Rosters are set. Now where do we rank?

[YogurtProducer]

If we don’t make any trades from here on out?

I see us in the play in territory. Above .500 if Ingram stays healthy. Under .500 if Ingram isn’t able to play 60+ games.

High end outcome - 45 wins.
Expected outcome - 43 wins.
Disappointing outcome - 38 wins.



I don’t see us winning our play in games. Back to F5 on tankathon for the rest of spring.

Considering our high outcome last year was roughly 40-45 wins if we didn’t get hurt / purposely tank, I’m not sure how we can say it’s 45 again this year when we’re undoubtfully improved.

Our expected wins is probably closer to 43-48, with a high end of 50-55 if everything breaks right

Many teams in the East have improved while the ones that have suffered significant injuries/losses (Boston/Ind) are arguably better than us. I haven't look at the health of Philly's roster so that will be very much a question mark. Maybe we're better than Miami. I see 8 as a ceiling.

Insanity.

Expect the 8th seed, okay I can see the hesitation. But as a CEILING? Our team last year had a higher ceiling than 8 seed and were better this year.

[WhatsaTDot]

Considering our high outcome last year was roughly 40-45 wins if we didn’t get hurt / purposely tank, I’m not sure how we can say it’s 45 again this year when we’re undoubtfully improved.

Our expected wins is probably closer to 43-48, with a high end of 50-55 if everything breaks right

Many teams in the East have improved while the ones that have suffered significant injuries/losses (Boston/Ind) are arguably better than us. I haven't look at the health of Philly's roster so that will be very much a question mark. Maybe we're better than Miami. I see 8 as a ceiling.

Insanity.

Expect the 8th seed, okay I can see the hesitation. But as a CEILING? Our team last year had a higher ceiling than 8 seed and were better this year.

I agree we're better and probably not intentionally tanking. But most everyone is better also. Not Brooklyn/Charlotte/Washington. Boston still have a stronger core as does Indiana. Cleveland/NY will top 2. Atlanta improved a ton. Orlando's core remains intact and with a higher ceiling than ours. That's 6 teams right there. IF Philly is healthy they're better than us. Toronto/Miami/Detroit for 8th.

[WhatsaTDot]

I just asked ChatGPT to predict our final standing.

Outlook for the 2025–26 Season
The Raptors are in a transitional phase, balancing between rebuilding and competing. Their young core needs time to develop chemistry and gain experience. Unless significant roster changes occur, such as acquiring a star player, it's plausible that Toronto will remain outside the playoff picture in the upcoming season.

9 - Toronto Raptors
The Raptors, after a 30–52 season, are in a rebuilding phase. With young talents like Scottie Barnes and RJ Barrett, they might vie for a play-in spot but are unlikely to make a significant leap without major roster changes.

[WhatsaTDot]

I just asked ChatGPT to predict our final standing.

Outlook for the 2025–26 Season
The Raptors are in a transitional phase, balancing between rebuilding and competing. Their young core needs time to develop chemistry and gain experience. Unless significant roster changes occur, such as acquiring a star player, it's plausible that Toronto will remain outside the playoff picture in the upcoming season.

9 - Toronto Raptors
The Raptors, after a 30–52 season, are in a rebuilding phase. With young talents like Scottie Barnes and RJ Barrett, they might vie for a play-in spot but are unlikely to make a significant leap without major roster changes.

Edit: Hahaha - looking over their predictions, they have Chicago ahead of us with Boston missing out on a top 8 spot.

[JB7]

So like most, I have NYK, CLE and ORL as the only sure bets to be good and a legit top seeds.

I'm really down on a lot of teams in the East.

BKN, CHI, CHA, WAS - These are your cellar dwellers.

MIA - Not worth discussing. They are going to be bad.

PHI - Not worth discussing. Nobody can convince me that Embiid's career isn't on the brink of coming to an end. I have 0 faith he will play even half a season. I doubt PG13 plays more than 60.

