per game. He’s one of seven players in the league to be hitting those numbers on the year, and the other six are offensive superstars or close to it. All are primary offensive engines for their teams. 

For a player dubbed a zero-level scorer coming into his draft, Barnes has been a very impressive scorer in the NBA. He jumped from 15 points per game to 20 last year. But for all the points (4k!), he has never had a real go-to move until now. Barnes has never boasted an above-average efficiency for those points, either.

Since returning from his ankle injury on Dec. 19, Barnes has shot even better than his season averages, reaching 49.1 percent on 5.7 pull-up 2-pointers per game. It’s been his primary scoring option, again and again. Whether drifting in the midrange, spinning baseline, falling away, pulling up on a dime, off one leg or two, stepping through for the up-and-under after faking the fadeaway: he’s built his arsenal out from this one shot. He hasn’t seen the rest of his scoring take a leap, but this is a good building block. When the 3-point jumper returns to normal, it’s easy to see Barnes becoming a more efficient scorer than ever before behind this new weapon. 

And beyond efficiency and sustainability, it gives Barnes a tool in the half-court when the pace and tempo of the offensive system falls apart, when the team is forced out of transition. Against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Barnes turned to his midrange artistry in the fourth, with the lead flip-flopping between both teams. He threw a half-spin into a fadeaway jumper over Evan Mobley. Later, he kissed in a floating jumper off the glass over Mobley. The Raptors lost, but Barnes had a huge fourth quarter, finished with 10 points on just five shots.

This is a monstrous addition. It gives a rigidity to Barnes’ offensive arsenal that makes all the other weapons — the passing, the athleticism, the creation, the rebounding — sharper. 

The team-building project is far from over

Of course, this is obvious. The Raptors are in the midst of a rebuilding season, so everyone and their grandmother knows that the Raptors need to add more talent.

But more than talent, the Raptors still don’t fit together. There are tradeoffs, no matter what the Raptors try to accomplish on the court. Good teams don’t have tradeoffs. The Raptors do. 

If the Raptors want to play a good defence, Poeltl and Barnes and to an extent Davion Mitchell are the linchpins there. None of them are threatening 3-point shooters. If Toronto wants shooting, Dick has been a defensive liability this season. RJ Barrett adds driving and transition force, but his defence and rebounding have been letdowns. The rim protectors can’t shoot, and the shooters can’t guard at the point of attack, and the isolation defenders can’t screen, and on and on.

Outside of a few highlight moments, Quickley and Barnes still haven’t found chemistry in the two-man game. Toronto’s best screener (Poeltl) and best creator (Barnes) have been below-average in the pick and roll for their entire careers together, and that has continued to this season. (Rajakovic spent a lot of time using a small as a staggered screener last year to supplement the duo in the pick and roll, which worked well, but there’s been less of that this year with Quickley out hurt.)  

There are limitations no matter what lineup Toronto chooses. That’s partially a lack of talent, but it’s also a lack of fit. Even if every player on this roster develops into the best version of himself, this would still remain an issue that stops the team itself from hitting its ceiling. 

This is a season of learning, of course. But the lack of ideal fit in this new era prioritizing fit around the central star in Barnes still hasn’t made it work perfectly. That lesson is crucial. 

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There are sure to be more surprises throughout the remainder of the season. I’m sure there will be enormous scoring games from unlikely players. (Ja’Kobe Walter is my bet for a sneaky 30 piece at some point this year.) There will be roster movement. There will be ups and downs, wins and losses. 

But barring an extreme overhaul in the middle of the season, which Masai Ujiri has said he doesn’t like doing, there are some certainties. Some are positive, but most are negative. That’s to be expected in a rebuilding season. 

But at least the Raptors are learning these lessons now. That’s the point of this season. To find out what questions matter. It’s on the future Raptors to find answers. 

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