Which puts teams like the Raptors in a tough spot. They are young and improving, certainly. But simple improvement isn’t enough.
Toronto needs: more shooting, more initiation, more driving, more finishing in the paint, more point-of-attack defense, more rim protection, and more isolation defense. So … a star. A superstar. A megastar. Jayson Tatum would fit the bill. Wembanyama. Players of that nature. Simply recreating those skills in the aggregate won’t allow Toronto to compete with teams that are getting better and better, year over year. That was one of the defining lessons of the end of the Nick Nurse era. (That and relearning Goodhart’s Law.)
There are three ways to acquire a star. Three ways to acquire any player, really. You can trade for him. (Kawhi Leonard!) You can sign him. (DeMarre Car — err.) And you can draft him. When the Raptors traded for Leonard, they were coming off the best season in franchise history. They were ready for another star and had the depth to lose DeMar DeRozan and Jakob Poeltl and still have the institutional memory to support a new contributor. These Raptors need every contributor they have, and more. Were they to trade for an unhappy star (Trae Young?), the outgoing assets would likely be too significant a loss for the Raptors to be a contender. Signing is, unfortunately, out of the question. Which means Toronto almost has to draft its new star. This is nothing new.
So what does that mean for next year? Expect the Raptors to give plenty of minutes to youngsters who may not get that time on contending teams. Perhaps Dick starts to juice the offense (and bleeding points on the other end, given the star conundrum, would be a feature, not a bug). Maybe Toronto even gives a boatload of minutes to whomever it selects at 19. Maybe losing lineups just so happen to keep playing their minutes, game after game. Perhaps small injuries to players like Poeltl or Barnes, the nicks and bumps that always happen, result in a few weeks missed here and there. Maybe Quickley is force-fed pick-and-roll possessions even though he was not particularly successful there last year. Maybe he and Barnes actually develop chemistry together, and the team doesn’t mind the muddy possessions thrown down the drain in pursuit of that goal.
I doubt Toronto actively tanks the season. Not with a roster so young and in need of in-game development. But don’t expect Toronto to take a huge leap forward in 2024-25. The playoffs are exciting, and it’s always fun to dream of your own team playing those high-leverage and high-intensity moments. It happened recently in Toronto, I know. But don’t expect the Raptors to rush things to get back there anytime soon. Toronto still needs so much on the roster to ensure success when that time finally comes. And the best way to acquire those skills is to have (at least) one more year of losing.