MIL - As much as the Dame trade didn't really work out, weren't he and Giannis the highest scoring duo in the East? Turner isn't going to replace Dame's scoring. The rest of the team is largely the same underwhelming players as last year. I mean, KPJ might be their 3rd or 4th best player (and is always a risk to wear out his welcome).

BOS - Losing Tatum, Porzingis, Jrue, Kornet, and possibly Horford is bad. Really bad.

INDY - No Haliburton, lost Turner. That will mean a dip in the standings. Deep enough to make the playoffs IMO, but obviously not a threat to do anything once there.

DET - Their success came due to (1) Cade's leap and (2) the contributions they got from their castoff signings in Harris, THJ and Beasley (a fact that tWo will never admit lol). Swapping the latter 2 out with Robinson and LeVert is a lateral move at best, and a downgrade is mot likely. THJ and Beasley were really good for them. They are also going to have to deal with some possible noise about all the games that were impacted by Beasley's gambling.

ATL - This is a weird one. I liked some of their pieces before their moves, but I feel they are getting too much praise for their acquisitions. Porzingis is never healthy. NAW was a good pickup, but paid way too much. Kennard is so meh.

I would put us in with the bunch that have some question marks, namely does BI stay healthy.....and does Barnes take the leap for which most of us are hoping? I don't expect growth from all the sophomores (hence the reason there is a term coined for that 2nd season). Let's just hope most of them show some marked improvement. I like that we don't have the desired minutes available, which is going to lead to some healthy competition for the bench guys.

Anywhere from 5th to 8th is my prediction. I would be surprised if we are lower than that.

I mostly agree with this. Only edit is I would not include Orlando as a sure bet to be a top seed. Zach Lowe had mentioned on his podcast that Orlando has gone something like 13 years straight with an offence rated bottom third of the league. Bane alone is not going to change that.

I agree though that there is so much unknown and variability in the East, that a lot of those middle of the pack teams cannot afford to lose a key player to injury, or they could be out of the playoffs. But, it also makes me wonder if a team like the Celtics or Indy, might choose to sit Brown or Pascal for a good portion of the year to take a run at a high draft pick in a good draft.

This is where the Raps depth should make a difference. And not just overall roster depth, but also depth in their core. Having players rest for injury will not impact them as much as other teams.

[nikster]

Many teams in the East have improved while the ones that have suffered significant injuries/losses (Boston/Ind) are arguably better than us. I haven't look at the health of Philly's roster so that will be very much a question mark. Maybe we're better than Miami. I see 8 as a ceiling.

Insanity.

Expect the 8th seed, okay I can see the hesitation. But as a CEILING? Our team last year had a higher ceiling than 8 seed and were better this year.

I agree we're better and probably not intentionally tanking. But most everyone is better also. Not Brooklyn/Charlotte/Washington. Boston still have a stronger core as does Indiana. Cleveland/NY will top 2. Atlanta improved a ton. Orlando's core remains intact and with a higher ceiling than ours. That's 6 teams right there. IF Philly is healthy they're better than us. Toronto/Miami/Detroit for 8th.

Indiana won 50 game last year and lost Turner and Hali with no replacements. I dont see how you can look at them as a better core at all.

Even Boston is iffy. They lost KP and Kornet, and Horford might be on his way out too potentially leaving then without any of their bigs from last year. They shipped off Jrue and Tatum is obviously out. They're gonna have a core of Brown, Pritchard, and White. They might be solid but I'm not sold as them being definitely better than us

[SpezNc]

Bobby was pretty clear the roster is not set

Was he ?

Yes, he said as much in the post-draft interview when he said the roster wasn't good enough hence the logic to draft for BPA rather than fit.

He said we are still in talent acquisition hence the BPA. But I don’t read that more moves are necessarily coming.

If anything being in “talent acquisition mode” is also wait see which young player from the current roster emerge .

I sense that everything is possible if we look at our lineup with a longer view.

But I didn’t sense he necessarily wanted to do any more moves in the off season.

I am paraphrasing Keith Pelley saying he fired Masai because we have stability with coaching staff and players and roster pretty much set .

Keith Pelley love so much our roster and position that he thinks that now anybody can go from there.

I am a hit kidding but Keith Pelley was so disappointing to hear .

His speech and comments look like it was generated by AI and chatGPT.

[M3tro]

Top 6 is being very, very hopeful.

I think we slot in at 9th in a mediocre-off against the 10th seeded Bulls.

[James_Raptors]

50-32

[YogurtProducer]

Many teams in the East have improved while the ones that have suffered significant injuries/losses (Boston/Ind) are arguably better than us. I haven't look at the health of Philly's roster so that will be very much a question mark. Maybe we're better than Miami. I see 8 as a ceiling.

Insanity.

Expect the 8th seed, okay I can see the hesitation. But as a CEILING? Our team last year had a higher ceiling than 8 seed and were better this year.

I agree we're better and probably not intentionally tanking. But most everyone is better also. Not Brooklyn/Charlotte/Washington. Boston still have a stronger core as does Indiana. Cleveland/NY will top 2. Atlanta improved a ton. Orlando's core remains intact and with a higher ceiling than ours. That's 6 teams right there. IF Philly is healthy they're better than us. Toronto/Miami/Detroit for 8th.

Boston lost Tatum / Jrue / Porzingis / Horford - I don’t know if they’re a lock to be better.

Indiana lost Hali and Turner. They’re gonna be bad.

CLE/NY yep

ATL / ORL improved… but so did we.

PHI if healthy is probably the best team in the east.

But still, our ceiling is higher than 6. It’s closer to 4 if things break perfectly

[brownbobcat]

Insanity.

Expect the 8th seed, okay I can see the hesitation. But as a CEILING? Our team last year had a higher ceiling than 8 seed and were better this year.

I think characterizing upside by seeding is somewhat misleading. 8th seed (by wins, before play-in results) last year was 40 wins, but 46 wins the year before.

If everything broke right for Toronto last year, could they have won 37-41 games? Possibly, but I also think pure talent was an issue and that it'd be reasonable to characterize them as a 35-win team. It would probably require 2/3 of the following to hit 50+ wins

- Barnes/RJ learns to shoot and becomes an elite scorer
- One of the youngsters takes a massive leap to AS/MIP territory
- BI stays healthy the entire year

[LoganAndWade]

High variable team

Best case scenario 48 wins 5th in east
Highest probability outcome 43 wins 9th in east
Worst case scenario 36 wins 11th in east

Cavs
Magic
Hawks
Knicks
76ers

Don't think we catching that group baring major injuries

Bucks
Celtics
Pacers
Detroit

Due to injuries, legal issues, and bad management (looking at you Bucks) these teams are all very questionable and catchable

Bulls
Miami

These two teams were better than us, but probably not if we'd been healthy, neither team tends to tank so should be in the race for playoffs.

Wizards
Nets
Hornets

The tank teams that we better not be anywhere close to.

[ConSarnit]

Considering our high outcome last year was roughly 40-45 wins if we didn’t get hurt / purposely tank, I’m not sure how we can say it’s 45 again this year when we’re undoubtfully improved.

Our expected wins is probably closer to 43-48, with a high end of 50-55 if everything breaks right

I would like to have what you’re smoking.

Well it’s just factual.

Last year it took everything in us to get down to 30. If we didn’t shut everyone down we likely end up in the mid-high 30s. If we didn’t have IQ miss 50 games, JWK 30, Barnes 25, RJ 25, Poeltl 25, Agabj 20, etc. We already in the low-mid 40s.

Now we added to that roster CMB and Ingram.

High end of 45 games only being 2 games higher over expected is insanity. High end would be moderately good health (say, guys miss 10-15 games instead of 25-50), CMB is a decent bench guy (not a stud, but not a liability), and like one of the 2nd/3rd year guys take a little leap (again, don’t have to become a star but just a reliable everyday piece).

It’s not crazy to think if everything broke right you could win 50.


People seem to forget we were missing literally half of main rotation for half the year with IQ/Brown/Olynyk/Barnes all missing time early in the season.

Do you not remember what happened last season? We shut guys down and still ended up wining games on the backs of Lawson and Robinson. We finished the season 12-10. I know you were in the TWO thread where posters were freaking out because we were moving UP the standings even though we were playing G-league guys.

We shut guys down and still won. I don’t know how you could say we would have won mid-30’s if we didn’t shut guys down when we were playing better than .500 ball to close out the season with G-league guys. Do you think our starters would have went 17-5 or something?

[YogurtProducer]

7
We shut guys down and still won. I don’t know how you could say we would have won mid-30’s if we didn’t shut guys down when we were playing better than .500 ball to close out the season with G-league guys. Do you think our starters would have went 17-5 or something?

Yes - you were SO CLOSE to getting it to! We went 12-10 with G LEAGUERS. That is how bad our end of season schedule was. We almost definitely win 17 (and honestly, with how badly our opponents were, possibly more). Of those 10 losses, 3 of them were by a basket. Another 3 were within 10.


Did you already forget how we got healthy for like a 10 game stretch, went like 8-2, and everyone lost their mind? Now we obviously were not gonna win 80% of our games, but we were very obviously a .500 or better team that required EXTREME tanking and injuries to only win 30.

[YogurtProducer]

Insanity.

Expect the 8th seed, okay I can see the hesitation. But as a CEILING? Our team last year had a higher ceiling than 8 seed and were better this year.

I think characterizing upside by seeding is somewhat misleading. 8th seed (by wins, before play-in results) last year was 40 wins, but 46 wins the year before.

If everything broke right for Toronto last year, could they have won 37-41 games? Possibly, but I also think pure talent was an issue and that it'd be reasonable to characterize them as a 35-win team. It would probably require 2/3 of the following to hit 50+ wins

- Barnes/RJ learns to shoot and becomes an elite scorer
- One of the youngsters takes a massive leap to AS/MIP territory
- BI stays healthy the entire year

I agree - 50 wins is unlikely, but it is not out of the realm of possibilities.

I also don't think it was reasonable to characterize the Raps as a 35-win team last year. We won 30 games despite:

- pulling out some of the most shameful tanking for the last quarter of the season.
- Our starting lineup missed a combined 143 games (IQ/Dick/RJ/Barnes/Poeltl)
- This is not even accounting for even our bench was chronically injured (Shead the only player to play more than 65 games)

I would make a pretty strong argument IQ missing 50 games alone can account for 5 more wins. The shameless tanking to end the season was 4-5 wins right there as well.

[brownbobcat]

I agree - 50 wins is unlikely, but it is not out of the realm of possibilities.

I also don't think it was reasonable to characterize the Raps as a 35-win team last year. We won 30 games despite:

- pulling out some of the most shameful tanking for the last quarter of the season.
- Our starting lineup missed a combined 143 games (IQ/Dick/RJ/Barnes/Poeltl)
- This is not even accounting for even our bench was chronically injured (Shead the only player to play more than 65 games)

I would make a pretty strong argument IQ missing 50 games alone can account for 5 more wins. The shameless tanking to end the season was 4-5 wins right there as well.

Their record with all 5 of those guys was something like 2-5, they weren't exactly setting the league on fire. They won 25 games the year before and didn't make huge improvements, I would not have characterized this as a "true" .500 team last year.

[Westside Gunn]

45-50 wins.

Largely dependent on Barnes taking his game to the next level, Quickley staying healthy, and Ingram becoming that dependable go to guy swingman every night.

We finished with 30 wins in a tanking season. The above factors should easily add at least 15 wins.

[OakleyDokely]

I think people are sleeping a bit on the Pacers, they're still a deep team even with their losses and depth takes you a long way in the regular season. M Turner is solid, but he's a 15/6 guy who doesn't make allstar or defensive teams. They can get someone who replaces 50-75% of what he brings. J Walker struggled in the playoffs, but he was solid in his limited regular season minutes and his role can probably be expanded in the frontcourt.

A Nem, Mathurin, Nesmith, Siakam lineup with a replacement level C is still probably a .500 team in the east.

[Shakril]

I would like to have what you’re smoking.

Well it’s just factual.

Last year it took everything in us to get down to 30. If we didn’t shut everyone down we likely end up in the mid-high 30s. If we didn’t have IQ miss 50 games, JWK 30, Barnes 25, RJ 25, Poeltl 25, Agabj 20, etc. We already in the low-mid 40s.

Now we added to that roster CMB and Ingram.

High end of 45 games only being 2 games higher over expected is insanity. High end would be moderately good health (say, guys miss 10-15 games instead of 25-50), CMB is a decent bench guy (not a stud, but not a liability), and like one of the 2nd/3rd year guys take a little leap (again, don’t have to become a star but just a reliable everyday piece).

It’s not crazy to think if everything broke right you could win 50.


People seem to forget we were missing literally half of main rotation for half the year with IQ/Brown/Olynyk/Barnes all missing time early in the season.

Do you not remember what happened last season? We shut guys down and still ended up wining games on the backs of Lawson and Robinson. We finished the season 12-10. I know you were in the TWO thread where posters were freaking out because we were moving UP the standings even though we were playing G-league guys.

We shut guys down and still won. I don’t know how you could say we would have won mid-30’s if we didn’t shut guys down when we were playing better than .500 ball to close out the season with G-league guys. Do you think our starters would have went 17-5 or something?

Yes we were 12-10, but should have been more like 18 - 4. That alone are 6 wins that we should have more.

And dont tell me that the injuries and close losses we had, dont matter. The way we played last year with the addition of ingram, i would be very surprised, if we dont hit 41 wins.

[YogurtProducer]

I agree - 50 wins is unlikely, but it is not out of the realm of possibilities.

I also don't think it was reasonable to characterize the Raps as a 35-win team last year. We won 30 games despite:

- pulling out some of the most shameful tanking for the last quarter of the season.
- Our starting lineup missed a combined 143 games (IQ/Dick/RJ/Barnes/Poeltl)
- This is not even accounting for even our bench was chronically injured (Shead the only player to play more than 65 games)

I would make a pretty strong argument IQ missing 50 games alone can account for 5 more wins. The shameless tanking to end the season was 4-5 wins right there as well.

Their record with all 5 of those guys was something like 2-5, they weren't exactly setting the league on fire. They won 25 games the year before and didn't make huge improvements, I would not have characterized this as a "true" .500 team last year.

Yeah I am not extremely interested in a 7 game sample size for the simple fact it is impossible to get any sort of momentum going if you play every 10th game together. FWIW, the top 4 guys (RJ SB JP IQ) played 9 games together and went 3-6. Those games were:

Game 36, 37, 38, 39 - vs MIL, @CLE, @NYK, @DET - so 4 of the top 6 eastern teams. These were 3rd-6th games of the year actually playing an entire game. RJ's first games back from injury. Etc. We went 0-4 here

Game 48 + 49 - vs CHI, vs LAC - IQ came back from injury and played 16mpg here. So 1-1, but really, can't even count these two games due to the minutes

Game 60, 61, 62 - CHI/ORL/ORL - Poeltl was put on a minutes restriction here. Scottie played less than 30 in 2 of the games. Pretty sure this is when we started sitting hte main guys in crunch time trying to lose. went 2-1

So really we had one single stretch of the season (game 36 to 39) in which we had our "core" 4 guys available. Not nearly enough sample to even determine a damn thing lol